[Vorkunov] Team officials believe that the NBA is “hellbent” on passing the 3-2-1 Anti-Tanking proposal despite concerns varying from creating a new set of problems, keeping the worst teams at the bottom for longer, making first-round picks more valuable thus restricting the trade market, etc.
The most common concern from team executives polled by The Athletic at last week’s Draft combine event? That the new rules might swap one set of problems for another, potentially solving the tanking issue that commissioner Adam Silver has vowed to fix, while making it that much harder for the NBA’s worst teams to get out of the basement. In the eyes of these executives — many of whom believe this is an overreaction to a problem that was largely inspired by the strength of this particular draft — that’s the irony of this approach.
If it works as designed, with all 30 teams truly trying to compete at the highest possible level throughout the 82-game regular season, then the three worst teams would be, in fact, the three worst teams. Yet as part of this proposal, which was first presented to teams during an April 28 virtual meeting with general managers, those teams would be part of a “relegation tier” that has the same chances of landing the No. 1 pick as the ninth and 10th seeds for the Play-In tournament.
The ability to land a top-three pick is seen by many as the best way to acquire high-end talent. As many executives see it, the extreme change could keep those bottom-three teams in the lottery for a longer period of time.
“Teams that aren’t trying to tank will then get penalized,” one front office staffer said.
According to league sources, this specific concern was raised by one team at the NBA’s most recent general managers’ meeting on Monday. Yet beyond that complaint, league sources say there has been minimal pushback from executives during the many league-run meetings that were designed to make this process collaborative. There is, it seems, a feeling of resignation among some executives who don’t want this system that its approval is inevitable. At least 23 of the league’s 30 governors must approve the changes for them to pass. If it goes through, it would begin with the 2027 draft.
“They’re hellbent on doing this,” one assistant general manager said.
As some executives shared, there is a fear that the new system will create unintended consequences that would greatly alter the team-building process. The likely variance in the draft lottery could have widespread implications, with some executives predicting that it would make most first-rounders more valuable because the flatter odds would make each pick more likely to land high in the lottery. That could create more friction in the transaction market, when trades are already harder to do because of the first apron and where free agency has petered out in recent years.
Teams could be reticent to trade firsts, even if they project the team that owns it would have a record outside one of the league’s 10 worst. While a team that picked 16th has no shot at a top-3 pick right now, for example, they would have a better shot at No. 1 in the coming years (2.7 percent) than the Dallas Mavericks did last year when they won the right to draft Cooper Flagg (1.8 percent). Another assistant GM bemoaned that this system would take even more control out of a team’s hands in how to rebuild.
Some executives also expressed frustration with the abruptness of the proposed changes, as they traded away future first-round picks under the old value system without knowing what was coming next.