NBA commissioner Adam Silver said the league needed immediate change to the draft lottery, telling governors at the March board meeting, “It seemed unanimous in the room that we needed to make a change and we needed to make a change for next season. Incentives need to be fixed. We will fix them.” On Thursday, the board is scheduled to vote on a reform called the “3-2-1 lottery,” an anti-tanking proposal designed to reduce late-season losing and encourage more teams to compete, according to ESPN.
Supporters of the overhaul argue it will blunt the most extreme examples of intentional losing. The proposal expands the lottery to 16 teams and prevents protecting picks in the Nos. 12-15 range to guarantee keeping them, measures intended to remove reasons franchises have had to lose down the stretch. This season, the Washington Wizards dropped 27 of their final 28 games to finish 17-65 while adding Trae Young in December and Anthony Davis in February; those two players combined for five games as the franchise chased a guaranteed top-five pick. The Memphis Grizzlies went 5-28 down the stretch to fall to the sixth-worst record, and the Philadelphia 76ers similarly slid late in 2024-25 while protecting a top-six pick that turned into Rookie of the Year finalist VJ Edgecombe.
Critics point to new restrictions that limit repeat draft fortunes. Under the proposal, a team would be barred from winning back-to-back lotteries and from selecting in the top five for three consecutive drafts. That is a clear attempt to prevent stacked windfalls such as the San Antonio Spurs’ sequence of landing the first, fourth and second picks in 2023, 2024 and 2025 — selections that became Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper.
Opponents also note the uneven nature of draft classes. High picks have ranged from transformative players to disappointments; Andrea Bargnani, Anthony Bennett and Greg Oden are cited as No. 1 selections who did not meet expectations. The new limits could have prevented a team in a weak draft from getting another top selection the following year, and under the proposed rules the Spurs would not have been in position to pick Harper at No. 2 after their earlier luck.
The changes reflect the league’s stated goal of reworking incentives in the draft process and encouraging competitive late-season play. The 3-2-1 lottery aims to reduce egregious tanking while imposing measures the league believes will distribute talent more broadly, according to ESPN.
