The Lottery Fix That Could Make March Watchable Again

Every March, the NBA had a tell. You could turn on a Tuesday night game between two bad teams and watch the tell in real time — third-string lineups in the fourth quarter, veterans suddenly 'resting,' a coach staring at his clipboard like the clipboard owed him money. That was tanking, and everybody knew the film when they saw it.

Now watch what happens here. The league's '3-2-1' lottery reform — the plan that's been floating since spring — is about to change what those March games look like. League executives are telling The Athletic's Mike Vorkunov they expect a seismic shift in how the bottom of the standings behaves. Timberwolves president Tim Connelly went all the way there: 'I think it'll be the most competitive league we've seen, maybe ever.'

The why behind the what: the incentive structure is the whole game. As long as losing was worth a lottery ticket, losing was a strategy. Take the ticket away — or flatten it — and suddenly there's no reason to run the G League select team in a winnable fourth quarter. Sam Presti, who has lived through every version of this, put it cleanly: 'The bottom of the league is going to be significantly stronger.'

The numbers back the urgency. Five of the 20 best net ratings in NBA history have come in the last three seasons — and each of those three years set a new record for games decided by 25 or more points. Think about what that means on film: the top was pulling away, and the bottom was collapsing on purpose. That's not competition. That's two different sports sharing a schedule.

Presti thinks the new shape looks like the 1980s — 'net ratings and records that are more similar to the 1980s,' he said, 'not because of style of play or anything like that, but the bottom of the league is going to be significantly stronger.' The 80s: the Celtics and Lakers and Sixers and Pistons going at it, and nobody coasting through a Tuesday in February. That's the film he wants back.

Watch what happens here in the details. If the reform works, the changes won't show up on draft night — they'll show up in February fourth quarters. Close games in March. Coaches who actually draw up an after-timeout play in a two-point game instead of saving the good stuff for a highlight. That's the film I care about.

And here's the quiet part: a stronger bottom raises the top. Nobody got better getting blown out by 30 on a school night. Competitive losses develop players; scheduled ones develop nothing but lottery odds.

Connelly's quote will get the headlines — 'no one who is incentivized to lose, which is great for the NBA' — but the real story is smaller. It's a backup guard in April, playing hard in a game that used to be a joke. That's the reform. Everything else is paperwork.

Here's the machinery, because the details are the story. On May 28, the Board of Governors approved the reform 29-1 — only the Memphis Grizzlies voted no — and it takes effect with the 2027 draft, with a sunset provision that forces a re-vote after the 2028/29 season. The lottery expands from 14 teams to 16. The three worst teams get just two ping-pong balls each out of 37 — a 5.4% shot at No. 1 — while the seven teams immediately above them get three balls each, about 8.1%. The ninth and tenth seeds get two balls, the losers of the 7-vs-8 play-in games get one, and all 16 picks are decided by the lottery instead of just the top four. The bottom three can't fall past 12th, picks 12 through 15 can't be protected in trades, no team can win No. 1 in back-to-back drafts, and no team can land a top-five pick three times in five years — a rule that counts from the 2025 draft and includes traded picks. Commissioner Adam Silver also gets expanded authority to adjust odds or draft position for obvious tanking. The league is even talking about televising the drawing live.

The pushback is real, even if the vote wasn't close. Several executives told The Athletic the plan is an overreaction to one stacked draft class — and the sharpest critique cuts the other way from the intent: once the incentive to tank is gone, the teams at the very bottom will simply be the genuinely worst teams, and the new system punishes them for it. “Teams that aren't trying to tank will then get penalized,” one front-office staffer said. An assistant GM was blunter about the league office: “They're hellbent on doing this.” Whether the reform produces Connelly's most competitive league ever or just a new flavor of stuck, the March product is about to change — and we'll be watching every Tuesday night in February to see which one it is. More on the NBA page.