NBA Season Preview 2018-19: Will the new draft lottery odds eliminate tanking?

Thanks to former Philadelphia 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie, the NBA may have dealt tanking a fatal blow.

Last September, the NBA’s board of governors approved a new set of odds for the draft lottery that reduces the number of pingpong balls awarded to the worst teams. Whereas the team with the league’s worst record received a 25.0 percent chance of winning the No. 1 overall pick under the previous system, the new odds give a 14.0 percent chance to the teams with the three worst records.

The NBA didn’t stop there. The old lottery system only drew the first, second and third picks, ensuring the team with the worst record could finish no lower than No. 4 overall. Under the new system, the lottery will run for each of the top four picks, so the team with the worst record could potentially slip to No. 5 overall. According to Tankathon, the teams with the three worst records each have only a 52.1 percent chance of snagging a top-four pick, whereas before, all three were guaranteed no worse than No. 6 overall.

When the proposal initially passed, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski shared a graphic comparing the old lottery odds to the new ones, along with each team’s chances of landing a top-three or a top-five pick. The TL;DR version: The new system encourages teams toward the bottom of the lottery standings and hurts those toward the top.

Will the new odds be enough to eliminate tanking outright? NBA Commissioner Adam Silver isn’t holding his breath.

“We’ll see how much of an impact that has, but my sense is we’re still going to have some work to do,” Silver told reporters following a board of governors meeting in April. “… I recognize that the incentives are not aligned right now, that there’s a huge incentive to increase your chances in the draft lottery, especially under the old system.”

Hinkie exploited those incentives to their logical extreme during his three-year tenure in Philadelphia. With the Sixers devoid on young talent and future draft picks after their Andrew Bynum gamble went belly-up, Hinkie methodically stripped apart the roster to ensure they would have multiple cracks at high-end lottery picks. He spent some of those picks on players who would miss their entire rookie seasons due to injuries (Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid) or draft-and-stashing (Dario Saric), which begot even more losing.

Fast-forward five years, and the Sixers have one of the NBA’s most promising young cores. For owners willing to stomach the pain of an intentional multiyear tank, Hinkie provided an easy-to-follow blueprint that would have turned the league’s cellar-dwellers into a traveshamockery. Had the NBA not stepped in and altered the lottery system, an unprecedented number of teams may have decided their best long-term path forward was taking an enormous short-term step back.

Now that there’s no way for teams to guarantee themselves a top-four pick — and only the team with the worst record is a lock to finish among the top five — tanking becomes slightly less enticing. The jury remains out on Trae Young and De’Aaron Fox, but beyond that, you’d have to go back to DeMarcus Cousins (2010) to find a No. 5 overall pick who proved to be a franchise cornerstone.

That isn’t to say tanking will become a thing of the past, though.

First-round picks are among the most valuable assets across the NBA, in large part because of the rules governing rookie contracts. Since the salaries for first-rounders are based on a sliding scale — teams can give as little as 80 percent or as much as 120 percent of the scale amount, although they almost always opt for the latter — such players often vastly outproduce the salary they receive for the first four years of their careers.

Take Donovan Mitchell, who the Utah Jazz selected at No. 13 overall last year after trading up. The Louisville product wound up leading the team in scoring and finishing second in Rookie of the Year voting, all while earning only $2.6 million. FiveThirtyEight’s CARMELO system projects him to be worth $44.9 million to the Jazz this upcoming season alone — he’s set to make a paltry $3.1 million in comparison — and $281.3 million over the next half-decade.

Not only will the Jazz have Mitchell’s outrageous production locked into a cost-controlled contract for the next three years, but they’ll have full control over his future beyond that, too. If they don’t sign him to an extension ahead of his fourth season, he’ll become a restricted free agent the following summer, which empowers them to match any offer sheet he receives. If they so desire, they’ll be able to keep Mitchell in Utah for the first eight or nine years of his career without him having much of a say in the matter.

There’s been a sharp rise in stars demanding trades ahead of their third NBA contracts, but players coming off rookie deals have no such leverage. Outside of signing a one-year qualifying offer — which rarely ends well for the player who passes up long-term security (see: Noel, Nerlens) — young stars can’t force their way out of town upon reaching restricted free agency. Except in limited circumstances, they also can’t receive a starting salary above 25 percent of the league’s salary cap, compared to the 30 percent for a veteran with 7-9 years of NBA experience or 35 percent for someone with a decade or more under their belts.

With all of that in mind, is it any wonder why teams would tank? Since first-round picks are often wildly undervalued for their first four years and cheaper than their older counterparts on their second contracts, it’s easier to build a team around them without running into salary-cap constraints. Throw in the additional years of team control, and landing a superstar in the draft is the most surefire way to build sustainable greatness in the NBA.

Since the NBA also instituted a new rule prohibiting teams from resting healthy players during high-profile, nationally televised games or on the road barring “unusual circumstances,” there will be far less freedom to tank this season. The days of holding out starters for the final month or two in favor of “player development” figure to be a thing of the past. Teams will still find loopholes to exploit — don’t be surprised if veterans play sparingly, even if healthy — but the revised lottery odds reduce the incentive to egregiously tank.

The new draft lottery odds may make tanking less effective than it was under the old system, but until the league alters the rules governing first-round picks — specifically with regard to restricted free agency — such prospects will remain immensely valuable. Rather than eliminating tanking outright, the new lottery odds will help to even the playing field somewhat.