The NBA is preparing to roll out one of the most significant overhauls to its draft lottery in years, and the timing couldn’t be more charged. League officials have already briefed top executives across all 30 teams about the incoming changes, which are set to take effect as soon as next season following a scheduled vote on May 28.
The new format, widely referred to as the 3-2-1 lottery, will expand the pool from 14 to 16 teams. That expansion includes the loser of the play-in matchup between the seventh and eighth seeds a detail that signals just how far the league is willing to stretch the system in its effort to make every game matter.
How the new format works and who it affects
Under the restructured rules, teams that miss the playoffs and the play in tournament but land outside the bottom three finishing roughly between fourth and 10th in the lottery standings will each receive three lottery balls for the coveted No. 1 pick. That middle group stands to benefit most from the new arrangement.
The bottom three teams, however, enter what the league is calling a relegation zone. Those 1. three franchises will receive only two lottery balls each, dramatically lowering their odds at the top pick. They’ll also be guaranteed no worse than the 12th pick, while teams outside the relegation zone could fall as far as 16th. Some league executives are pushing for the floor for those bottom teams to be set no lower than 10th, though no final decision has been made on that point.
Beyond the ball counts, the NBA is adding layers of accountability. No team will be permitted to win the first overall pick in back to back years, and 2. no franchise can land three consecutive top five picks. The league will also gain the authority to reduce a team’s lottery odds or shift their draft position outright if tanking is suspected a significant expansion of disciplinary power.
Why some teams could be caught in the crossfire
The driving motivation behind the reform is clear. The league has grown increasingly frustrated watching rosters go into coast mode after the All-Star break, with teams openly prioritizing lottery positioning over wins. The new system is designed to make that strategy painful enough to abandon.
But critics of the plan point to an uncomfortable reality: not every bad team is tanking. Injuries, roster turnover, and thin front offices can make a team genuinely terrible without any deliberate effort to lose. The reform doesn’t easily distinguish between 3. a franchise that is strategically shedding wins and one that is simply struggling to survive a brutal season.
A look at this past season illustrates the concern. Had these rules been in place, teams like Utah and Indiana may have been pushed toward more competitive play, while a franchise like Sacramento not accused of tanking could have slipped into the relegation zone through no intentional fault of its own.
The vote and what comes next
The May 28 vote will determine whether the changes move forward on the proposed timeline. While the NBA‘s push to restore competitive integrity in the final weeks of the regular season is widely supported, the fear is that the mechanism chosen to do it may create a new set of inequities.
Teams that have leaned into tanking over multiple seasons built roster capital under the old rules. Those now entering a rebuilding cycle face a stricter environment from the start. Whether that’s fair correction or overcorrection will likely depend on which side of the relegation line a team finds itself on when the new era begins.
