The NBA has implemented a new draft lottery format designed to mitigate the risk of tanking and it will go into effect starting with the 2027 draft.
The lottery is expanded from 14 teams to 16 teams. The new system comes with new probabilities distributions as well as a handful of reported parameters, including:
- Restriction: teams can not earn the No. 1 pick in consecutive years.
- Another restriction: teams can not earn a top 5 pick in three consecutive years (we performed an analysis of how this rule impacts the Jazz’s 2027 pick which was previously traded to the Grizzlies).
- Trade rules are also impacted, as teams would are not able to include protections in the 12-to-15 range on traded picks going forward.
- Commissioner Adam Silver “will reportedly have more power to punish tanking by altering lottery odds or changing where a team is picking.”
