Why the NBA Draft Lottery Needs to Be Abolished

As the popular proverb goes, “All good things must come to an end.” But what if something isn’t good—what if it’s actually bad? Shouldn’t it come to a swift and decisive conclusion? Well, that’s the case with the NBA draft lottery. It’s a system that is antiquated and has served its purpose. In short, the NBA draft lottery must go.

The draft lottery, created in 1985, was established to prevent teams from purposely losing their games to obtain the No. 1 overall choice in the draft. That, along with the extra money that the draft lottery provides in TV programming, is the reason why the draft lottery is still in effect today. But outside of that, the NBA draft lottery serves no purpose.

Although the lottery may deter teams from purposely losing games at the end of the season, it does not ensure that the worst team gets the top selection in the draft. So in its basic form, the lottery prevents the NBA from restoring equality.

Let’s take this year as an example. The Charlotte Bobcats finished the season with a 7-59 record. That’s a winning percentage of 10.6 percent. It’s the worst winning percentage in the history of the NBA.

Not only were the Bobcats the worst team in the NBA’s history in terms of winning percentage, they were also much worse than the NBA’s second-worst team this season. The Washington Wizards posted the second-worst record at 20-46. That’s 13 games better than the historically bad Bobcats.

Despite being the worst team in the 66-year history of the NBA, the Bobcats aren’t getting the top pick in the draft. That honor is going to the New Orleans Hornets because of the ridiculous draft lottery. Instead, the Bobcats will be choosing No. 2 overall.

Doesn’t it seem quite obvious that the Bobcats are the team most deserving of the top choice in the draft? After all, it’s not like the Bobcats were even close to any other team in winning percentage. They are the worst team of all time.

That’s not even to mention this whole notion of conspiracies. For the record, I’m not implying that the draft lottery is rigged or that there’s a conspiracy going on with the draft lottery. However, what I am implying is that rigging the lottery is not impossible.

This is a league that had one of its referees arrested for “conspiring with gamblers” in the recent past. Whether or not you put any credence into Tim Donaghy’s claims of the league rigging the 2002 Western Conference Finals to go seven games is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Donaghy was arrested and plead guilty for conspiring with gamblers. Even if he was acting alone and without the knowledge of anyone else involved with the NBA, it doesn’t change the fact that he was conspiring with gamblers.

Sure, it’s a separate issue from conspiring to rig the draft lottery. But it shows how easily the system can be manipulated by people whenever there’s a large amount of money on the line. If one man was able to do all of that within the past 10 years, it’s not ridiculous to question whether the system could be breached again.

Assuming that affecting the outcome of the draft lottery is even possible, then why should the NBA even have the system? Yes, as I mentioned earlier, it prevents teams from tanking games at the end of the season in order to guarantee getting the top pick in the draft. Outside of that, what good does it do?

It potentially prevents the worst team—the team in the most need of talented players—from selecting No. 1 in the draft. It also provides a system that, hypothetically, can be compromised.

By abolishing the draft lottery and adopting a system like the MLB and the NFL have—where the worst team selects at the top of the draft—the NBA would restore its competitive balance and prevent the possibility of more impropriety.