Nba's New 3-2-1 Draft Lottery: What Tanking Rules Mean For Fantasy Basketball

Tanking broke the NBA last season, and fantasy basketball managers paid the price. The Jazz benched Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. down the stretch, chasing lottery balls instead of wins, and it worked. The league has responded with the biggest draft lottery overhaul since 1994: a 3-2-1 system that expands the lottery to 16 teams, flattens the odds, introduces draft relegation and pick restrictions and hands the NBA real power to punish teams that quit on the season.

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Here's how the new rules change tanking incentives, when Silly SZN now starts and which bottom-feeders still threaten your fantasy hoops roster.

The Epidemic of Tanking

Tanking in the NBA was more egregious than ever last season, which was unfortunately the natural conclusion of the incentives created by the previous lottery system. After all, what better way to transform your franchise than by landing someone like Victor Wembanyama? And if losing gets you closer to that possibility, then losing becomes easy to justify.

While the Jazz weren't the only culprits, they were perhaps some of the most flagrant offenders last season. They employed cartoonish levels of self-sabotage over the second half of the year to desperately cling to their top-eight protected 2026 draft pick. 

There was a particularly embarrassing moment for the league on Feb. 7, when Utah was leading Orlando by seven points entering the fourth quarter. Head coach Will Hardy decided to bench Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. for the final frame, and the Jazz were outscored 33-23 as their stars watched from the sideline. Utah ultimately conceded a 120-117 defeat. Had Hardy a mustache, he would have been twirling it menacingly.

Markkanen only played three more games after the ordeal, and Jackson was shut down a few games later. Jusuf Nurkić, who was playing well in the absence of Walker Kessler, suddenly decided to undergo a nose procedure that ended his season on Feb. 12. The All-Star break hadn't even arrived yet, but Utah had already pulled the plug. 

And it all worked. Utah kept its pick, and some lottery luck gave the Jazz the electric Darryn Peterson at No. 2 overall in the 2026 NBA Draft.

And that's the problem.

The rampant tanking was bad for the league, and bad for fantasy. Yet the worst offenders were undeniably rewarded. Oklahoma City was a dumpster fire for years, yet now they sit on one of the most promising, young potential dynasties in the league. A lot of lost games resulted in the Spurs being able to draft in the top five three years in a row, and their core of Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper is fresh off an NBA Finals run.

So, the league decided to step in and make some major changes to the lottery system.

3-2-1 Lottery System

Losing will no longer be tolerated — it will be punished. In the largest overhaul of the NBA Draft lottery system since 1994, the NBA and its Board of Governors agreed to a new 3-2-1 lottery system. Each team participating in the lottery will receive three, two or one lottery ball for the drawing.

The lottery has been expanded to include 16 teams, and the odds have been flattened. Teams that do not qualify for postseason play will receive three lottery balls, except for the bottom three teams, who will be "draft relegated" and receive just two lottery balls. The No. 9 and 10 Play-in teams will receive two lottery balls, while the losers of the No. 7 versus No. 8 seed Play-In game will only receive one lottery ball.

In a nod to San Antonio, the league will now institute pick restrictions, in which clubs cannot win the No. 1 pick in back-to-back years, and they cannot receive a top-five pick in three consecutive seasons. 

Additionally, the league will now have "expanded disciplinary authority to address tanking, including the ability to reduce teams' lottery odds, modify teams' draft positions and impose significant fines on offending teams."

Will this impact fantasy hoops? Will players sit less?

So, what does this all mean for fantasy hoops? Will players sit less? I think teams will certainly be fighting to avoid relegation, as going from three to two lottery balls is a 33% reduction in your team's chances of landing a top-three pick. That's a pretty severe punishment when generational talent is at stake. The sweet spot is clearly being a non-playoff, non-relegated team. However, things start to get murky in the Play-In range.

There's a chance some franchises might prefer to miss the Play-In tournament if they find themselves as the No. 9 or 10 seed. Sitting out the postseason entirely would give them the maximum of three lottery balls, as opposed to the two that come with making the Play-In. Additionally, the No. 7 or No. 8 seed might prefer the No. 9 or 10 seeds' 16% odds (two lottery balls) of landing a top-three pick, rather than the 8% odds (one ball) you get by advancing; and the No. 5 and 6 seed may prefer to drop down to No. 7 and 8 to at least have a chance in the lottery. 

All that said, over the past six seasons, the final playoff seeding has not been determined until April. In the 2025-26, 2021-22 and 2020-21 seasons, we didn't have the official playoff/Play-In standing until the final game of the year. So, while teams will still likely employ some tanking strategies to try and cheat the system, there won't be enough data to start making these sorts of decisions until much later in the season, and certainly not in February. Additionally, the league's ability to dole out punishments should serve as a useful stick to help deter some of the more egregious shutdown decisions.

It's not a perfect system, but I do think it's a significant improvement that should accomplish the goal of pushing back Silly SZN to April. However, there will still be teams that turn into a lost cause, and in these cases, the shutdowns will likely happen to preserve the health of their players rather than to jockey for a better draft position.

In other words, the truly terrible teams could still be a thorn in the claw of fantasy managers.

The Bottom-Feeders

The Nets only managed to win 20 games last season, and I'm not confident that swapping out Nicolas Claxton for Julius Randle and adding a top-six pick (Mikel Brown Jr.) will do much to improve their trajectory next season. Michael Porter Jr. and Randle might put up some big numbers early, but I'm skeptical that they'll continue to earn major minutes in March.

The Bucks have started a full rebuild after shipping out Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis for Tyler Herro and Co., so they might have a tough time matching their 32 wins from last season. While the Pacers and Wizards were the two bottom teams out East last year, they'll likely see significant improvement this upcoming year with their star players healthy. Washington also can't receive the No. 1 pick again after selecting AJ Dybantsa No. 1 overall in the 2026 NBA Draft, so the Wiz have far less incentive to tank. That leaves the floor wide open for a team like Milwaukee.

The Kings, who won just 22 games last season, lost DeMar DeRozan and Russell Westbrook and replaced them with Ben Simmons and Darius Acuff Jr. They could very easily be the worst defensive team in the league, which could make someone like Domantas Sabonis a frustrating player to roster over the second half. Particularly so with guys like Maxime Raynaud and Dylan Cardwell stuck behind him on the depth chart and clamoring for more minutes. 

After shipping away former franchise cornerstone Jaren Jackson Jr. last season, the Grizzlies went 5-28 to close out the year. Then they offloaded Ja Morant to Portland this summer for Jerami Grant and Kris Murray. Their starting lineup for the upcoming season will likely look something like Pippen-Coward-Grant-Boozer-Edey, and it's tough to envision that team winning a lot of games in the Western Conference. They may fight to avoid being last out West, but the current roster construction could make that a difficult goal for the franchise to accomplish.

Silly SZN … Delayed

The good news is that the new lottery system should make it harder for these teams to justify shutting down their best players months before the end of the season. The bad news is that some of them may be so bad that they won't need an excuse. The NBA might have found a way to push Silly SZN back to April, but fantasy managers should still be prepared for some late-season shenanigans from the teams at the bottom of the standings.