Swanson: NBA's anti-tanking pitch might be great for Lakers but definitely is bad for basketball

1 6 min Click here to listen to this article Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print 0:00 0:00 1x This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here. In the NBA, it’s all: “Together, on three!” Or “family, on three!” But when the NBA braintrust breaks a huddle, it’s, “3-2-1, overreact!” The Lakers made their first hire as they expand their front office this offseason, selecting Rohan Ramadas to be an assistant general manager. The NBA’s owners are expected to meet Thursday to approve new “anti-tanking draft reform” via a “3-2-1 lottery.” I just know they’re the type of people who love a good board game — one with rules that take a half-hour to explain, by which time their guests’ eyes have glazed over. Think they’ll get the hint if someone asks, “Y’all got any CLUE instead?” Actually, I’d prefer to turn on the basketball game, that nuanced, ever-evolving sport that’s beautiful for its simplicity: Make or miss. What’s wild is that a league that brings together the world’s best shooters keeps missing so badly on draft reform — unless it’s actually their feet that they’re aiming at. Still, this new reported proposal — which will expand the lottery from 14 teams to 16 and penalize the three worst teams with poorer draft lottery odds than teams with the fourth- through 10th-worst records — might benefit the … Lakers? You know those first-round picks they’ve been holding onto so that, come draft night, they’ll have three to offer in a deal? To use as bargaining chips for either a big name like the Milwaukee Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo or, better yet, to acquire important foundational pieces to retrofit the roster around Luka Doncic? Well, those three first-rounders should be much more valuable if other teams are disincentivized to trade their first-rounders, seeing how even middle-of-the-pack teams will have a shot at winning the lottery. And not only will first-round picks be a rare commodity on the trade market going forward, but the Lakers’ picks could prove more practically valuable than previously imagined. Without this reform, no one would expect the Luka Lakers to be a lottery team. But under the new proposal, all it would take, say, would be their star missing 30 games and the Lakers sliding into the eighth seed, which would give the team holding that pick a 2.7% shot at the No. 1 overall selection. And hold on, wait a minute: Will that give Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka and his growing cast of front-office colleagues pause this offseason? Imagine how it would look if they dealt away a pick that turns into one of the top guys in a future draft for a 3-and-D role player on a team that, for whatever reason, slips into eighth? It wouldn’t look good! It wouldn’t feel good. But would it stop the Lakers from doing what they need to do this offseason? It shouldn’t. But it could! But it shouldn’t! No, really, it shouldn’t: Because after draft night, the Lakers’ next two tradable first-round picks will be in 2031 and 2033 — and, per ESPN, this week’s draft reform proposal will include a sunset provision that would allow it to expire after the 2029 draft. At that point, if they’re smart, the owners would scrap it. Of course, they’ll probably make it even more onerous so they can feel smart? The Lakers need strong defensive players around Doncic, and Austin Reaves, if the duo reunite as the team’s backcourt of the future. No wonder the Lakers went and hired Rohan Ramadas — the guy with an astronautical engineering degree from USC — as an assistant general manager. But what are we doing here? All this variance and randomness, all these rules on top of regulations, none of it is exactly arbitrary, but neither is it fair. Since the draft lottery odds were flattened in 2019, the team with the worst overall record has not once lucked into the No. 1 overall pick. The NFL would never! Oh, that plucky little league. With its antiquated worst-picks-first draft system? Seems to be going OK. The worst thing about what the NBA is up to is how much work they’ve made following along at home. You’ve heard of fan service? This league trades in fan disservice. The league already ceded its regular season to the offseason, leaning into free agency drama as a driving source of year-round intrigue, letting team-building trump teamwork. It already asked fans to bone up on contract law to be able to spell out the differences between the NTMLE (non-taxpayer mid-level salary exception) and RMLE (room mid-level salary exception). Then the NBA introduced rules that incentivized stars to avoid free agency and to try, instead, to get traded — except then the league added a first and second apron to make it harder for teams to trade. So the possibility of a dream sign-and-trade that has fans fired up? Odds are it won’t happen because it can’t; sign-and-trades are not permitted if the player acquired keeps a

Swanson: NBA's anti-tanking pitch might be great for Lakers but definitely is bad for basketball

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