The NBA Draft is broken and the only way to fix it is by destroying it

USA Today

16-05-2025

The NBA Draft is broken and the only way to fix it is by destroying it
Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win's basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Here's Mike Sykes
I'm still recovering from the NBA Draft Lottery. The system is broken. Or maybe it works as it's always been intended to? I don't really know anymore. The basketball gods are cruel in that way.
Many conversations have manifested following the Dallas Mavericks' unexpected NBA Draft Lottery win. Will the Mavs draft Cooper Flagg, or will they potentially trade it? Is Giannis Antetokounmpo in play? I'm not sure, but we'll slowly get answers to those questions over the next month.
I'm most interested in litigating whether the NBA Draft Lottery is operating properly. Is the system broken? As a Wizards fan, you know where I stand on this. The lottery sucks, and the basketball gods are evil. None of this should be happening right now.
THE WINNERS: Here are the biggest winners from the NBA Draft Combine this week
So the question becomes, how do you fix this system that is inherently broken in this way? As things currently stand with the lottery odds flattened, the worst teams in the NBA aren't getting any better. Since 2019, when the league first made the change to the odds, the worst team in the league has yet to receive the top pick.
The natural solution, then, should be to shift the lottery odds back to where they were. As things stand, the worst three teams in the NBA have a 14 percent chance of winning the No. 1 overall pick and a 52 percent chance of landing in the top four. A shift back would mean weighting the odds heavily in those teams' favor again. But opponents of that would once again argue that it incentivizes teams to tank and lose games on purpose, which is why the odds shifted in the first place.
So, what is the solution here? How do we fix it? Here's my fix: We break the system completely.
Dismantle the lottery. Dismantle the NBA draft as a whole. Instead, have a rookie free agency period where the incoming freshman class of NBA players can choose where they play out the beginning of their careers the same way veterans do.
I know, I know. You're calling me crazy right now. You're saying that the best rookies will only go to the league's biggest glamour markets. But you can build a system that de-incentivizes that.
Here's how:
Rookie scale exceptions: This is the big one. The same way each team gets a mid-level exception to spend in the offseason, each team would get a rookie scale exception in place of a draft pick. The worse you are, the more salary you get to spend on rookies. So, this year, the Jazz, Wizards and Hornets would have the most to spend and the amount would scale down as we climb the standings. Well-run organizations: This isn't really on the league — it's on individual teams. Like regular free agency, each team would be able to make a pitch to whatever rookie they wanted. Would, say, a Cooper Flagg regularly choose to play for the Lakers of the Hornets? Sure. Charlotte can't give Flagg a destination like LA. But if you give him a good coach, a competent front office and loads of playing time, who's to say he wouldn't choose that instead of playing behind Luka Doncic? A free agency special: This is crucial to the marketing of the league and the behind-the-scenes access we get to teams. If I were the NBA, I'd do this while also coupling it with a Drive to Survive-style docuseries following these teams as they scout ahead of the NBA's rookie free agency period. It documents what this process is like and gives fans (and future players!) an idea of how their favorite teams work behind the scenes. Providing the league's worst teams with more of a spotlight would make playing for them seem more desirable. Think of this in the same way you'd think about Hard Knocks with the NFL.
This is a wild idea, yes. It's a bit out there. But I do think it does two crucial things the league really wants to accomplish: It discourages tanking because no one wants to play for a loser, so each team would have to put its best foot forward each year or suffer the consequences. It also would promote the league in a way that wouldn't leave the smaller markets feeling as small and left out as they do now.
This would probably never happen. The powers-that-be are far too attached to the draft process and what it brings. But I'm telling you this now: "Fixing" the draft lottery is only a half-measure. Something like this would go all the way. If the league is serious about doing that, then this would be an idea it needs to consider.
I know we're done reacting to the Luka trade, but...
I'm sorry. The reaction from the Warriors in this video is too perfect not to share with y'all.
Here's Bryan Kalbrosky with more on the reaction:
"This is amazing footage, and showed just how skeptical everyone was when they read this report.
That included a hilarious scream (and phone call) from Stephen Curry as he tried to process the information about his two Western Conference rivals."
Steph Curry's scream is basically the same as the scream I let out that day. It's still so ridiculous that this happened. You know what's even more ridiculous? That this team won the draft lottery a few months later.
Maybe Nico Harrison was a genius this entire time.
Shootaround
—Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic should duke it out for MVP in Game 7. That'd be so fun! Adam Silver, make it happen.
— Bryan has the biggest winners from this week's NBA Draft Combine, ready to go for you here.
— Here are 18 stay-or-go decisions for the draft that you should be following.
— Kevin Durant is through with the hot takes. Can't say I blame him — especially not in this instance.
That's a wrap. Thanks so much for reading. Peace.
-Sykes ✌️