Overview
- The 2026 draft lottery, which airs Sunday at 3 p.m. ET on ABC, will use the current system with Washington, Indiana and Brooklyn each holding 14% odds for No. 1.
- Under the leading ‘3-2-1’ concept, the lottery would expand to 16 teams with every top-16 pick drawn, giving three balls to teams 4–10 by record, two to the bottom three, and one to the 7–8 play-in losers.
- The plan adds guardrails by banning back-to-back No. 1 picks and three straight top-five selections for a team, blocking protections on traded picks 12–15, and allowing the league to cut odds or move picks as tanking penalties, with a sunset in 2029.
- Executives are pressing for edge-case answers, and league guidance reported by The Athletic says a team could keep No. 1 picks in consecutive years if the second comes via another team’s traded pick.
- Critics argue the format could shift tanking incentives to play-in fringes and squeeze the league’s worst teams, and any change still needs Board of Governors approval to take effect as soon as 2027.