NBA Draft lottery: League owners vote in favor of new 3-2-1 format aimed to prevent tanking

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NBA commissioner Adam Silver made it no secret he wanted the league to make sweeping changes in an effort to eliminate tanking. On Thursday, NBA owners followed through on that directive.

The owners voted in favor of adopting a new NBA Draft lottery process Thursday, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.

The new draft lottery format will take effect ahead of the 2027 NBA Draft through at least 2029, Charnia reports.

The new policy, which some have called the 3-2-1 format, will increase the number of teams in the draft lottery while providing fewer chances for the three worst teams in the NBA to obtain the No. 1 overall pick.

That was the expected result heading into Thursday’s vote. The league office, competition committee, Board of Governors and team general managers worked for weeks to narrow down the policy, eventually getting it to a place where it had “majority of the support from teams” going into Thursday’s vote, sources told ESPN.

The 3-2-1 format refers to the number of lottery balls that will be given to each team. Under the proposal, all 16 teams in the lottery will have a shot at the No. 1 overall pick.

NBA Draft lottery new 3-2-1 format explained

Here’s how the 3-2-1 format will award lottery balls to the 16 teams in the lottery:

• The bottom three teams — or three NBA teams with the worst records — will receive two lottery balls for the No. 1 overall pick. Those three teams, however, can’t pick any higher than No. 12 overall in the draft.

• The seven remaining NBA teams that fail to make the playoffs or take part in the play-in tournament will receive three lottery balls.

• The four teams that secure the No. 9 and No. 10 seeds in the play-in tournament will receive two lottery balls.

• The two teams that lose in the 7-8 play-in games will get one lottery ball.

Additionally, a team cannot win the No. 1 overall pick in the draft in consecutive years. There will also be restrictions on teams picking within the top five consistently, as no team will be allowed to win a top-5 pick in three consecutive years. Teams will also not be allowed to “protect picks in the 12 to 15 slots going forward,” per ESPN.

The new proposal is only set to occur through the 2029 NBA Draft. At that point, the Board of Governors will decide whether to continue with the new 3-2-1 system or try something new.

Under the new policy, the NBA is expected to have more disciplinary options when it comes to punishing teams for tanking. Those could include reducing a team’s lottery odds or altering draft positions if certain teams are caught tanking.

The policy is the culmination of a months-long campaign by Silver to institute new anti-tanking measures around the league. Following a March Board of Governors meeting, Silver issued a blunt response to tanking in the NBA, saying, “We are going to fix it. Full stop."

Since then, the league has leaked various proposals aimed at revamping the NBA Draft lottery. Those ideas have been honed in the months since Silver’s initial comments in March, paving the way for Thursday’s proposal to be adopted.

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