NBA Draft Lottery Reform
May 12, 2024, will mark the 39th NBA Draft Lottery in history. In 1985, the New York Knicks won the lottery and the first overall pick (allegedly thanks to a cold envelope) and selected Georgetown center Patrick Ewing. Before that, the worst team from each conference would flip a coin for the first pick, with the rest of the picks falling in order of team record.
The lottery was created to prevent teams from finishing poorly to get the first pick in the draft. While it's debatable whether or not it works, it's important to understand how it works and why it needs to be fixed. The method is confusing and very secretive, as the lottery itself is not televised; only the results are.
How The NBA Draft Lottery Works
The 14 teams who miss the playoffs are put into the lottery to determine who will get the first four picks in the draft. The remaining 11 teams will draft in order of the worst record first. 14 ping pong balls are placed in a machine, numbered 1 - 14, and four balls at a time are spit out, creating a number combination (there are 1,000 possible combinations).
The team with the worst record that year gets the most possible combinations (140), and the team with the best record gets the fewest (5). The first combination that comes up will be the team with the first pick, and if any of their combinations come up again, they will be disregarded until a new team's combination is drawn. Then, that team will get the next pick, and so on.
Why Do We Need Lottery Reform?
There are two reasons the NBA needs to shake up the draft lottery. First of all, it doesn't really work. There is a 65% chance that a team with one of the five worst records last season will get the top pick and an 8% chance that one of the five best teams get the award. A team that plays poorly will still be rewarded in the lottery. The worst teams should have the best chances for a true shot at parity, but it's still a bit lopsided.
Secondly, you can't televise it. It's an incredibly boring and unwatchable product. You see who gets the first pick right off the bat and then have to watch superfluous combs called out until you see who gets the next three picks. There's no drama or build-up, and the entire [process is mundane at best.
How To Spice Up The Lottery
A true lottery would involve everyone getting an equal shot at the prize. We couldn't do that because nobody wants to see the league's best team get the top pick three years in a row. So, for the reform, the four teams that made the conference finals are excluded. The other 24 teams will be in the lottery.
Instead of number combinations, we will use ping-pong balls with the team logo on them. We will weight the odds, but not as heavily as before. The bottom four teams will get one ball each. Teams with the fifth through eighth worst records will get two balls. 9 - 13 will get three balls each. 14-19 will get four balls each. Finally, the best five teams (20-24) will get five balls each.
Why did the worst team get the fewest balls? Because we want to televise this, the lottery is going to go in reverse order. The first ball drawn will be the 24th pick in the draft (yes, the draft lottery will now determine the draft position of every single team participating). Once that team is selected, the drum is emptied, and new balls are placed in minus the team that was just selected.
We start with 72 balls, and there will be fewer each round of selections. This means that the worst four teams in the league each have a 1.4% chance of getting the 24th pick. They must keep 1,728 balls on hand to reload the hopper each round quickly. This will give the NBA a quick and easy way to profit from the lottery outside the TV deal.
Advertising The Lottery
The NBA can sell advertising on each ball—not each of the 72, but each of the 1,728. Advertisers can play the lottery, too, because, for $1,000 per ball, you can hear, "The twenty-fourth pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, courtesy of General Mills, goes to the Utah Jazz."
The league could even offer tiered pricing depending on the team and make even more money. Even if they don't, $1,000 x 1,728 is an extra $1.7 million for the league just for slapping a logo on a ping ball. When a team ball is chosen, it goes to the team, and all remaining balls for that team can be auctioned off for charity (or more profit), or sent back to the advertsier to do with as they please.
Advertisers could buy more than one ball, of course, to increase their odds of being mentioned on TV, and they would do it, too, because this would be a must-see TV show. We could fly through each selection and imagine the drama when only two teams are left. Maybe there are two ping-pong balls in there, maybe six or maybe ten. Personally, I love the idea of six balls, with the worst team battling the fifth-best team for the top pick.
Even after the second pick is drawn, and we know who has the top pick, you would still have to draw it, so you could read the sponsor. "The first overall pick in the draft, brought to you by Stadium Rant, goes to the...."
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