How will proposed lottery changes impact the Jazz?

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On Friday, ESPN reported that the NBA presented three potential lottery reforms to the league’s board of governors. The groups are expected to make changes to each of the three concepts before a formal vote during a special session in May.

Proposal 1: Lottery includes 18 teams — the bottom 10 that miss the play-in tournament and the eight that qualify for it. Bottom 10 teams have flattened, equal odds (8%) in the lottery. The remaining 20% of the odds would split among the eight play-in teams in descending order. All 18 spots would be drawn as part of the lottery.

Proposal 2: Lottery includes 22 teams — the bottom 10 teams that miss the play-in tournament, the eight that qualify for it, and the four playoff teams that lose in the first round. Teams would be ranked according to their record across two seasons.

Additionally, each team would need to reach a minimum win total during the season. So if the win total minimum is 20, a team that finishes the season with a 15-67 record would be 20-62 for lottery purposes.

Top four lottery spots would be drawn as they are now.

Proposal 3: Lottery includes 18 teams (same as Proposal 1). Bottom five teams would have equal lottery odds, with the rest of the odds descending from there. There would be a lottery drawing for each of the top five picks in the draft. Then there would be another lottery drawing for the remaining 13 teams.

If any of the bottom five teams did not get a top-five pick, the lowest they would fall would be 10th in the second round of the lottery.

During Wednesday’s official board of governors meeting, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said that he and the owners agreed that there needed to be a fix to the incentive structure of the lottery so that teams would not be tempted to tank all out, and that changes needed to happen expeditiously.

“There’s also unanimous agreement that we need to make this change in advance of the draft and free agency this year so all the teams understand the rules of the road going into next year,” Silver said.

While any changes would not impact this year’s lottery, and so not impact the Jazz’s chances at a top pick in the 2026 draft, it does start to shift how teams will plan to build through the draft.

Teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons — leading in the standings of both conferences — have used tanking to build league-leading rosters, which is what the Jazz have been aiming to do as well.

But future teams might not be able to rely on the draft as a sure way of finding a star if the lottery odds shift dramatically or are flattened dramatically. This could have the unintended consequence of trades and free agency being even more important as team-building tools.

It could also change the value of future picks that have already been traded and those that are traded down the road. That might be the biggest way the Jazz are impacted by lottery reform.

This will all be made more clear after the league meets in May. But what we know is that changes are on the way.

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How will proposed lottery changes impact the Jazz?

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