The draft lottery is the weighted, random process the NBA uses to set draft order for teams that miss the playoffs. Worse teams get better odds at the top picks, but nothing is guaranteed. Starting with the 2027 draft, the format is changing entirely, the “3-2-1 lottery,” approved by the Board of Governors on May 28, 2026, specifically to stop rewarding the single worst team in the league.
All 16 teams that miss the playoffs, including the four play-in losers, get assigned either 3, 2, or 1 lottery balls depending on which group they land in. Here's where it gets interesting.
The bottom 3 teams get fewer balls (and worse odds) than the next 7 non-play-in teams. Being the single worst team in the league no longer buys the best lottery odds, on purpose.
Draft floors and ceilings: The three worst teams, now officially “draft-relegated,” can pick no better than #12 no matter how the balls fall. Every other lottery team can fall no lower than #16.
No repeat jackpots: A team can't land the #1 pick in two consecutive drafts, or a top-5 pick in three consecutive drafts, regardless of what the lottery draw says.
Trade protection limits: Teams can no longer attach top-12 through top-15 protections to newly traded picks, closing off a common way of hedging a traded pick.
Expanded league discipline: The commissioner now has explicit authority to reduce a team's lottery odds, change their draft position, or fine them directly for tanking-adjacent behavior, on top of the $500,000 and $100,000 fines already levied against the Jazz and Pacers in February 2026.
This is the outgoing system, used one more time for the 2026 draft before the 3-2-1 format takes over. Only the top 4 picks were decided by drawing, among the 14 non-playoff teams, with the three worst records flattened to identical odds since a 2019 reform.
Odds of landing the #1 overall pick. The three worst teams are tied at 14.0% each, on purpose, to reduce the incentive to be the single worst team in the league.
Once those 4 picks were drawn, picks 5 through 14 simply slotted in by regular season record, worst record among the teams left picks first, no further randomness.
No, and starting with the 2027 draft it isn't even the team with the best odds anymore. Under the new "3-2-1 lottery," the next 7 non-play-in teams (picks 4-10) actually have better odds at #1 than the three worst teams in the league.
To attack tanking more directly. The league fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 and the Indiana Pacers $100,000 in February 2026 for benching players who could have helped them win, and commissioner Adam Silver pushed the league's Competition Committee and Board of Governors to close the loophole rather than just keep fining teams case by case.
All 16 teams that miss the playoffs, including the four play-in teams that get eliminated. That's new too, the old system only put the 14 non-playoff teams in the lottery pool.
A few things at once: flatter odds that no longer reward being the single worst team, a "draft-relegated" floor that caps the bottom 3 teams at no better than pick #12, a ban on repeating the #1 pick in consecutive drafts or a top-5 pick in three straight drafts, and expanded league authority to fine teams, reduce their lottery odds, or move their draft position directly for egregious tanking behavior.