NBA's 18-Team Lottery Explained: Will It Actually Stop Tanking?

The NBA's 18-team lottery proposal is worth breaking down carefully.⁣
⁣
The key piece: the bottom 10 teams all get equal odds. That changes the incentive structure significantly. Right now there's a real reward for being the worst team in the league. Under this model, you're competing to be mediocre rather than competing to lose, which is probably the point.⁣
⁣
Also notable: seeds 7 and 8 would now be lottery-eligible. That means conference standing starts to matter in a new way. A team that finishes 7th in the West instead of 7th in the East could be looking at very different lottery positioning.⁣
⁣
Shams is reporting three proposals total, with a formal vote expected in May. My read is one of these gets passed. The question is which one and what modifications get made before the vote.⁣
⁣
I break down all three concepts in this clip.