Tanking has been a hot topic in the NBA, with several teams seemingly vying for the top spot in the 2025 draft and hoping to land Duke superstar Cooper Flagg. Teams like the Washington Wizards, Philadelphia 76ers, Utah Jazz, San Antonio Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans stick out as teams many believe are tanking. So naturally, solutions are being presented from many angles, with lottery protections being one of the topics.
According to Tim Bontemps and Kevin Pelton of ESPN, multiple sources believe a simple way to reduce tanking would be removing mid-lottery pick protections. The options would be top-4 protected, lottery-protected, or unprotected. The lottery odds are something that has been worked on as well.
“One of the goals of lottery reform was really to smooth out outcomes within the lottery so that no team would look at it and say there’s a significant benefit to me being the third lottery team as opposed to the fourth, or the eighth lottery team as opposed to the ninth,” Evan Wasch, the NBA’s executive vice president of strategy and analytics said, via ESPN. “That’s something we had focused heavily on. … Of course, the pick-protection issue kind of cut the other way on that. If a team has a top-10-protected pick, it actually matters a lot whether they finish with the 10th-worst record or the 11th-worst record. That is a dynamic that we’re seeing.”
A recent example of this is the Dallas Mavericks in 2023, as they held a pick that was top-10 protected, but could have been sent to the New York Knicks if it was a spot or two further back. The Mavericks did a lot of losing down the stretch in that season and ended up with Dereck Lively in that draft, who helped them reach the NBA Finals in 2024.

A recent example of this is the Dallas Mavericks in 2023, as they held a pick that was top-10 protected, but could have been sent to the New York Knicks if it was a spot or two further back. The Mavericks did a lot of losing down the stretch in that season and ended up with Dereck Lively in that draft, who helped them reach the NBA Finals in 2024.

Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic also admitted that the team is prioritizing the long-term over winning down the stretch this season.

It will be interesting to see the tweaks the NBA potentially implements in the coming years to continue to curb tanking.