The NBA's Board of Governors voted Thursday to overhaul the league's draft lottery to curb tanking, approving a new "3-2-1" format by a 29-1 margin.
The new system expands the lottery from 14 teams to 16 and flattens the odds among teams that do not qualify for the NBA Playoffs or NBA Play-In Tournament. It will take effect for the 2027 NBA Draft and is in place for the 2027, 2028, and 2029 NBA Drafts. Rules for the 2030 Draft and beyond will be set by a future Board of Governors vote.
The format is named for the number of lottery balls assigned to each team tier. The three teams with the worst records will be "draft relegated," and each will receive two lottery balls. Teams that miss the playoffs and play-in tournament with the fourth through 10th-worst records will receive three lottery balls each. The No. 9 and No. 10 seeds in each conference's play-in tournament will receive two balls each. The losers of the 7 vs. 8 play-in games will each receive one ball.
Under the current format, the three teams with the worst records each carry a 14% chance at the top pick, with only 14 teams in the lottery field.
Just in on NBA Today -- new anti-tanking draft reforms were approved in a Board of Governors vote Thursday: pic.twitter.com/NDH6HCU0QX
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 28, 2026
The reform includes restrictions on consecutive lottery success. No team will be allowed to win the No. 1 pick in back-to-back years. No team can land a top-five pick in three consecutive years. The restrictions apply to a team's own pick regardless of whether that pick has been retained or traded.
The new rules also block teams from attaching top-12-through-top-15 protections to newly traded draft picks.
The Memphis Grizzlies cast the only vote against the proposal.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spoke about the changes Wednesday on "The Pat McAfee Show."
"We have to fix incentives, so teams aren't out there with an incentive to be bad," Silver said. "It's the No. 1 issue for our fans right now. Nobody wants to see that. It completely obviously goes away once we get to the playoffs, but we just got to fix that problem."
NBA Cracks Down on Tanking
Silver said some across the league have called the change an overcorrection, but defended the new structure.
"You need incentives to perform," Silver said. "We're actually calling the system for the three worst records are going to have slightly worse odds than they would have otherwise had. And we're stealing a term from soccer, which is relegation, and there is a notion that possibly there should be a penalty for performing poorly. In real relegation, you're actually out of the major league. Here, if you're the worst-performing team in the NBA, you still get your same economic share of national and global television revenue."
The vote also gives Silver expanded authority to penalize teams suspected of tanking. The league said the new authority includes the ability to reduce lottery odds, modify draft positions, and impose significant fines. Per ESPN's Shams Charania, the penalty powers also include fines of up to $10 million and forfeiture of draft picks.
The league said it began meeting with key stakeholders in October to discuss competitive incentives and solicit ideas to discourage tanking. That process led to the creation of the 3-2-1 Lottery.
The NBA has revised its lottery rules multiple times since the lottery was introduced in 1985.
Eight teams won 26 or fewer games this season. Five finished with at least 60 losses.
The Washington Wizards finished with the league's worst record at 17-65. The Wizards won the 2026 NBA Draft Lottery and are expected to select BYU forward AJ Dybantsa or Kansas guard Darryn Peterson with the No. 1 overall pick.
Under the new system, the Wizards would have entered the lottery with worse odds than the teams ranked fourth through 10th-worst in the league.
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