Powerball: Winners and Losers of NBA Lottery Reform

The NBA is putting new air in its lottery balls. Some teams and concepts are already benefitting or suffering.

The NBA is hoping to see its draft lottery blast off in a newly-introduced 3-2-1 format.

The league unveiled dramatic changes to its draft lottery system this week, with the numbered unofficial moniker referring to how many ping-pong balls each team will be afforded come the drawing. Such adjustments come after several teams at the bottom of the Association ledgers were accused of engaging in the art of "tanking," where losses were said to be either not properly mourned or outright attained in the name of securing a better opportunity at a premier draft pick.

Under this new system, 16 teams will have an opportunity at the top overall pick. Rather than the three teams at the bottom of the standings, the top odds at 8.1 percent (and three balls) now belong to teams Nos. 21 through 27 while the three worst fall to 5.4 (and two balls). The ninth and tenth seeds destined for the latter half of the Play-in Tournament also get 5.4 percent odds while the loser of the Play-In's opener featuring the seventh and eighth teams will also get an invite, albeit at 2.7 and a single ball. 

The adjustments also come with some restrictions: teams will no longer be able be able win the top pick in consecutive years (denying the Washington Wizards come next summer) and they also won't be allowed to choose in the top five in three straight selections. Controversially, draft picks dealt before the new rules were implemented will be centered on the original owners' status rather than the new obtainers.

“It essentially becomes a windfall to the teams that own those picks, because unlike other picks, they would benefit from the upside of the restrictions without any of the downside,” Evan Wasch, the league’s executive vice president of head of basketball strategy and growth said, defending the decision to John Hollinger of The Athletic. "If you were to grandfather traded picks, you essentially differentiate those picks as being more valuable than all other picks. … That didn’t feel like a systematically fair way to go about this.”

With that in mind, BIL has a couple of winners of losers to highlight with the new format in place ...

The NBA Board of Governors today approved a new NBA Draft Lottery system designed to eliminate incentives for teams to prioritize their position in the Draft over winning games.

Full release: https://t.co/I42k5HeUV0

Additional information regarding the new system, including the… pic.twitter.com/o1QItNPIit

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) May 28, 2026

Winner: New York Knicks

Worrying about the lottery, one a hallowed Manhattan tradition, has plummeted on the list of metropolitan concerns. Still, as the Knicks await their opponent in the 2026 NBA Finals, it feels only appropriate that they somehow earned a small win in absentia considering how dominant they've looked on the floor.

Doubters in the Knicks' expensive gambit to acquire the two-way talents of Mikal Bridges are an endangered species thanks to his postseason prowess that has put them four wins away from a Larry O'Brien Trophy hoist. Bridges' spotlight, already expanded by his Manhattan residency, was made even larger by the fact that the Knicks sent five (six if a possible 2028 swap counts) first-round picks across the Brooklyn Bridge to the rival Nets.

If this run of success is truly who the Knicks are on the road ahead, this prosperous run could take them toward the end of the Bridges trade's coverage. Suddenly, those picks suddenly don't look as valuable as they did after the Knicks parted with them, even the ones deeper into the future.

With the Nets no closer to any form of post-Bridges progress (posting what's tied for their worst season since the Brooklyn move) and the new lottery loosening rewards in ineptitude, the men's side of Atlantic Avenue basketball keeps being bitten by the lottery, having previously fallen from third to sixth on the recent draft board. In Manhattan, Bridges can hopefully move on with the rest of his Knicks career in relative peace ... perhaps with a championship in tow.

Loser: Memphis Grizzlies

The lottery reform vote was a scratch-off for the Grizzlies: Memphis was reportedly the only team to vote nay on the changes and one look at their recent transaction ledger would be enough to explain why.

Memphis made the first monumental roster move of a not-so-roaring 20s rebuild at the trade deadline when it traded paint staple Jaren Jackson Jr. to the Utah Jazz. Time will tell how Jackson accelerates the Jazz's tempo (he played but three games before he was shut down in what many assumed was the name of lottery leaping), but the Grizzlies obviously assumed it'd be well enough to get some good lottery odds considering their recent history. One of the primary yields in the Jackson deal was the Jazz's 2027 first-round pick, which carried no protections ... until the league stepped in this week.

Situated second on the 2026 board, Utah won't be able to return to top five come next summer ... not that they're feeling salty about it. That pick is the Grizzlies' problem now and it sure looks like they just traded an All-Star and Defensive Player of the Year for a pick outside of the top five. The Jackson trade feels like part one of something much larger (it'll be a shock if Ja Morant returns, for example) and Memphis unfortunately serves as the early face of this new system's flaws.

Winner: San Antonio Spurs

Somehow, the Spurs returned ... just in time.

Like the New England Patriots before them, the Spurs are reigniting old nightmares for their millennial haters: sure, the suffering was a little bigger in Texas to the tune of a six-season playoff drought but, fortunately, the Spurs' return to power has been better explained than that of Emperor Palpatine's.

Simply put, it required a lot of bounce passes, not all of which were on the court. The lottery lifted the Spurs up two spots for the right to take Victor Wembanyama in 2023 and Stephon Castle arrived after a one-spot jump the following season. San Antonio became the first team to land back-to-back Rookies of the Year since 2015-16, when Minnesota hunted down Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns.

The third time was the ultimate charm in terms of the depth that raised banners near the River Walk: the basketball gods essentially rewarded the Spurs for a prudent effort under Castle once Wembanyama got injured by moving them up six spots to second. That allowed them to welcome in Dylan Harper, who has gone on to become a valuable depth star in the Spurs' active championship run, which is one win away from a return to the Finals.

Under the new rules, San Antonio's residency within the first five picks would be outlawed. Leave it to Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich's successors to cash in on perhaps the most essential fundamental: being on time. 

Loser: The Play-In Tournament

The NBA Play-In Tournament, featuring the annual tradition of the viewing public that the 10th-place team looks like a 10th-place team when you invite them to the "playoffs," has to stand as one of the most backhanded honors on the professional sports ledgers.

Its introduction rendered two-thirds of the league worthy of playing at least an 83rd game and it's not like anyone's ever raising a banner if/when they prevail among the conference's mediocre quartet. Besides, for every version of the 2023 Miami Heat, there are perhaps multiple examples of the 2022 New Orleans Pelicans, a ninth-place squad that jumped into the bracket when even a miniscule chance at lottery luck probably would've been better for the long-term forecast. 

Meant to add some meaning toward the battles at the bottom of the bracket, teams have shown relative indifference toward entering as is: in 2023, for example, the Dallas Mavericks rested men despite sitting within striking distance of a Play-In spot, a gambit some believed was done in the name of was done in the name of keeping a top-10 protected pick away from the Knicks. 

With the loser of the 7 vs. 8 eight game now granted a spot in the lottery, it wouldn't be a surprise to see some teams shrug over a loss in the Play-In debut. Despite the Association's best efforts, there was probably no way it was going to fully eliminate tanking. While it did at least something of a solid job taking it away from the regular season, the fact that the concept of rewarded losing even remotely exists in the postseason is a dire shock to the hardwood system.

Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags

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