The NBA's Board of Governors voted overwhelmingly Thursday to change the league's draft lottery format, including expanding from 14- to 16 teams, as well as anti-tanking measures, the league announced.
The NBA's Board of Governors voted overwhelmingly Thursday to change the league's draft lottery format, including expanding from 14- to 16 teams, as well as anti-tanking measures, the league announced.
Tim BontempsMay 28, 2026, 04:02 PM ETCloseTim Bontemps is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com who covers the league and what's impacting it on and off the court, including trade deadline intel, expansion and his MVP Straw Polls. You can find Tim alongside Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective podcast.
Tim BontempsMay 28, 2026, 04:02 PM ET
The NBA's Board of Governors voted overwhelmingly Thursday to change the league's draft lottery format beginning with the 2027 NBA Draft, the league announced.
The new format includes an expansion of the lottery from 14 to 16 teams, including the 8-seed in each conference's playoff picture, and an anti-tanking measure where the bottom three teams are dealt lesser chances for the No. 1 overall pick and flattens odds for teams that do not qualify for the playoffs or the play-in tournament.
The new "3-2-1 Lottery" was put together over the past couple of months and signifies the number of ping pong balls each of the final three teams will receive in the lottery.
Most importantly, from the league's perspective, the new format disincentivizes teams from tanking and finishing with the worst records, a rampant problem the league has experienced with teams in recent years to accumulate the best possible lottery odds for the draft's top pick.
The vote was 29-1, sources told Charania, with only the Memphis Grizzlies voting against the measure.
The league will also wield 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 as part of the new lottery format.
Under this format, the teams with the three worst records will each get two ping pong balls - while the teams with the fourth through 10th worst records will each get three of them. The three worst teams also will now have a floor of picking 12th in the draft, further disincentivizing them from wanting to be bad.
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