NBA focusing on Lottery reform again

As the new NBA season approaches, the NBA is looking at its pet issue and trying to reform the Lottery to do away with “tanking” at the end of the season.

The NBA season is just around the corner. so there are not likely to be any immediate rule changes or additions at the next competition committee meeting later this week. The rules for the upcoming season are pretty much set. But the league is always looking to tweak and make things better.

Once again, it seems like the NBA’s favorite topic is in the crosshairs from the competition committee. Tanking and the lottery are once again coming under heavy scrutiny. And the league may vote for some new rules.

Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com was the first to report the NBA was considering serious lottery reform, including decreasing the odds for the teams with the worst record. This all done in an effort to decrease “tanking,” the practice of purposefully losing games by sitting star players or playing less than ideal lineups with no concern for the final result of the game.

The plan, according to Wojnarowski’s reporting and confirmed by Jeff Zillgitt of USA TODAY, would give the three teams with the worst record the same 14 percent odds at winning the Lottery. Currently, the team with the worst record has a 25 percent chance to win, the second-worst team a 19.9 percent and the third-worst team a 15.6 percent chance.

It would certainly decrease the odds for teams that finish at the bottom. The remaining lottery teams would be ordered with a smooth decrease in their lottery odds of approximately one or two percentage points. The details are perhaps still getting worked out before a final presentation to the competition committee.

It would certainly change some of the calculations. As too would the plan to have the Lottery determine the top four picks rather than the top three as it is now.

Wojnarowski reports another idea floating around is to deny teams from having top three picks in consecutive years. It is unclear how much traction that idea will get — especially in the current NBA climate.

Change will have an effect on every team. It is easy to go from Playoff team to rebuilding very quickly.

The Lottery is still of importance to the Orlando Magic. It is how they built their two Finals-contending teams. And, even with the team’s playoff aspirations, it still seems like the team is going to have at least one or two more trips to the Lottery to get itself right.

Not that the Lottery has helped them any. The team had a top six pick in four of the past five years, still lacks an All-Star player and has not won more than 35 games in the past five years. Maybe a new Lottery system would benefit them as they make their way up.

Every team will be watching this vote carefully. So too will Orlando.

It could have major effects on how teams plan and may actually change some of the calculus for teams as they determine when to pull the plug on their seasons.

That is what this really is about. changing the motivations of teams at the bottom of the standings. It can be difficult to do.

The new proposed system would certainly change some motivations. The difference in odds between finishing first and fourth may not be as great. And then conversely, the difference between finishing third and fourth could be the trick.

In reality, that is what this whole Lottery reform game is. It is about changing the point of motivation and the calculus teams undergo to decide when it is strategically prudent to stop going for wins and focus on development — or whatever excuse or wink, wink they give to justify sitting a perfectly healthy player. Every proposal to change the lottery is really an argument about changing where that competition pressure point exists.

This new lottery system will not change that. Or not change it drastically. The odds may not be as good, but teams who are struggling will still see the chance for better odds and go for them. Especially once a season is clearly lost.

That has always been the purpose of tanking — to give the team a better chance at gaining that franchise-changing top star. The cost of doing so still will be minimal. Until the league changes that math, it will still be a primary goal for certain teams at some point in the season.

None of this will be of any immediate consequence to the Magic — for better or worse. The team has enough young veterans trying to prove themselves and their own playoff aspirations. The team is going to be going for wins this year and expects to make the Playoffs.

But that can always change. And it can change quickly.

Besides who knows where the Magic will be in 2019 when any proposed Lottery changes would occur. The Magic might be in a very different spot entering next season compared to this season.

Orlando Magic

And that is the calculation every team will make as the competition committee reviews these proposals. It is not just about where a team is now, but where it might be in the future. Nobody wants to put themselves at a disadvantage. And someone will find a new way to take advantage of this system and bend it to their advantage.

The goal for the NBA ultimately is to make it so there is an impetus and a desire to win at all stages of the season for every team. Regardless of whether the team is in the Playoffs or not.

This may end up being an impossible goal to achieve. So long as the NBA ties Draft success to a team’s record (or lack thereof).

It appears the league is finally getting to its long-wanted goal of achieving Lottery reform. What effect these changes will have remains a bit unclear. It still seems uncertain whether they will actually change teams’ motivations significantly.

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Maybe there is no way to resolve this issue. But the NBA is trying, at least to save some face publicly against a practice that has occurred in the NBA for a long time.