![\"Mark](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/EKS7IM52KNAP3LU364WIV6Q4ME.jpg\")
The NBA’s draft lottery proposal includes \u201cexpanding the lottery to 16 teams, flattened odds and a relegation zone where the bottom three teams will be penalized with fewer lottery balls for the No. 1 pick.\u201d NBAE via Getty Images <\/p>\nThe NBA’s draft lottery proposal includes \u201cexpanding the lottery to 16 teams, flattened odds and a relegation zone where the bottom three teams will be penalized with fewer lottery balls for the No. 1 pick.\u201d NBAE via Getty Images <\/p>\n
The NBA has disclosed to its 30 GMs a \u201cnew anti-tanking, draft reform<\/a> termed the \u20183-2-1 lottery\u2019\u201d expected to start with the 2027 draft, according to sources cited by Shams Charania of ESPN.com. The proposal includes \u201cexpanding the lottery to 16 teams, flattened odds and a relegation zone where the bottom three teams will be penalized with fewer lottery balls for the No. 1 pick.\u201d Sources said that the league office has \u201cheld multiple critical meetings<\/a>\u201d over the last few weeks to \u201cnarrow toward this new singular proposal ahead of the owners\u2019 May 28 vote.\u201d The sources added that there \u201ccould be minor modifications,\u201d but the \u201ckey points of the framework have a majority of the support from teams.\u201d Charania notes teams that do not qualify for the playoffs or play-in tournament but \u201cstay out of the relegation zone (spots four through 10) would receive three lottery balls each.\u201d Teams with a bottom-three record — the \u201crelegation area — would have just two lottery balls but have a floor of the 12th pick while the rest of the 13 lottery teams could fall as far as the 16th pick.\u201d The 9th and 10th play-in seeds in each conference \u201creceive two lottery balls\u201d while the losers of the 7-8 play-in games \u201creceive one lottery ball.\u201d No team would be able to \u201cwin the top pick in consecutive years or be able to win three consecutive top-five picks.\u201d The proposal includes a \u201csunset provision so that the new system would expire following the 2029 draft.\u201d The league would also have \u201cexpanded disciplinary authority to regulate tanking\u201d (ESPN.com, 4\/28<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA’s draft lottery proposal includes \u201cexpanding the lottery to 16 teams, flattened odds and a relegation zone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,726,590,85],"class_list":["post-637246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637246\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}