The NBA has had enough. After a season in which the tanking conversation reached fever pitch — fueled by one of the deepest draft classes in years — commissioner Adam Silver and the league office made it clear this week that significant structural change is coming. And they’re not talking about minor tweaks.
The NBA presented three comprehensive anti-tanking proposals to its board of governors during meetings in New York on Wednesday, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. Each concept represents a radical departure from the current lottery system. The common thread across all three: for the first time, teams that make the playoffs would be included in the lottery process.
The Three Proposals
Proposal 1: The 18-Team Lottery. The bottom 10 teams that miss the play-in tournament would each share an equal 8% chance of moving up in the lottery — eliminating the incentive to be the absolute worst. The remaining 20% of lottery odds would be distributed among the eight play-in teams in descending order. All 18 positions would be drawn as part of the lottery.
Proposal 2: The 22-Team Two-Season Approach. This is the most complex concept. It would involve the bottom 10 non-play-in teams, the eight play-in teams, and the four first-round playoff losers — 22 teams total. Teams would be ranked according to their combined record across two seasons, similar to the WNBA’s current system. Crucially, it includes a minimum win floor: if the threshold is 20 wins, a 14-68 team would be treated as a 20-62 team for lottery purposes, removing the incentive to completely bottom out.
Proposal 3: The “Five-by-Five” Method. This plan also involves 18 teams. The five teams with the worst records would all share identical odds, flattening the lottery at the bottom. The league would draw for each of the top five picks, then hold a second lottery drawing for the remaining 13 teams. Even if a bottom-five team misses the top five, they couldn’t fall lower than 10th overall — a safety net that still rewards bad teams without encouraging the race to the bottom.
Silver’s Message Was Unmistakable
At his press conference following the meetings, Silver didn’t mince words.
“I do think ultimately this is a decision that needs to be made at the ownership level,” Silver said. “It has business implications, has basketball implications, has integrity implications for the league. So it’s one that we take very seriously, and we are going to fix it. Full stop.”
He went further, acknowledging the blurred line between legitimate rebuilding and outright tanking: “There’s such a subtlety to this when incentives don’t match, when we’re now into it with coaches’ decisions on lineups and when players come in and out of the game, injuries, doctors going back and forth with each other, pain levels of players.”
That’s a sitting commissioner essentially admitting the system incentivizes teams to manipulate injury reports and lineup decisions. It’s a stunning level of candor.
Why Now?
The 2025-26 season has been the tipping point. With AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson, and Darius Acuff headlining what scouts are calling a generationally deep draft class, the race to the bottom has been more aggressive than ever. The Indiana Pacers (16-58), Brooklyn Nets (17-57), and Washington Wizards (17-56) have been historically bad, and even teams like the Sacramento Kings (19-55) and Utah Jazz (21-53) appear to have strategically dismantled competitive rosters to improve their lottery odds.
The daily tanking tracker has become as popular as the playoff standings on NBA media sites. That’s a branding problem Silver can’t ignore.
What Happens Next
The league has called a special board of governors meeting in May — a highly unusual move outside the standard meeting calendar — where a formal vote is expected. Over the coming weeks, owners will discuss the proposals with their leadership groups, and modifications to each concept are expected before the vote.
Importantly, none of the three proposals include previously floated ideas like limiting pick protections in trades or freezing lottery odds at a set date in the season. Those could surface in future collective bargaining discussions, but for now, the focus is on restructuring the lottery itself.
Whatever the owners choose, the NBA’s incentive structure is about to change fundamentally. Silver said as much: the changes will be implemented for next season. The only question is which version of the new world they’ll pick.
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