by Jt Clark

Created on: September 11, 2009   Last Updated: September 15, 2009

The NBA Draft lottery is the most important part of team building in the NBA. The draft itself started with virtually no lottery, similar to the NFL format, teams picked in reverse order of their regular season record. Worst record first, best record last. But, in 1949, the territorial pick was put into place. This pick allowed a team to choose any player from its own state, but made the team forfeit their first round pick. Some notables players drafted using this rule were Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain, and Jerry Lucas. Not too shabby, and you could probably guess that this rule would be changed, as it derived many teams of a chance at great players. So, the rule was changed in 1966, when the Draft went under some considerable changes.

In 1966, the NBA Draft lottery started to form a bit, in a very small way, with the teams with the two worst records flipping a coin for the first pick. The winner received pick number one, the loser gets number two, and the rest of the draft goes on in the same way, reverse record order. This system seemed fair enough, giving the two worst teams a 50/50 chance at first pick, and with the Territorial pick gone, the draft started looking more interesting. Some notable players drafted under this system include Bob Lanier, Bill Walton, David Thompson, and Magic Johnson. By now, more people were wanting a chance at that almighty first pick. What is the NBA going to do about it?

The 1984 draft showed some flaws in the coin flip format. The Houston Rockets won the flip that year, but were accused, along with other teams of purposely losing games to have a chance at the first pick. So, the NBA decided that something had to be done. So, after the draft they changed the format. Every team that did not make the NBA Playoffs, got their name put in an envelope. The names were taken out 1 by 1, until every team was selected. The first year of this early lottery format resulted in Patrick Ewing, going to the New York Knicks. Each team had an even chance of winning. This format was changed in 1996, so that 3 teams would be pulled for the top 3 picks. Then the order would go worst record team to best, like older formats.

In 1990, the weighted lottery system came to be. That is the format used today. In this format, all non-playoff teams are given a certain chance out of 66. The team with the worst record gets the most chances, second worst gets second most, and so on, until we get to playoff teams. Playoff teams go by worst to best record. In 1993, the league modified this format to give the worst team a better chance of winning, and the best a worse chance. The amount of chances was moved up to 1000, and the first pick team receives 250 chances(25%) opposed to the original 11 of 66 (16.67%). The draft has not changed since.

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