NBA Draft: The Next Evolution

Reimagining the NBA Draft:

Ending Tanking Through an Auction System

From a league perspective, expansion always creates opportunity. More teams mean more markets, more fans, and ultimately more revenue. But expansion also creates risk. Each additional franchise brings the possibility of smaller markets, smaller fan bases, and weaker competitive foundations. If too many teams struggle to compete, the league itself suffers.

For a league to thrive, competitive balance matters. Fans need to believe their team has a chance.

For decades, the NBA’s answer to this problem has been the draft. The idea was simple: reward struggling teams with the youngest and most talented players so they could rebuild and eventually compete.

For a long time, the system worked.

Look at several smaller-market teams that rose to prominence thanks to the draft:

• The Houston Rockets drafted Hakeem Olajuwon, which helped launch a championship era.

• The San Antonio Spurs drafted David Robinson and later Tim Duncan, creating one of the most successful dynasties in NBA history.

• The Cleveland Cavaliers drafted LeBron James, completely transforming the franchise.

It is fair to say that the way we view these franchises today would be very different if those draft moments had never happened. But over time, the draft created an unintended side effect.

The Tanking Problem

The league taught its fans a dangerous lesson:

You have to be bad before you can be good.

As a result, losing became strategic. Entire seasons are now spent positioning for better draft odds. Tanking has existed long enough that it is no longer controversial—it is often accepted or even embraced by fans.

This mentality is not just harmful, it is flawed.

We have collectively convinced ourselves that:

• A. Tanking is acceptable.

• B. This is how it has always been done.

• C. There is no other way to build a contender.

None of these assumptions are true.

A Different Model

What if the draft system rewarded competitiveness instead of failure?

The model we propose focuses on four principles:

• Eliminate the incentive to tank.

• Require competitive play to access elite talent.

• Increase the value of scouting and front-office decision making.

• Encourage stronger player development through the G League.

The result is an Auction Draft System.

The Auction Draft Concept

Each NBA team would receive 100 Draft Points every year.

These points function as draft currency. Teams use them to bid on draft prospects they believe in.

A defining feature is the Top 5 Silent Auction.

The five most highly rated prospects enter a sealed-bid process where teams submit their bids without knowing what other teams offered. The highest bid wins the player.

However, there is one key rule:

Only teams that win at least 30 games may participate in the Top 5 auction.

This immediately changes the mentality across the league.

Thirty wins represents a 30–52 record—still a bad season, but not an uncompetitive one. It creates a baseline standard of effort.

Instead of hoping their team loses, fans, players, and coaches would focus on reaching that 30-win threshold.

What happens to teams that cannot reach 30 wins? Won’t they be stuck there forever?

This fear is largely a product of the tanking culture that the current system has created. For decades, teams have been incentivized to lose in order to improve their draft position. As a result, we often interpret very low win totals as proof that a team simply cannot compete, when in reality many of those teams were never trying to win in the first place.

In most seasons, the teams that finish below 30 wins arrive there by design rather than through an inability to win. Rebuilding teams frequently trade productive veterans, prioritize long-term development over immediate results and structure their rosters around future assets instead of current performance.

7 Teams that will not win 30 games this season:

• The Washington Wizards recently acquired Trae Young and Anthony Davis, immediately shifts them toward competitiveness next season.

  
  

• The Brooklyn Nets focused heavily on long-term upside, drafting too many non-elite guards rather than constructing a balanced roster designed to compete immediately.

  
  

• The Memphis Grizzlies have given in to tanking by trading away Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr.,  Under our  model they could have kept both players, continued to win 30 plus games in hopes of getting the next “not crazy” Ja Morant.

  
  

• The Dallas Mavericks are a mess but even through all of that, this will be a rare sub 30 win season for them.

  
  

• The Utah Jazz are already retooling and could realistically approach the 30-win threshold as their roster develops next season.

  
  

• The Sacramento Kings / New Orleans Pelicans- are hopeless right now. But given time they, like everyone else can get good enough to win 30 games and thus have the ability to get the very best players.

  
  

The number of teams truly incapable of reaching 30 wins is extremely small.

The key point is this: most sub-30 win seasons are strategic, not inevitable.

When losing improves draft position, teams are encouraged to strip down their rosters and accept short-term failure. Under a system that instead rewards competitiveness, those incentives disappear. Teams would structure their organizations around consistently fielding capable rosters, developing depth, and maximizing effort every season.

Why Sub-30 Win Teams Would Become Rare

The reality is that under this model, very few teams would ever fall below 30 wins, and when it did happen it would likely be a one-off scenario (—something like a season destroyed by multiple major injuries.

Because every team receives the same draft capital and access to the same talent pool, the number of realistic opportunities to improve increases dramatically. The result is a league where more teams have a viable path to becoming competitive each season, rather than a system that concentrates hope only among the teams that lose the most.

A League Where Everyone Competes

In an 82-game season with 30 teams, it is mathematically possible for every team to finish 41-41.

Under a system that rewards competitiveness, the league might naturally compress toward something like this:

Tier	Wins
Elite	56–60
Contenders	50–55
Playoff Teams	46–50
Play-In Teams	42–45
Bottom Tier	30–41

In this environment, no team collapses into a 15-win disaster, but the elite teams still separate themselves.

Imagine the excitement late in the season. Instead of rooting for losses, fans of a struggling team with 27 wins and five games remaining would be desperately hoping to reach that 30-win threshold.

Roster Construction Would Change

This system would also reshape how teams spend their salary.

Instead of concentrating massive salaries in two or three stars, teams would prioritize depth and durability. Models similar to those used by the Oklahoma City Thunder or the Indiana Pacers—with strong rotations of eight to twelve players—would become more common.

Teams could not afford to waste seasons developing players slowly. Every year would matter.

The Importance of Scouting

Another key point: the best players in most drafts are not always the top five picks.

Take the 2018 NBA Draft.

If a committee had selected the top five prospects based on pre-draft consensus, the list might have looked like this ( this was the Sports Illustrated top 5 prospects 2 weeks before the NBA Draft in 2018):

1. Deandre Ayton

2. Luka Dončić

3. Jaren Jackson Jr.

4. Marvin Bagley III

5. Mohamed Bamba

In hindsight, only Dončić became a true generational superstar.

But the rest of the draft included players such as:

• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

• Trae Young

• Jalen Brunson

• Mikal Bridges

• Donte DiVincenzo

• Michael Porter Jr.

An auction system would reward teams that identify these players earlier than everyone else.

In other words, scouting and front-office intelligence will still be more important than getting into the silent draft.

Core Mechanics of the System

Annual Distribution

• Every team receives 100 Draft Points per year.

• Points function as league-issued draft currency.

• Allocation is equal regardless of record.

• 
  

Forward Access

• Teams may borrow up to seven years of future points (maximum 700).

• Points roll over indefinitely.

  
  

Trading

• Draft points are fully tradeable.

• Teams must always retain at least 100 total points across the seven-year window.

  
  

Draft Structure

• No rounds

• No lottery

• All prospects enter a league-wide auction pool

  
  

Top 5 Silent Auction

To participate, a team must:

• Win 30+ games

• Retain 50% of previous-season minutes

Eligible teams submit sealed bids for each of the five prospects. The highest bid wins.

Tie-breakers eventually move to a salary cap mechanism, ensuring a final winner.

Open Auction for All Other Players

After the Top 5:

• Players are nominated in ranking order.

• Teams participate in a live ascending auction.

• If no team bids, the player becomes an undrafted free agent.

Rookie Salary Structure

The rookie scale remains intact.

Players are ranked by total draft points spent, which determines their salary slot.

In-Season Tournament Bonus

The winner of the NBA In-Season Tournament receives:

• 30 additional Draft Points

These points roll over if unused.

This incentive adds meaningful value to the In-Season Tournament while reinforcing the goals of the new draft system. It rewards strong teams that compete hard during the season without giving them an overwhelming advantage in the draft process. The bonus is large enough to matter strategically, but small enough to maintain competitive balance across the league.

Expansion Teams

Expansion franchises:

• Receive 100 points annually

• May access seven years of future points

• Automatically qualify for the Top 5 silent auction for their first two seasons

The Future of Drafts

This system—or some variation of it—may represent the future of professional sports drafts.

It removes the incentive to tank, rewards competitiveness, and increases the value of scouting and player development.

Imagine a league where:

• Every team competes every night

• Losing on purpose disappears

• Effort and preparation matter more than draft position

• 
  

The possibility is there.

We just have to take it.