{"id":226996,"date":"2026-05-11T10:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T10:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/226996\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T10:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T10:30:09","slug":"how-proposed-new-nba-lottery-may-impact-draft-assets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/226996\/","title":{"rendered":"How proposed new NBA lottery may impact draft assets"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 Among the more important moments in the Houston Rockets<\/a>‘ future will be at the 2027 NBA draft lottery, when we all find out where the Brooklyn Nets’ 2027 first-round pick lands<\/p>\n

Houston has the right to swap its 2027 first-round pick with Brooklyn’s, a lingering reward from the James Harden trade<\/a>. It seemed likely that the Rockets would get a premier pick with the Nets still amid a protracted rebuild. But the league could be moving to a new lottery system for next year’s draft. What does that mean for the Rockets?<\/p>\n

The lottery would expand to 16 teams. Each team will get three, two or one lottery ball in the drawings. Teams that finish in the bottom three in the standings only get two balls \u2014 an anti-tanking measure \u2014 although they also can drop no lower than the No. 12 pick (everyone else can drop as far as No. 16). The teams outside of the bottom three but still below the play-in squads each get three balls. This is the best spot to be in. The four teams in the Nos. 9-10 play-in games get two balls each. And the losers of the Nos. 7-8 game in each conference get one ball each.<\/p>\n

Some additional measures: No team can get the first pick in consecutive years or a top-five pick in three straight seasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Nets aren’t subject to those restrictions after earning the No. 8 pick in the 2025 draft and No. 6 pick in 2026. In 2027, Houston wants Brooklyn to land outside of the bottom three but below the play-in. There is reason to believe that could happen. The Nets have a young, bad roster that flashed at times and have ample cap space and reason to improve because of the Houston swap. Brooklyn also has yet to find a high-end talent who impacts winning.<\/p>\n

The Rockets returned the Nets’ 2025 and 2026 first-round picks in exchange for the 2025 first-round swap rights with Phoenix (later traded back to the Suns as part of the Kevin Durant deal). Houston also received the Suns’ 2027 first-round pick \u2014 which could fall in that three-lottery-ball sweet spot if Phoenix takes even a slight step back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In that trade with Brooklyn, the Rockets also acquired the rights to the two best 2029 first round picks among their own, the Suns’ and the Dallas Mavericks’.<\/p>\n

How will those teams do that far in the future? No idea.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But this proposed new lottery system further flattens the odds, increasing the number of teams who have the best possible positioning at a top pick. It is a system that will reward quantity.\u00a0The Rockets have it. <\/p>\n

Now, they just need to get lucky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 Among the more important moments in the Houston Rockets‘ future will be at the 2027 NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-226996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}