NBA's New 3-2-1 Lottery System

The NBA announced to team GMs that there are changes being made to how the draft lottery operates. They are announcing what they call the “3-2-1 lottery” in which allegedly, the bottom 3 records in the league will NOT have the best odds to land the first overall pick. I’m going to attempt to outline what this new “3-2-1 lottery” is and how it will impact the league.

3-2-1 Lottery Format

According to Shams Charania of ESPN, the “3-2-1 lottery” system will be as follows; The 3, 2, and 1 stand for the amount of lottery balls team receives. So, teams that receive 3 balls, have the best odds at earning the number 1 overall pick (8.1%), while teams awarded 2 balls have the 2^nd best odds (5.4%), and teams with 1 ball obviously have the lowest probability of earning the #1 pick (2.7%). Makes sense so far. However here is where it gets weird. The bottom 3 teams, meaning the 3 teams with the worst record in the league, will only receive 2 lottery balls. And teams with the 4 through 10 worst records will receive 3 lottery balls. Then the 9 & 10 seeds receive 2 lottery balls, and the 7-8 seed losers receive 1 lottery ball.

There are some additional rules regarding teams being in the lottery for consecutive years, teams cannot earn the #1 pick two years in a row. And teams cannot have 3 consecutive top 5 picks. Interesting new lottery format, let’s dive a little deeper.

Credit to Lev Akabas (@LevAkabas) from X for this chart

What this might mean for the NBA

The NBA has struggled with tanking and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has made it his mission to eliminate it. There was a change in 2019 to the lottery format that flattened odds for the bottom 3 teams in hopes of slowing down tanking. And from 2019 to 2025, 3 of those drafts have had a team outside the bottom 3 earn the #1 pick (NOP, ATL, DAL). And even with almost half the drafts having a non-bottom 3 teams win the lottery, tanking hasn’t changed. Now with new odds, maybe we will see change.

With the new odds, the worst 3 teams in the league will have the same change at winning the lottery as the 9 & 10 seeds. This is baffling to me. If these odds were happening in 2026, the Nets, Pacers, and Wizards, would have the same odds as Hornets, Heat, Warriors, and Clippers. This is crazy, how are the truly bad teams supposed to build through the draft? When the Warriors who have Jimmy Butler and Stephen Curry have the same odds of landing the #1 pick as a team with Michael Porter Jr. leading the squad. And we expect bad teams to get better? It doesn’t make sense to me, and it doesn’t to a lot of NBA fans.

Over the past 10 seasons, the NBA has had 8 different champions. I would say this is the most parity the NBA has seen in a long time. The 10 years before that we had only 6 different champions. And the 10 before that there were only 4 different champions. So, over the past 30 years the NBA has grown tremendously in terms of competitiveness. More and more different teams are winning championships which is good for the NBA. But then why keep changing the draft? I’m not sure. It is apparent the changes in 1998 to the draft lottery helped improve parity in the league, so is there even a problem for Adam Silver to address.

Tanking is a part of the sport. Teams cannot be good year in and year out on a consistent basis. Very few teams across the 3 major sports leagues in America have been able to do this. And the ones that are, do not rely on the draft. They rely on location and money. The big market teams in New York and Los Angeles can stay consistently good because their markets attract professional athletes. But teams that are located in Charlotte, or Salt Lake City, or Oklahoma City for example, cannot attract free agents to go play in their cities. So, they are left with building through the draft. And these teams will be bad for a few seasons, build through the draft, and in just a few years they are back to competing for championships. Prime example currently, are the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs. The Spurs had a dynasty not too long ago, but once their dynasty faded, they had sunk in the standings year after year. And for about 4 years they remained near the bottom of the Western Conference. And just after 4 years they have built their team back up and are competing for a championship this season. Same goes for the Thunder, sat amongst the bottom of the conference for a few years, and are now on their way to potentially starting their own dynasty.

This is how it should be, how all sports should be. To be great, you will have to suffer a few years in the standings. Unless you can develop players and hit on later draft picks, this is how sports works. Look at the MLB or the NFL, they always have teams that are bad year in and year out, but every 5-10 years, those same bottom feeder teams seem to pop out and have a few competitive seasons and maybe even win a championship. Look at the Tampa Bay Rays who made the World Series in 2020 after being a historically cheap team, or the Kansas City Chiefs who hadn’t won a Super Bowl since 1970, drafted Patrick Mahomes and have won 3 Super Bowls in the past 6 years.

But now, the NBA has decided to punish teams for being bad. No matter how competitive you try and make some teams, there are still going to be flat out bad teams. And now those bad teams have a lower chance to get better which has the potential to really hurt the integrity of the game. These new rules have the potential to create a perennial lower class of teams. Teams that cannot get outside of the bottom 3 records because they never seem to land a top pick.

How to avoid disaster

Now with all this being said, the NBA left themselves a way out. These new rules are set to go into effect in 2027 and go until the 2029 draft. So, these new rules will be in place a minimum of 3 years. And once those 3 years are up, the NBA Governor’s Board will reconvene and decided if they will continue this “3-2-1 lottery” system or move to something new. I believe after the 2029 draft, the NBA should go back to the flatten odds they currently have in place. It has seemed to work well and has resulted in parity in the NBA which is what we all want. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But the NBA is still trying to. Tanking is a part of the game and a part of the business, and it will likely always exist in some shape or form. Let the teams govern themselves and continue the tradition of building through the draft.