NBA Rumors: Legislation Passed On Anti-Tanking Draft Lottery Reform

If NBA teams are thinking about tanking, they might want to do it sooner rather than later.

The NBA’s Board of Governors has passed legislation that will bring major changes to the NBA Draft lottery odds, beginning with the 2019 draft, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Thursday. The Association also voted to make changes to the current policy on resting healthy players during the regular season.

Designed to discourage teams from tanking in hopes of landing a high draft pick, the reform will result in the three teams with the worst records sharing a 14 percent chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick. Here’s a graphic that shows the new odds, alongside the previous odds:

Here’s some extra details on the vote:

The guidelines for resting healthy players — which will be instituted for the 2017-18 season — reportedly give NBA commissioner Adam Silver discretion to fine teams for sitting players in a variety of instances, including nationally televised games on TNT, ESPN and ABC. Silver also will be able to fine teams for resting multiple players in a single game, unless the situation is unique.

Now, there is some grey area here.

Wojnarowski noted that if teams decide to rest players, they’ll be “encouraged” to sit them for home games, rather than away games. Furthermore, star players, if they’re sitting, are “expected” to be on the bench and “encouraged” to interact with fans before games.

While these rules also can be viewed as a way to curb tanking, they primarily serve to protect fans who pay to watch a team, only for that team to rest its healthy star players. The NBA already has addressed this problem in some respects, as the new schedule reduces the amount of back-to-back games each team must play.

As for the lottery form, it might not entirely prevent teams from tanking to make the lottery. However, it certainly creates less incentive for the worst teams to completely throw away their seasons in the pursuit of a No. 1 pick.

Thumbnail photo via Brad Penner/USA TODAY Sports Images