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NBA rumors: Momentum builds for 18-team draft lottery, but tanking questions persist
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- NBA rumors: Momentum builds for 18-team draft lottery, but tanking questions persist
NBA rumors: Momentum builds for 18-team draft lottery, but tanking questions persist appeared first on ClutchPoints . Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here .
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has said tanking is a real problem , and he declared that the league would fix what many fans believe to be an increasingly prevalent issue in the modern er a. But actually fixing tanking appears to be remarkably complicated.
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In part due to a draft class that is being lauded as one of the best and deepest in recent history, several teams around the NBA seemingly abandoned any hopes of being competitive early on this season. And while that isn’t unique, the perceived shamelessness definitely caught the attention of fans, analysts, and Silver himself. So he decided that the league, a few seasons after attempting to address its load management epidemic, would try to stop tanking as well.
The proposal that is considered the “heavy frontrunner,” according to The Athletic’s Sam Amick, is to expand the lottery from 14 teams to 18 and give the 10 worst teams an 8% chance at the first pick, and divide the remaining 20% among the other eight. But that could cause some unintended consequences.
“As several general managers pointed out, there is a fear that implementing Option No. 1 might simply create new problems that will eventually need to be addressed,” Amick wrote. “What might the league-wide reaction be, for example, when one of those two lottery teams that actually took part in the playoffs gets lucky by landing the No. 1 pick? It seems unlikely, of course, but then you remember what happened the last two years.”
Currently, the three worst teams in the draft each have a 14% chance at the top pick. In the last two years, the Atlanta Hawks (3%) and Dallas Mavericks (1.8%) won the lottery.
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The 2026 draft lottery , almost certainly the final under the current system, will take place on May 10. The draft will begin on June 23.
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