Commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA are aggressively pursuing a reform of the NBA Draft Lottery process to de-incentivize teams from tanking, looking to make it into legislation prior to the start of the 2017-18 season, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
Sources said the reform would include lower chances for the worse teams in the league as well as higher chances for some of the better teams to make a jump in the lottery.
As of now, the NBA Draft Lottery is comprised of 14 non-playoff teams. If this reform were to pass, it would be eventually phased into fruition, with no indication that the 2018 NBA Draft would fall under new legislation, per sources.
The NBA's Competition Committee, which is made of several general managers and coaches, will be expected to vote at a meeting next week. This will send a formal recommendation to the Board of Governors, hoping they can sign it into legislation.
This Competition Committee has ample room to challenge and/or amend any of the league office's proposals, and due to their power in the chain of command, could “recommend none, part, or all of a proposal for the league owners to vote upon at its late September Board of Governors meeting in New York,” per Wojnarowski.
Silver has been utterly concerned with the way the end of every season has finalized, with teams on the bottom doing their best to lost, deploying young players or sitting out their star players to improve their draft odds. A less linear approach to this draft lottery can result in teams actually keeping their stars on the floor and playing out the season without the need to tank — an option that only will take place if a reform is approved in the near future.
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