3-2-1 and League Integrity: The NBA’s Anti-Tanking Proposal Explained 

The draft system has long been an important cornerstone of the US professional sports system. While other countries have sports drafts, it’s rare. No such system exists in European soccer (the most comparable sport and region in terms of financial might and influence), and, thus, dominant teams tend to stay dominant over decades. Bayern Munich, for example, has won 13 of the last 14 German Bundesliga titles, and some of its tactics of staying on top include snapping up the best young players from ‘smaller’ teams in Germany. 

The draft is the great sports leveler, giving the weaker teams the chance to rebuild. As you might imagine, in a system that historically rewards the worst teams with the best draft picks, there is an incentive to be bad. It is most apparent in the NBA, where the race to be worst – known as tanking – can be as competitive as finishing strongly. There were several accusations of tanking in the 2025/26 season – teams were fined for deliberately not playing their best players – but it seems like the league’s Commissioner, Adam Silver, has had enough. He’s proposed major changes that will be voted on by the league’s team owners imminently. 

The current Draft Lottery has failed to address tanking 

The current system in the NBA – the NBA Lottery – is somewhat complicated. It’s no longer the case that the worst team gets first pick of the draft (tanking has been a problem before). If you have the worst record in the NBA, you have a 14% chance of getting the No.1 pick, and you can do no worse than pick No. 5. In fact, the three worst teams have a 14% chance, so teams are aiming to finish among the bottom three if they want the best chance. 

While some might believe it is fair game to hunt for the best chance of landing a star player out of college, it’s worth remembering that this can hurt the integrity of the league. If a team isn’t trying its best, it could impact those who are, hurting a team’s chances of making the Playoffs, for instance. There are external ethical questions, too, such as how it impacts NBA game line odds; you’d be pretty angry if you bet on a team that benched its star players for no reason. For balance, we should say that there isn’t evidence of players not trying to win when on the court. 

A stacked draft class has raised the specter of tanking 

Anyway, tanking seemed to be particularly overt this year, with one main reason provided: the 2026 NBA Draft is stacked with talent, so getting into those bottom few positions makes sense because you have a great chance of landing a franchise-changing player by finishing with one of the worst records in the NBA. 

The solution posed by Adam Silver? The 3-2-1 draft lottery proposal. It is, once again, rather complicated, but the main takeaway is this: The three worst teams in the NBA regular season will get reduced chances of getting the No. 1 pick. In fact, their odds will be poorer than teams finishing with the 4th-worst, 5th-worst, etc., records. For the team finishing with the worst record, the odds move from 14% to about 5.4%. It is a significant move. 

There are other proposed changes, including the inclusion of more teams in the Draft Lottery, but the most significant change is the simple premise that the worst teams will no longer be rewarded. Technically, you could see tanking, as the teams finishing above the bottom three and below the Play-In Tournament standings will have the best odds, but that is a bit more difficult to engineer.