The NBA and commissioner Adam Silver have made it clear that curbing tanking is one of their top priorities for the upcoming offseason. That comes amid a season where nearly a third of the league is actively losing games to better their lottery odds.
On Friday morning, it was reported by Shams Charania of ESPN that three different proposals — all in expected need of adjustments — have been presented to the Board of Governors ahead of an offseason vote.
The NBA presented three comprehensive anti-tanking concepts to its Board of Governors on Wednesday, with modifications expected to each before a formal vote in May, per ESPN sources.
1. 18 teams in draft lottery (seeds 7-15 in each conference) – flattened odds, with bottom 10…
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) March 27, 2026
The three proposals are all vastly different from one another, but equally complicated in their approach and seemingly unclear in their effectiveness.
The first further flattens lottery odds from what they currently are, moving it from bottom four having the same odds to bottom 10. This means the 10th-worst team would have equal odds to get the number one pick as the worst team. The other major change here is that the lottery draw would be for all 18 lottery spots — up from the current 14 to include all Play-In teams — instead of the current four.
The second one keeps the lottery itself — a four-team draw — the same, but overhauls everything else. Here, it would be every team that did not make the second round of the playoffs included, with two years of records taken into account. This would mean a team like the Pacers, who has 16 wins as of Friday morning, would have their 2024-25 record added in to determine their lottery odds.
The third and final proposal is the most similar to the current system, making it bottom five instead of bottom four, and making it so the worst team can fall all the way to the 10th pick, instead of the sixth pick in the current system.
These proposals all seem to do more harm than good and does nothing to allow bad teams to actually get good again. Under any of these systems, tanking would still exist, just in a different form.
NBA salary cap lower than expected
Salary cap projections for the 2026-27 NBA season were reported earlier this week, with the dollar amount about $1 million lower than expected, while still rising from this season. It is expected to be around $165 million — projection was $166 million — with the small drop due to local TV revenues being down across the league.
If you love our reporting, choose LakersNation.com as a preferred source on Google.
