NBA EVP: 'Reasonable to Expect' Talks of Draft Lottery Rule Change amid Tanking Debate

As NBA teams continue to find new ways of getting around the player participation policy in the interest of helping their draft positioning, the league will start looking into new ways of changing the lottery rules.

Evan Wasch, NBA executive vice president of strategy and analytics, told ESPN's Tim Bontemps and Kevin Pelton it's "reasonable to expect" the league will discuss any potential changes to the system with the competition committee in the offseason.

"Philosophically, I'm not aware of anyone making a serious push to eliminate our current philosophy of the draft, which is to award top picks to teams that are most in need of talent," Wasch said. "That is a fundamental tenet of our current draft system."

The NBA hasn't changed the lottery rules since 2017 when a new format was approved to flatten the lottery odds with the three worst teams from the previous season each having a 14 percent chance of winning the No. 1 pick.

That system was implemented starting with the 2019 draft. Under the previous system, the team with the worst record from the prior season had 25 percent odds to win the top pick, followed by 19.9 percent odds for the second-worst team and 15.6 percent for the third-worst team.

The hope was that more teams would choose to be competitive down the stretch in the regular season.

Instead, teams have continued to lean into tanking. At least now, some teams are starting to get more creative with how they do it.

The Toronto Raptors are a good example of how to conduct a tank for the 2024-25 season. Rather than be subjected to a fine under the player participation policy for holding their best players out of games altogether, they are subbing them out for long stretches in the fourth quarter regardless of the score.

There are teams still embracing the old-school tanking method. The Utah Jazz were recently fined $100,000 by the league for violating the player participation policy due to Lauri Markkanen's repeated absences.

Utah responded to that penalty by having Markkanen in the lineup for four consecutive games from March 12-17, but he has missed their last three games due to an illness.

Even when Markkanen was playing, the Jazz were making sure Markkanen didn't play long enough to help them win. He sat the entire second half of a March 14 loss to the Raptors even though Utah outscored Toronto by 10 points when he was on the floor.

Flat lottery odds do make it harder for tanking teams to secure the No. 1 selection, but in a deep draft class like 2025's appears to be, it's still more beneficial for non-playoff clubs to lose games and give themselves a chance to get a high pick.

No team since the NBA changed the odds has won the No. 1 pick in the lottery with the worst record. The 2018 Phoenix Suns were the last team to get the top pick after finishing at the bottom of the standings the previous season (21-61 in 2017-18).

The Atlanta Hawks won the No. 1 pick in last year's draft despite having the 10th-worst record in the league during the 2023-24 campaign (36-46).