WNBA Lottery Reform Could Be Incubator For NBA’s Future

The WNBA quietly changed its lottery system last summer and it could provide a blueprint  for the NBA Draft as the league tries to fight the perceived problem of tanking teams.

The WNBA last summer quietly (because it’s the WNBA, most of what it does could be called quiet) changed its draft lottery format, a move that came about 10 months after NBA owners voted down a very different reform measure in October 2014.

The WNBA system changes the lottery to weight the odds based on a team’s cumulative two-year record, rather than simply on the results of the previous season.

How could that affect the NBA? One need look no further than the most notorious example of how a single season’s fall into the abyss resulted in the San Antonio Spurs being able to land franchise cornerstone Tim Duncan in 1997.

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With former NBA MVP David Robinson limited to just six games that season because the team was blatantly trying to lose games because of injuries and with the team firing coach Bob Hill after a 3-15 start, the Spurs limped to a 20-62 mark that was the third-worst in the NBA.

That gave the Spurs a 21.6 percent chance of landing the top pick, while the Boston Celtics had a 27.51 percent shot. The Vancouver Grizzlies, despite finishing a league-worst 14-68, could not pick first in 1997, the second of three drafts they and their fellow Canadian addition, the Toronto Raptors, were prohibited from drafting No. 1 overall as part of their expansion agreements.

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We know how this played out: The Spurs won the lottery, drafted Duncan and haven’t won fewer than 50 games in a full season since.

It was a double whammy for the Celtics, who actually had a 36.31 percent shot at the top pick. The Dallas Mavericks’ selection belonged to them, thanks to a trade in June 1996 that sent Eric Montross and a 1996 first-rounder to the Mavs in exchange for first-round picks in 1996 and 1997.

But what would a two-year weighting have done to the 1997 lottery?

As it was here were the odds of picking first:

• Vancouver Grizzlies (14-68): 0 percent
• Boston Celtics (15-67): 27.51 percent
• San Antonio Spurs (20-62): 21.6 percent
• Denver Nuggets (21-61): 16.51 percent
• Philadelphia 76ers (22-60): 12.24 percent
• Dallas Mavericks (24-58): 8.8 percent¹
• New Jersey Nets (26-56): 6.05 percent
• Golden State Warriors (30-52): 3.3 percent
• Toronto Raptors (30-52): 0 percent
• Milwaukee Bucks (33-49) 1.51 percent
• Sacramento Kings (34-48): 0.96 percent
• Indiana Pacers (39-43): 0.83 percent
• Cleveland Cavaliers (42-40): 0.69 percent

¹ Boston owned rights to Dallas’ pick from a June 1996 trade.

Now here’s what it looks like with a two-year weighting of records of the non-playoff teams:

• Vancouver (29-135): 0 percent
• Philadelphia (40-124): 27.51 percent
• Boston (48-116): 21.6 percent
• Dallas (50-114): 16.51 percent
• Toronto (51-113): 0 percent
• Denver (56-108): 10.52 percent²
• New Jersey (56-108): 10.52 percent²
• Milwaukee (58-106): 6.05 percent
• Golden State (66-98): 3.3 percent
• Sacramento (73-91): 1.51 percent
• San Antonio (79-85): 0.96 percent
• Cleveland (89-75): 0.83 percent
• Indiana (91-73): 0.69 percent

² Chances equalized by averaging the chances of the actual fifth- and sixth-worst teams.

So the way the draft shook out in 1997, Boston would have won the first pick with its own selection, but their second pick–with the fourth-best chance–would have slid one spot to No. 5.

Denver or New Jersey, with the fifth-best odds each would have moved into the top three at No. 2 and Philadelphia would have picked third.

The rest of the draft order would have been Vancouver, Boston via Dallas, Toronto, Denver/New Jersey, Milwaukee, Golden State, Sacramento, San Antonio, Cleveland and Indiana.

It’s vaguely plausible that Boston’s future turns out differently with Duncan in green-and-white.

It is also likely San Antonio’s future is different with No. 11 pick Tariq Abdul-Wahad rather than Duncan (assuming for the purposes of this exercise the same players go in the same spots).

In last summer’s draft, the Minnesota Timberwolves got the first pick with the best chance of doing so (the first time that had happened since 2004), with the Los Angeles Lakers moving up from fourth to second and Philadelphia holding at No. 3. The New York Knicks dropped from second to fourth.

The rest of the draft order was the Orlando Magic, Sacramento, Denver, the Detroit Pistons, Charlotte Hornets, Miami Heat, Indiana, the Utah Jazz, Phoenix Suns and Oklahoma City Thunder, all in order of record.

Under the WNBA plan, however, the outcome would have been markedly different:

• Philadelphia (37-127)
• A. Lakers/Orlando (48-116)
• New York (54-110)
• Minnesota (56-108)
• Sacramento (57-107)
• Detroit (61-103)
• Utah (63-101)
• Denver (66-98)
• Charlotte (76-88)
• Phoenix (87-77)
• Miami (91-73)
• Indiana (94-70)
• Oklahoma City (104-60)

If the lottery plays out the same way, the 76ers pick first, the Knicks go No. 2 and the Lakers or Orlando either stay at No. 3 or drop to No. 4.

Also of significance: Miami’s top-10 protected pick would have conveyed to the 76ers since it fell to No. 12; the Heat held onto the pick at No. 10 last summer.

The WNBA plan isn’t as radical as the failed proposal the NBA forwarded in 2014, which would have reduced the odds of the worst team winning the lottery and used the drawing to set the top six picks, rather than just the top three as it currently does.

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The tanking problem is as much about perception and it is reality, something commissioner Adam Silver admitted in October 2014.

“I’d say from a personal standpoint what I’m most concerned about is perception out there right now and frankly the pressure on a lot of our teams, even from their very fans, to somehow underperform because it’s in some peoples’ view the most efficient and quickest way to get better.

“I think that’s a corrosive perception out there.”

But the truth of the currently weighted lottery system is still this: Minnesota was just the fifth team since it was instituted in 1994 to come out of the lottery with the first overall pick.

All two-year weighting does is make it harder for a team having one anomalous bad season to land the top overall pick.

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It does nothing to address the root of the perception issue.