The Nba’s Anti-tanking Plans And How They Affect The Mavs – Part Ii

News recently broke that the NBA is looking to make changes to the Draft Lottery to mitigate tanking. In Part I of this series, we touched on the notion that tanking is likely never going to be eliminated outright, especially if the league expands its total number of teams. Across the next three parts, we’ll discuss each of the three proposed options being brought to the Board of Governors.

Before we get started, it makes sense to recap the basics of the current rules. As it stands, the 14 teams that do not make the Playoffs are eligible for the lottery. Don’t confuse making the Play-In Tournament with making the Playoffs – they are not the same. 16 teams make the Playoffs when all is said and done, with 14 heading to the lottery. Lottery odds are flat (14%) for the three worst teams, with the odds decreasing from there down to the 14^th worst team (0.5%). The team with the worst record can receive no worse than the 5^th pick, as the lottery only determines picks 1-4 with the rest of the draft order following inversely of a team’s record.

Option 1 – increase the number of lottery teams, flatten the odds

Key aspects of the proposal include:

• 18 teams in the draft lottery (10 that miss the Playoffs outright plus 8 that make the Play-In Tournament).
• Each of the 10 teams that outright miss the Playoffs has an equal 8% chance at the #1 pick (80% of the total odds split evenly across 10 teams).
• Each of the 8 teams that make the Play-In Tournament splits the remaining odds in descending order, from 11th-worst to 18th-worst (20% of the total odds split in a descending order, TBD).
• All 18 draft positions were determined by a lottery drawing.

Thoughts on the proposal

With this proposal, the NBA is showing they aren’t intending to take half measures in the anti-tanking effort. Not only would this proposal add four additional teams to the lottery mix, but it would also completely flatten the odds across 10 teams instead of only three.

As of March 27th when Charania broke the news on these proposals, eight teams were already eliminated from Playoff contention, with two others moments away from joining them. This begs the question as to whether this does anything to solve the tanking problem. The league can reasonably expect to have 10 teams that at any time, for lack of a better term, are terrible. In other words, does it matter if a 15-win team plays a bit harder to become a 22-win team since their odds are the same either way? Does a 35-win team that sees a key player get injured late in the season decide to bag it and take their chances in the lottery, thereby encouraging tanking?

On the other hand, the increased number of teams is intriguing. Under this proposal, the 7 and 8 seeds in each conference will actually be entered into the lottery. Suddenly, playing hard to make the Play-In Tournament makes more sense for teams, even if the end result is a first-round thrashing. A team can gain valuable Playoff experience, get some more revenue, and still have a shot a high draft pick. The reality remains that the Play-In Tournament teams will have a very low chance in the draft. With 20% of the total odds split across eight teams, that leaves those teams 2.5% chance on average, but with those odds descending for the best of the bad teams, the 7 and 8 seeds will likely have very little chance at all. Fair, but again, does it do anything to stop teams from tanking when it’s really the bottom 10 teams or so that are inclined to throw games away anyway?

What it could mean for the Mavericks

By the time of implementation, the Mavs will hopefully have cashed in on a great 2026 draft pick (or two) to pair with Cooper Flagg and won’t be thinking about tanking. Still, the Mavs are closer to the bottom than they are to the top at the moment, so a Play-In Tournament bid next year isn’t unreasonable. That’s where things get interesting. If these changes take effect in 2027, Dallas suddenly has a chance at the Play-In Tournament while also having a chance to jump in the draft. If they managed to jump to the 1 or 2 spot, they’d actually keep their 2027 pick! There are a lot of variables here, so this scenario seems highly unlikely, but with flattened odds and more teams in the lottery mix, it turns the impossible into the improbable. On the contrary, they could jump, but just not to the 1 or 2 spots, thereby gifting the Charlotte Hornets a better pick. Good teams that hold pick swaps could benefit mightily from this proposal, and Dallas is not on the favorable side of that equation.

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