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The NBA has finally revealed its new anti-tanking plan, and no one can say the league was afraid of rocking the boat.
The league’s planned proposal went public on Wednesday and reportedly has the support of a majority of teams, with an owners’ vote to approve it scheduled for May 28. The crux of the system is a new 3-2-1 structure of draft lottery odds, which will see 16 different teams have a shot at the first overall pick with one, two or three ping-pong balls in the basket.
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Notably, the system penalizes the league’s three worst teams in the standings, giving them only two ping-pong balls (5.4% chance at the top pick) while every other team that falls short of the play-in tournament gets three (8.1%). The full breakdown:
The proposed system both simplifies and flattens the odds compared to the previous system, in which the bottom three teams all had a 14% chance at the first pick.
It will take years to fully see every consequence of the system, but one stakeholder already has a prediction. That would be Mark Cuban, former majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks and current minority owner.
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In a lengthy tweet posted Wednesday, Cuban broke down how he sees the league operating in a system where 14 different teams have at least a 5.4% chance at the top pick.
The biggest change, as he puts it: “the number of trades will explode.”
Essentially, Cuban argues that the value of a first-round pick just increased significantly, which will make teams more aggressive in trade talks. He even described a scenario in which a team is incentivized to not just bottom out, but to trade their current young players for a shot at, say, a Victor Wembanyama in the draft:
“Just imagine if you have a good young team. But just not good enough to win a ring. And you believe the best player ever is coming this draft , you literally could trade your future firsts , plus your really good young , valued players and when combined with your own pick, or picks you already had, get 5 firsts that give you, with some luck , a 40.5 pct chance of winning the lottery.
“Still an almost 60 pct chance you won’t. But it sure would be interesting as it plays out.”
Cuban also praised the NBA’s decision to lower the odds of the worst three teams, which will theoretically cause organizations to remain competitive even after being eliminated from playoff contention, as “smart.”
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He said, “The games to stay out of the bottom 3 will be fun” and predicted some teams could buy at the deadline just to make sure they get their three ping-pong balls.
The NBA’s anti-tanking plan has Mark Cuban’s attention.
(Tim Heitman via Getty Images)
Cuban is definitely not the only person in the NBA trying to calculate how the league is going to be doing business next year, assuming the proposal goes through as reported.
His Mavericks have an interesting history with the lottery, as they never moved up in the order in 17 go-arounds until last year, when they won the right to draft Rookie of the Year Cooper Flagg despite having only the 11th-best odds. Of course, given what Cuban has said about the Mavericks’ current majority owners, that moment was likely bittersweet.
