The NBA's New Lottery System Is Already a Disaster and the Simulator Proves It

Adam Silver just announced the NBA's new "3-2-1" Lottery Reform plan, and it's a complete mess. The system is so convoluted that most fans won't even bother reading through all the complicated percentages and odds. But one Twitter user named Dylan Jackson built a Lottery Simulator based on the new rules, and after running it a few times, the results are absolutely brutal. This thing doesn't prevent tanking at all. It just breaks everything else in the process.

The Worst Teams Get Punished, the Good Teams Get Lucky

Here's where it gets infuriating. In the first simulation spin, teams in the 2, 5, and 6 spots plummet all the way to the bottom of the lottery. The Nets drop to 10, the Wizards fall to 11. Meanwhile, a team sitting at 10 jumps straight to number 2, and Miami (a Play In team) lands in the top 5. Oklahoma City, despite potentially winning back to back, lands in the top 6. The whole point of a lottery is supposed to be helping the worst teams get better, not rewarding good teams with premium picks.

Playoff Teams Winning the Lottery Shouldn't Be Possible

Run the simulator again and things get even worse. In the second spin, the Phoenix Suns, a team that literally made the playoffs, end up with the first overall pick. The teams that actually finished 1, 2, 3, and 4 worst in the league? They can't pick higher than 8th. The Hawks, another playoff team, are getting the Pelicans' pick, which lands in the lottery. This isn't what a lottery system is designed to do.

Then in spin three, imagine the Warriors, a Play In team, getting the first pick while Oklahoma City grabs the second. That's chaos. That's not fixing tanking. That's just giving playoff teams a free premium talent upgrade while the actual worst teams in the league get locked out of top picks.

Adam Silver's Plan Doesn't Solve Anything

Silver's new system is supposed to prevent teams from tanking on purpose. Instead, it punishes the legitimately worst teams and hands playoff teams the lottery's best rewards. Teams stuck in perpetual losing cycles like Sacramento, Brooklyn, Indiana, and Memphis can't escape because they're never landing in the top five under this system. That's not reform. That's just creating different winners and losers, except now the lottery doesn't even do what it's supposed to do.

The simulator shows this isn't some one time fluke either. Run it multiple times and the pattern repeats: worst teams get decimated, playoff teams get rewarded, and the entire point of the draft lottery gets completely lost.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.