How the NBA’s Reported Anti-Tanking Rules Could Affect the League, Draft

Per ESPN, the NBA has officially presented three anti-tanking proposals, following up on previous talks about combatting tanking across the league.

With the depth of the 2026 NBA Draft class, more teams have joined the hunt for top picks, starting preliminary talks on what some think should be needed changes.

ESPN wrote that all three of the recent proposals would be “radical” changes to the current format.

The first proposal is that 18 teams, the bottom 10 that miss the Play-In Tournament, and the eight that qualify, will all take part in the draft lottery, expanding by four teams. The bottom 10 will all have an equal 8% chance at moving up, with the remaining 20% odds being split among the eight play-in teams in descending order from No. 11 to No. 18.

The second proposal included the bottom 10 that miss the play-in, the eight that quality and the league’s four first-round losers will all be included in the lottery, and will be ranked according to their record across two seasons.

The third and final proposal is what is described as the “five-by-five.” The same 18 teams from proposal No. 1 would be entered into the draft lottery. The teams with the five worst records would all have the same odds, descending through the rest of the teams, and there would be a lottery drawing for each of the top-five picks.

After the first five, there would be another lottery drawing for the 13 remaining teams. Should any of the worst-five teams not land a top-five spot, the lowest available spot in the second lottery drawing would be No. 10.

The proposals are obviously in early stages and far from the finalized versions, though it's clear the league is set on changing things sooner rather than later.

But do the proposed changes help the league? Do they actually combat tanking?

In their current form, they don't seem to address the root of the NBA's problem, which recently has been middling teams landing the league's best talent, see San Antonio and Dallas in 2025.

The goal of the NBA Draft should be to infuse the league's worst teams with top talent, thus sending them out of the rebuilding phase and into the competitive section with the rest of the NBA. In the last several seasons, teams such as the Wizards, Jazz and more have fallen due to the flattened odds, leading to more seasons pushing for top picks.

Under the new proposals, the worst teams in the league continue to be punished, even if they come about their bad records naturally. Losing upwards of 50 games due to a lesser roster, then falling to pick No. 8 or 9, which could happen in any of the proposed changes, could further exacerbate already existing issues, keeping truly bad teams in poor shape for extended time.

Should the changes be enacted, tanking might be combated. Teams will have less incentive to lose. But it could an even worse problem in terms of talent distribution, letting the teams in the middle continue to accumulate the top talent while the ones at the bottom scramble.

The NBA Draft would certainly look different in each proposed plan, with more teams included and the odds looking drastically different.

Things aren't yet concrete on a number of tanking and draft issues, though it seems the league is wanting these enacting prior to the 2027 NBA Draft.