NBA Lottery changes coming?

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Lottery Concept 1 • The lottery is expanded to 18 teams, the 10 teams that miss the postseason entirely, plus all eight teams in the play-in. • The 10 teams that miss the play-in all have an 8% chance of winning the lottery, with the other eight teams getting either 5%, 3% or 2% chances depending upon where they finish. • While 18 teams are in the lottery, the lottery would draw just the top four draft spots, and after that it would be by descending order of teams’ records (the same as now)

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Lottery Concept 2 • The lottery is expanded to 22 teams: The 10 that miss the postseason, the eight in the play-in, and the four teams eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. • Those 22 teams will be ranked in order of their record across the last two seasons (the WNBA’s system). For example, if a team won 20 games this season and 30 the previous season, for the lottery purposes they would have 25 wins. • Teams will be given a win total minimum, and if they finish below that line their record will improve for lottery purposes. For example, let’s say that number is 22 wins, then this season’s Pacers/Nets/Wizards — all on pace to have fewer than 22 wins — would see their records increased to 22-60 for lottery purposes. The goal is to take away the incentive to lose too many games. • The top four spots in the lottery would be drawn as they are now, after that it would go in record order.

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Lottery Concept 3 • The lottery is expanded to 18 teams, the 10 teams that miss the postseason entirely, plus all eight teams in the play-in. • The teams with the five worst records would all have the same odds — 11% to get the top pick — with the lottery odds for the rest of the teams descending from there. • There would be two lottery drawings. The first would be for the top five picks. Then, there would be a second lottery drawing for the 13 remaining teams, and if any of the teams with the five worst records did not make the top five picks, then they could not fall further than 10th. None of these is a formal proposal in the sense that the owners will have to vote on one of these three plans, a league source told NBC Sports. Rather, the owners may push to combine different parts of the concepts. For example, the third concept could be modified so that it’s essentially the same system as currently is in place, but with the five worst teams having the same odds instead of the worst three, with 18 teams in the mix, but after those top five are drawn, it could simply go in record order. In addition to those proposals, the league wants to increase the commissioner’s power to punish a team seen as manipulating its roster to tank. Those punishments could include moving a team’s pick to the end of the draft (30th in the first round) and fines in the millions of dollars, according to Joe Varden at The Athletic, who has a quote from a league source.

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