The NBA Draft Is Bad for Business
Too many teams lost too many games in pursuit of potentially transformative players.
With the NBA playoffs still in their opening round, it’s too soon to tell how the 2025-26 season will be remembered. It could be the year the New York Knicks end a 52-year championship drought, or the Oklahoma City Thunder lay claim to a dynasty, or LeBron James, at 41, makes an improbable run to another title. Whatever happens this June, the lasting story of the regular season is already clear—and it’s not a happy one for the league. This was the year of the tank: More teams than ever apparently tried to lose as many games as possible to improve their chances of securing a top pick in the draft.
The NBA has an incentive problem. Every June, after the Finals, the league holds a draft in which teams select the best young players coming out of college and from around the world. The draft order is determined by how teams finish during the regular season, with the best team getting the last pick and so on. For the 14 worst teams—those that don’t make the playoffs—there is a lottery, held this year on May 10, to determine the opening sequence. It’s an arcane system, involving ping-pong balls and an air-powered “lottery machine,” where a worse record grants you better odds of a top pick.