This week’s NBA lottery produced a Mavericks win despite the much-scrutinized franchise entering the annual event with less than a 2% chance to secure the No. 1 pick. Long-shot lottery wins have become a regular NBA occurrence, as teams with the worst records have seen their odds to land the top choice decrease thanks to a recent change in the lottery system.
In an attempt to curb tanking, the NBA reduced the odds of the team holding the worst record to 14%. The franchises who finish with a bottom-three record each carry a 14% chance at the No. 1 pick entering the lottery; prior to 2019, the team that finished with the league’s worst record carried a 25% chance at the pick. Although NBA lotteries stretching back decades — from the Patrick Ewing- and LeBron James-centered events — have generated intrigue, the 2019 change has increased drama.
Major League Baseball also now uses a lottery system, waiting until 2022 to implement one, and the NHL also uses this setup to determine its draft order. The Mavs’ recent triumph, however, brought some chatter about the NFL following suit. While this topic has come up within the media, it has never exactly been a front-burner matter in league circles.
The NFL has done plenty to increase viewership in recent years, adding extra playoff teams (and moving a wild-card game to Monday night) while making Christmas Day games an annual event and raising its count of international games. A future in which the league plays 16 international games per season has come up, as an 18-game season appears a near-future inevitability. The league also expanded its draft from two days to three back in 2010, and that change — which offered two primetime windows — has benefited the league. A lottery would certainly garner more interest ahead of that event, but as of now, there does not seem much appetite for big-picture change.
No vote about a lottery has taken place in the league previously, and ESPN’s Dan Graziano said during a recent Get Up appearance (h/t Bleacher Report’s Mike Chiari) it is not believed the competition committee has engaged in substantive discussions about such a change. The league, per Graziano, does not believe it has a tanking problem that would warrant a lottery.
Teams maneuvering to land a higher draft slot, of course, has taken place. And recent drafts have shown the value that can come from securing a top pick. The Bears sat Justin Fields in Week 18 of the 2022 season, giving them the No. 1 draft slot — which it traded to the Panthers in a swap that eventually brought Caleb Williams to Chicago — while the Commanders benefited from losing their final eight games in 2023. Washington reduced its chances of winning by trading both Montez Sweat and Chase Young at the 2023 deadline; ownership overruled the Ron Rivera regime on Sweat. This led to Jayden Daniels draft access, which has triggered a sea change in Washington. The Bengals saw the same trajectory shift when they obtained the Joe Burrow draft slot in 2020, outflanking a Dolphins team that became the subject of a tanking investigation.
The Eagles also were not exactly focused on winning when they played a memorable season finale in Washington in 2020, yanking future Super Bowl MVP Jalen Hurts for Nate Sudfeld from a winnable game — one that would have given the Giants the NFC East title in that event. This only netted Philly the No. 6 overall draft slot, but the team acquired a future first-round pick — via the Dolphins’ climb for Jaylen Waddle in 2021 — months after its seminal loss in Washington.
A lottery would protect against teams having clear motivation to lose late-season games, as earning access to certain QB prospects in the draft continues to matter significantly. But with the NFL’s game count at 17 (compared to the 82- and 162-game slates the other sports use), tanking efforts are not nearly as substantial. Coaching staffs not receiving long runways also play into this. So does the trade deadline’s placement. It took until 2024 for the league to even move the deadline until the Tuesday following Week 9. It had stood a week earlier for 12 years, and the NFL had it stationed two weeks earlier in the years prior.
The league’s resistance to change on that front also was aimed at competitive integrity, as it sought to prevent a slew of sellers emerging in a reality in which the deadline landed in the season’s second half — as it does in the NBA, NHL and MLB — rather than midseason. This aim likely is leading to lottery hesitation as well, as Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer indicates a potential concern would be mediocre teams not putting forth best efforts in a push to better their respective lottery positions. The league would surely prefer to avoid more sequences reminding of the Hurts-for-Sudfeld sequence.
This talk of ensuring the status quo comes as the NFL is set to discuss rearranging its playoff field, a move that would be aimed at keeping teams from resting starters to close out seasons. A lottery would at least minimize scenarios in which clubs have the chance to secure the No. 1 pick by losing late-season games. A league that has not been shy about methods of increasing viewership likely will visit this change down the road, but for now, it appears the long-held draft structure will remain for the foreseeable future.
Thank goodness. The only ones pushing for this are ESPN talking heads because they’re desperate for ratings
Because ESPN panders to the core audience for “debate” shows which is Mouth-Breathing A$$holes.
The producers tell each host ahead of time what side of arguments will be, which is why half the time their arguments make no sense or they don’t even sound like they believe what they’re saying. ESPN sold their souls a long time ago to the people who feed off outrage.
Good, the NBA lottery is a joke.
The fact that a draft lottery is already associated with NBA and the hubris of the modern NFL means this is unlikely to ever happen.
Think this article nailed a failing in sports within the 2nd paragraph – “ increased drama”!
An unnecessary attribute that’s predominate in today’s world – too much drama and gossip
Yeah I dont want to see a lottery system but sometimes the blatant tanking even if in game like with the Eagles should be investigated and punished by fine and/or mid round draft picks.
We remember that all too well. 2020/Week 17, the final game of the pandemic season when teams played before few or no spectators. An Eagles win in the Sunday-night game would give the Giants the NFC East title with a 6-10 record. (Giants would’ve won a 3-way tie-breaker with Dallas and Philly.) Eagles laid down and allowed the Washington Redskins to poach the NFC East.
OR maybe, just maybe, the 6-10 Giants should have played better to earn that playoff spot.. Just saying (and no Im not an NFC east fan) and not rely on a team to play hard for a meaningless (to them) game.
When the Giants and Patriots win games late in the season to put them in worse draft position you know that the NFL does not have a tanking problem.
NFL actually has the goal of a 36 game season.