After one of the most shameless years of tanking the NBA has ever seen, draft lottery reform is here.
The league’s board of governors voted last week to institute a new system known as the “,” diminishing the worst teams’ odds of being awarded the No. 1 overall draft pick. The changes — which are designed to disincentivize teams from intentionally losing for draft positioning — will take effect in 2027.
- Sixteen teams will be in the lottery, up from 14 in the old system.
- A lottery drawing will be held to determine all 16 picks, rather than just the first four. (In the old system, Nos. 5-14 were determined by worst record in order of the remaining teams that did not receive a top-four pick in the lottery drawing.)
- The bottom three teams in the NBA can pick no lower than 12th. The remaining lottery teams can pick anywhere between No. 1 and No. 16.
- The bottom three teams in the NBA have only two lottery balls, resulting in a 5.4% chance of receiving the No. 1 overall pick and a 16% chance of getting a top-three pick. The seven remaining teams that miss the Play-In Tournament have three lottery balls, meaning an 8.1% chance at the No. 1 pick and a 24% chance of landing in the top three.
- The No. 9 and No. 10 Play-In seeds in each conference will receive two lottery balls each (same odds as the bottom three teams in the league), while the losers of the No. 7 vs. No. 8 Play-In games in each conference will receive one lottery ball each.
Nuggets team president and KSE vice chairman Josh Kroenke was on the competition committee that mulled over various solutions to the years-long tanking epidemic. But for the most part, the Nuggets have watched this issue take hold of the league from a safe distance, perched above the lower class of the league’s perpetual pursuit of the next superstar. They already have theirs. Nikola Jokic is coming off a sixth straight year as either MVP or runner-up, and Denver possesses the longest active streak of playoff appearances in the Western Conference at eight years. Tanking has not crossed this team’s mind in quite some time.
Still, the 3-2-1 reform will have ripple effects across the NBA — among them, a recontextualization of recent transactions.
Trade value on future draft picks
One widely anticipated downwind result of this new system is that the perceived trade value of future draft picks will change. First-round picks that belong specifically to the very worst teams will be less valuable than ever. But those odds have subsequently been redistributed, introducing more randomness than ever before (especially with 16 teams in the mix, instead of 14). That means more hope for more teams. Most first-rounders should therefore heighten in value, as middle-class teams will feel more inclined to keep their picks and cross their fingers.
Owning a high quantity of picks gives you a better chance at franchise-changing luck than owning one high-quality pick (or one that was previously considered high-quality). Stockpiling first-rounders in bulk is advantageous. Two teams in the West have done that especially well over the last few years, it just so happens: Oklahoma City and San Antonio.
Denver’s two most threatening adversaries in the conference have . That’s near-infinite flexibility to continue building through the draft, or to pursue upgrades on the trade market, or to pivot around the tax apron.
Meanwhile, the Nuggets are the only team in the league without a single trade-eligible future first-round pick. (The ones they do own, they’re forbidden from trading because of the Stepien Rule that requires teams to own at least one first-rounder every other year.)
Denver is allowed to trade this year’s pick (No. 26) on draft night, but the front office’s flexibility is severely limited beyond that. Only two future seconds are available to trade. Former general manager Calvin Booth made it his annual strategy to sacrifice future draft capital for immediate late first-round and early second-round talent — players he believed could be plug-and-play contributors for a championship team, such as Peyton Watson, Julian Strawther, Jalen Pickett and DaRon Holmes II. Those four players combined to log 26 minutes in Denver’s first-round playoff series against the Timberwolves this year.
The Nuggets were particularly cavalier with second-rounders in the 2024 offseason, which turned out to be Booth’s last at the helm. They sacrificed 2024, 2026 and 2031 picks to move up six spots and get Holmes 22nd overall. They also traded their 2025, 2029 and 2030 seconds to salary-dump Reggie Jackson and make room on the depth chart for Russell Westbrook. Their 2027 and 2028 second-round picks were already owed to other teams at that point.
The good news: The 2027 and 2029 first-round picks that Denver traded in recent years are top-five protected, in case the Nuggets slip into one of the 16 lottery spots. The bad news: Both picks are owed to … Oklahoma City.
Lucky timing for the Spurs
Another rule being implemented: Teams cannot draft No. 1 overall in consecutive years, nor can they be awarded a top-five pick in the lottery for three consecutive years. The idea here is to dissuade teams from prolonging their rebuilds.
But unfortunately for the Nuggets and other championship contenders, it’s all happening a little too late to slow down the Spurs.
Their meteoric rise to the NBA Finals required more than one stroke of luck. After San Antonio drafted Victor Wembanyama with the No. 1 pick in 2023, it received the No. 4 pick in 2024 (Stephon Castle) and the No. 2 pick in 2025 (Dylan Harper). That would no longer be permitted under the new system. But it worked out swimmingly for the Spurs: Their trio of top-five picks combined for 50 points on 50% shooting in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals last weekend.
Fewer tanking teams
Teams at the bottom of the standings will now be incentivized to win late in the season, as they’ll want to avoid having their lottery odds relegated. This, of course, is the core principle of all these rule changes. Tanking teams got more creative this past season, even benching high scorers for the fourth quarter of close games.
The Nuggets went 23-6 against the 10 teams that missed the Play-In Tournament. Their 12-game win streak to finish the regular season included four games against those teams.
There won’t be as many “easy” wins on the schedule going forward.
