By David Aldridge | The Athletic, 2026-04-28 10:00:46
NBA（偶尔）表现出的重锤打击摆烂毒瘤的决心固然值得赞赏，但他们始终忽视了那些“钉子户”球队的顽固与韧性。
联盟致力于减少最恶劣的摆烂形式——即长达数年的连轴转摆烂——试图让更多球队全面投入到常规赛赢球中。然而，联盟在寻求完美解决方案、试图涵盖所有突发状况的过程中，始终忽视了其面临的最显著问题：超级巨星供不应求。许多球队根本无法获得一位球星，更不用说两位了。
因此，如果你坚持保留现有的选秀/抽签模式，那么更大的问题就不在于球队年复一年的摆烂。更大的问题在于，球队看不到任何其他更好的方式来改善阵容，无论是通过自由球员市场还是交易。选秀的初衷本是帮助联盟中表现最差的球队通过获得顶尖的大学或国际新秀，从而更快地变强。但据报道，最近一项正受到关注的抽签改革提案反而会让这些球队更难实现这一目标。
联盟在上个月底的一次会议上向董事会提出了三项潜在的抽签改革方案。目前得到许多（并非全部）球队支持的版本是将乐透球队的数量从目前的14支增加到18支。这14支球队目前包括10支未进入附加赛的球队和4支在附加赛中被淘汰的球队。
根据该提案，常规赛战绩最差的10支球队（即未进入附加赛的球队）将各自拥有8%的概率获得状元签，而乐透区剩下的8支球队将按递减的百分比瓜分剩余的20%概率。目前，常规赛战绩最差的三支球队各拥有14%的状元签概率，第5到第14名的概率则依次递减。
其逻辑非常直观。在拟议的改革下，如果第1名到第10名的球队都拥有8%的状元签概率，那么球队就不再有动力为了最大化前三顺位的机会而尽可能多地输球。因此，重建中的球队会更倾向于努力赢球，而不是为了摆烂培养年轻球员而绞尽脑汁地在阵容和上场时间上玩弄花招。
从理论上讲，这听起来像是一个合理的解决方案。但它也留下了产生意想不到后果的可能性。
最显而易见的一点是，一支在赛季末接近附加赛门槛的球队将面临选择：是全力以赴争夺附加赛席位（这将导致在即将到来的选秀中获得顶级新秀的概率降低，且在季后赛中走得很远的希望渺茫），还是干脆放弃附加赛，选择在最后阶段摆烂，以确保有更好的机会在选秀中获得潜在的球星。
这并非空谈，而是已经发生过的事实。达拉斯独行侠队似乎并不在乎联盟在2023年因其故意轮休健康主力而处以的75万美元罚款；德里克·莱弗利二世 (Dereck Lively II) 正是他们在几周前放弃附加赛机会后在2023年选秀中选中的球员，他帮助球队在随后的赛季打入了NBA总决赛。
或者，从另一个角度来看。
今年的附加赛失利者是洛杉矶快船队、迈阿密热火队、金州勇士队和夏洛特黄蜂队。无论是因为年龄、伤病还是位置短缺，他们目前的形态都不是真正的竞争者。
但是。
快船队拥有科怀·伦纳德 (Kawhi Leonard)、达里厄斯·加兰 (Darius Garland) 和贝内迪克特·马图林 (Bennedict Mathurin) 作为建队核心，身处全美第二大媒体市场，拥有价值20亿美元的球馆，且老板是全球第15大富豪。热火队自2006年以来获得了三个NBA总冠军，在过去23个赛季中18次打入季后赛，并明确表达了对摆烂的蔑视。金州勇士队作为联盟最近一个王朝已接近尾声，自2015年以来获得四次冠军，但仍拥有联盟最著名的两位门面人物之一——斯蒂芬·库里 (Stephen Curry) 在场上冲锋陷阵。
黄蜂队在经历多年的低谷后终于重返季后赛，他们不仅通过引入强大的管理层和教练组重回正轨，还精准地把握住了近年的选秀，最近的一笔是2025年的首轮秀康·克内佩尔 (Kon Knueppel)。随着拉梅洛·鲍尔 (LaMelo Ball)、布兰登·米勒 (Brandon Miller)、克内佩尔、穆萨·迪亚巴特 (Moussa Diabaté) 以及新近交易获得的科比·怀特 (Coby White) 成为核心，黄蜂队已经步入正轨。
试想一下，如果新的改革方案在今年实施，会产生怎样的反应？比如，概率被摊平的勇士队正好超越了犹他爵士、华盛顿奇才和印第安纳步行者，抽中了状元签，抢到了像AJ·迪班萨 (AJ Dybantsa) 这样的新超级巨星，他可以无缝衔接库里在湾区一代人的影响力。或者，快船队可以顺理成章地勾搭上达林·彼得森 (Darryn Peterson)，让直觉穹顶球馆 (Intuit Dome) 在未来十年座无虚烈？再或者，向来不缺自由球员青睐的迈阿密，为巴姆·阿德巴约 (Bam Adebayo) 和泰勒·希罗 (Tyler Herro) 找来了一个像卡梅隆·布泽尔 (Cameron Boozer) 这样的顶级搭档，并以新秀合同锁定五年？
我绝不是在暗示在这些情况下抽签会被操纵。但即使我们都承认抽签是公平进行的，全联盟的球迷会如何看待这样的结果？
我不确定奥林匹克大厦（NBA总部）是否意识到，这种侵蚀才是比摆烂更大的威胁：即整个球迷群体越来越确信他们的球队永远无法获得顶级新秀。
如果我们铁了心要保留抽签和选秀制度，那么让烂队更难获得顶级新秀，同时显著增加那些并不真正需要更多年轻天才的球队获得天才的机会，这如何能让联盟变得更好？我们可以把这称为“呃，马刺队刚刚选到了维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 和斯蒂芬·卡斯尔 (Stephon Castle)；我们是不是该让他们获得迪伦·哈珀 (Dylan Harper) 的难度也增加一点？”修正案。
在现代NBA中，大市场球队凭借全球品牌的影响力——是的，甚至延伸到了俄克拉荷马城——所拥有的优势，并不像社交媒体上那些悲观主义者让你相信的那么大。但是，他们确实有一些优势。其中最大的优势就是他们不需要通过选秀来增加改变比赛实力的天才。
我也许是错的。但如果扬尼斯·阿德托昆博 (Giannis Antetokounmpo) 正式要求从雄鹿队交易走，例如，无论他多么热爱中等市场的密尔沃基，他的首选目的地名单很可能不会包括印第安纳、孟菲斯或萨克拉门托。每当有超级巨星可以被交易时，这就是一种既定的计算：联盟中80%的球队从一开始就被排除在讨论之外。
此外，自由球员市场正在逐渐枯竭，越来越多的球队和球员更倾向于锁定大合同，通过在球员进入市场前很久就给予续约合同，来获得至少一定程度的成本确定性。第二土豪线薪资门槛和其他旨在创造球队间财务平衡的处罚措施，也使得交易比以往任何时候都更难达成。
现在，积累了巨大薪资空间的球队发现，将现有的顶薪合同交易到这些空间中，比徒劳地等待球星成为完全自由球员（联盟中许多人现在称之为“预备自由球员期”）更有意义。这就是奇才队在交易截止日前决定交易获得特雷·杨 (Trae Young) 和安东尼·戴维斯 (Anthony Davis)，而不是在今年夏天为平庸的自由球员支付溢价的原因。
这使得选秀成为了大多数挣扎中的球队仍然可以增加有前途的年轻天才的唯一场所，尽管它并不完美。（重申一次：我会废除它。但我知道这不会发生。）因此，无论你如何摊平概率，摆烂仍然是确保获得这些天才的最可行方法。
球队摆烂已经有几十年了。如果你能在选秀高顺位获得一位真正的超级巨星，那么联盟的处罚，无论是罚款还是剥夺未来的选秀权，都是非常值得的赌博。因为，说真的，安东尼·爱德华兹 (Anthony Edwards) 对森林狼队的价值是多少？或者凯德·坎宁安 (Cade Cunningham) 对活塞队的价值又是多少？
“你可以在选秀中得到一个估值3亿美元的人，”一位总经理指出。
2021年选秀状元凯德·坎宁安本赛季带领活塞队获得60胜并取得东部第一的战绩。(Rick Osentoski / Imagn Images)
所以，为什么很难理解像犹他、布鲁克林和华盛顿这样的球队想要拥有自己的年轻新星，并以此为基础优化构建争冠球队？又为什么很难理解，当他们的球迷看到达拉斯这支参加了2024年NBA总决赛的球队，在六个月内就用库珀·弗拉格 (Cooper Flagg) 取代了他们之前的超级巨星卢卡·东契奇 (Luka Dončić)，或者看到马刺队——这不是他们的错，但事实如此——在连续三次选秀中选中了文班亚马和另外两名顶级新秀时，会感到出离愤怒？而他们的球队除了再次虚度一个赛季外别无选择？
如果董事会通过了目前的提案，达拉斯获得弗拉格这种好运很可能会重演。而且，新系统还会为那些积累了大量选秀权的球队巩固优势。
俄克拉荷马雷霆队已经手握快船队2027年的选秀权互换权和独行侠队2028年的首轮互换权。圣安东尼奥马刺队拥有老鹰队2027年的首轮签，2030年马刺、独行侠或森林狼之间最有利的首轮签（仅前一顺位保护），以及与萨克拉门托国王队2031年的首轮互换权。在拟议的系统下，雷霆或马刺在未来几年赢得NBA总冠军，然后几天后通过选秀权互换或直接拥有他队选秀权而兑现一个状元签的可能性，不仅不是零，而且非常大。
如果我们必须保留选秀，那么至少让我们回到1985年实施抽签制度之前的旧制度：按照常规赛战绩的倒序进行选秀，就像NFL（美国职业橄榄球大联盟）现在所做的那样。（你注意到没有，热爱NFL的人根本不在乎拉斯维加斯突袭者队在去年赛季末摆烂，以便在上周的选秀中用状元签选中印第安纳大学的四分卫费尔南多·门多萨 (Fernando Mendoza)？或者有六支棒球队在7月4日之前就失去了季后赛希望？）
在倒序选秀制度下，犹他爵士去年就能用状元签选中弗拉格，华盛顿奇才则会用榜眼签选中哈珀。猜猜看会发生什么？犹他和华盛顿在刚刚过去的这个赛季就会从摆烂的旋转木马上跳下来。也许不是永远，但至少会维持一段时间。接下来就该轮到别人把翻身的希望寄托在选秀顶端的迪班萨、彼得森或布泽尔身上了。
或者，至少NBA可以实施类似于MLB（美国职业棒球大联盟）的选秀规则，该规则与通过收入共享从其他俱乐部获得资金的球队挂钩。在棒球界，如果你是税收接收方，你不能连续三年获得乐透签。如果你是处于第二档竞争平衡税门槛顶端的纳税球队，如道奇、大都会或扬基，你不能连续两年在前六顺位选人。而一支获得状元签的球队，无论其财务状况如何，在次年的选秀顺位都不能高于第10位。
在球场上，棒球曾试图通过逻辑推导理想化的结果，其球队全力投入数据分析，想出了像“内野移位”这样的防守策略。这在逻辑上是通的；打击率降到了冰点，垒上人数大幅减少，盗垒也变得寥寥无几。投手知道半个球场都被封锁了，从而统治了打者。你不需要一支充满活力的进攻球队来应对每一晚的比赛，只需要几个能打出本垒打的人就行了。
然而，MLB发现许多球迷仍然喜欢触击、盗垒和右外野的一垒安打，并在几年前取消了几乎所有形式的扼杀激情的移位防守，同时实施了投球计时器以加快比赛节奏。棒球遵循数据得出了逻辑结论，发现人们不希望比赛被设计成停滞状态，于是做出了改变，让比赛对球迷和球队来说更精彩，同时保留了那些能打出本垒打的球员。双赢。
同样，NBA可以继续追求抽签的完美化，或者意识到其所有解决方案都没有解决更深层的底层问题：即作为每个联盟、尤其是这个联盟命脉的精英天才，是如何分配的。
让最差的球队得到最好的年轻新秀，永无止境的摆烂就会消退。这种行为将重新变回NBA生态系统中的一个缺陷，而不是一项特征。
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：NBA Draft lottery proposals don't address the underlying reason behind tanking
NBA Draft lottery proposals don’t address the underlying reason behind tanking
The NBA’s (occasionally) admirable attempts to bring the hammer to the scourge of tanking continue to ignore the tenacity and recalcitrance of nails.
The league is committed to trying to reduce the most egregious forms of tanking — the multi-year versions — in its attempts to get more of its teams to participate fully in actually trying to win games during the regular season. But its attempts to find perfection in potential solutions, to try and account for every contingency, continue to ignore the most salient problem it faces: There aren’t enough superstars to go around. And many of the league’s teams can’t get one, much less two.
So, if you’re committed to keeping the current draft/lottery format, the bigger issue isn’t teams tanking year after year. The bigger issue is that teams don’t see any other, better way to improve their rosters, either through free agency or trades. The whole point of the draft is to help the league’s worst-performing franchises get better, faster, by getting them access to the top prospects coming out of college or international basketball. But the latest proposal for lottery reform reportedly gaining traction will make it even harder for those teams to do so.
The league proposed three potential lottery reforms to its Board of Governors during a meeting late last month. The version of one currently supported by many — not all — teams would increase the number of lottery teams from the current 14, which includes the 10 teams that don’t make the Play-In round and the four teams that don’t get out of the Play-In round, to 18.
Under the league’s proposal, the 10 teams with the worst regular-season records — the teams that don’t make the Play-In round — would get equal 8 percent odds at getting the top pick in the draft, with the other eight teams in the lottery splitting the remaining 20 percent odds in decreasing percentages. Currently, the three teams with the worst regular-season records each have 14 percent odds of getting the top pick, with teams five through 14 having decreasing odds for the first selection.
The reasoning is straightforward enough. Under the proposed reform, if team Nos. 1 through 10 all had 8-percent odds at the first pick, there would no longer be any incentive to lose as much as possible in order to maximize a team’s chances at a top-three pick. Thus, rebuilding teams would be more inclined to try and win games rather than twisting themselves into roster/minutes pretzels to tank develop their young players.
In theory, this sounds like a reasonable solution. But it also leaves open the potential for unintended consequences.
The most obvious is that a team nearing the end of the season in Play-In contention would face the choice of going all-out for that Play-In berth, which would lead to lesser odds at the top prospects in the upcoming draft, with a not-great shot at going far in the playoffs — or deciding not to go for the Play-In at all and opt to tank down the stretch, to ensure a better chance at getting a potential star in the draft.
This isn’t theoretical. It’s already happened. The Dallas Mavericks did not seem to mind much at all the $750,000 fine the league imposed on them in 2023 for deliberately resting healthy starters; Dereck Lively II, the player they took in the 2023 draft by blowing off their chances at a Play-In berth a few weeks earlier, helped them get to the NBA Finals the following season.
Or, look at it from the other end of the telescope.
This year’s Play-In round losers were the LA Clippers, Miami Heat, Golden State Warriors and Charlotte Hornets. None of them, whether because of age or injury or position deficiency, is a real contender in their current forms.
But.
The Clippers have Kawhi Leonard, Darius Garland and Bennedict Mathurin to build around, play in the country’s No. 2 media market, in a $2 billion arena, and are owned by the 15th-richest person on Earth. The Heat have won three NBA titles since 2006 and have made the playoffs 18 times in the last 23 seasons and have made their disdain for tanking clear. Golden State is at the end of its run as the league’s most recent dynasty, with four championships since 2015, but still has one of the two most prominent faces of the league in Stephen Curry firing away.
Charlotte’s new to the postseason after years in the wilderness but has righted its ship not only through bringing in a strong front office and coaching staff, but by nailing recent drafts, most recently with 2025 first-round pick Kon Knueppel. With LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, Knueppel, Moussa Diabaté and the newly acquired Coby White among their core, the Hornets are in business.
Just ask yourself what the reaction would be if the new proposed reforms were in place this year, and, say, the Warriors, with flattened lottery odds, just happened to jump over Utah and Washington and Indiana for the top pick, snagging a brand-new superstar like AJ Dybantsa, who could seamlessly replace Curry’s wattage in the Bay for a generation? Or, if the Clippers could conveniently slide into Darryn Peterson’s DMs and sell out the Intuit Dome for the next decade? Or Miami, which doesn’t have much trouble being linked to free agents, got itself a blue-chip partner for Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro like Cameron Boozer, locked in at rookie-scale rates for five years?
I’m not at all implying the lottery is, or would be, rigged in these cases. But even if we all agreed it was conducted on the level, what would fans around the league think about outcomes like those?
I’m not sure it registers in Olympic Tower that this is the corrosion that is a greater threat to the league than tanking: the increasing certainty with which entire fan bases believe their teams will never get an elite prospect.
If we’re hellbent on keeping the lottery and draft, how does making it even harder for bad teams to access the best prospects, while significantly increasing the chances that teams that don’t really need more young talent can get it, make the league better? We can call this the “Uh, the Spurs just drafted Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle; shouldn’t we make it a little harder for them to get Dylan Harper, too?” amendment.
The advantages big-market teams have in the modern NBA, with the reach of global brands extending everywhere — yes, even to Oklahoma City — aren’t nearly as great as the Eeyores on social media would have you believe. But, they do have some. Among the biggest is that they don’t need the draft to add difference-making talent.
I could be wrong. But if and when Giannis Antetokounmpo officially asks to be traded from the Bucks, for example, it’s not likely his list of preferred destinations, no matter his love for mid-market Milwaukee, will include the likes of Indiana, Memphis or Sacramento. That’s baked into the calculus whenever a superstar becomes available via trade: 80 percent of the league is shut out of the discussion from the jump.
In addition, free agency is withering on the vine, with more teams and players more interested in locking in big contracts and at least some measure of cost certainty by giving players extensions well before they ever hit the market. The second-apron payroll threshold and other financial penalties designed to create some semblance of financial parity among teams have also made trades more difficult to pull off than ever.
Teams that amass huge cap space now find it makes much more sense to trade existing big contracts into those spaces rather than waiting in vain for star players to reach unrestricted free agency — what many around the league now call “pre-agency.” This was the call the Wizards made in making deals for Trae Young and Anthony Davis before the trade deadline, rather than overpay for middling free agent talent this summer.
That leaves the draft as the one place, imperfect though it is, where most struggling teams can still add promising young talent. (Again: I’d get rid of it. But I know that’s not going to happen.) And, thus, tanking remains a viable method to have the best chance to secure that talent, no matter how much you flatten the odds.
Teams have tanked for decades. Penalties from the league, whether fines or taking away future draft picks, are still well worth the gamble if you get a true superstar high in the draft. Because, really, what is Anthony Edwards’ worth to the Timberwolves? Or Cade Cunningham’s to the Pistons?
“You can get someone (in the draft) who has a $300 million valuation,” one GM noted.
Cade Cunningham, the top pick in the 2021 draft, led the Pistons to 60 wins and the top record in the East this season. (Rick Osentoski / Imagn Images)
So, why is it hard to understand why teams like Utah, Brooklyn and Washington want their own young rising superstars, around whom they can optimally build contending teams? And why is it hard to understand that their fan bases are beyond apoplectic when they see Dallas, a team that was in the 2024 NBA Finals, replace their former superstar in Luka Dončić with another one in Cooper Flagg within six months, or see the Spurs — it’s not their fault, but still — add Wemby and two more blue-chip prospects in three straight drafts? While their teams are left with no choice but to, again, burn another season?
If the Board of Governors codified this current proposal, Dallas’ stroke of good fortune in getting Flagg would likely be repeated. And, the new system would also bake in advantages for teams that have built up massive draft caches.
Oklahoma City already has a 2027 pick swap with the Clippers and a 2028 first-round swap with the Mavericks in its back pocket. San Antonio has Atlanta’s 2027 first outright, the most favorable first-round pick in 2030 between itself, Dallas or Minnesota (protected only for the first pick overall) and a 2031 first-round swap with Sacramento. Under this proposed system, the chances of either the Thunder or Spurs winning an NBA title in the next few years, then cashing in days later with the first pick in the draft via a pick swap or outright ownership of another team’s pick, are not only not zero, but quite plausible.
If we have to keep the draft, let’s at least go back to the old system before the implementation of the lottery in 1985: draft in inverse order of regular-season record, as the NFL still does. (You notice that no one who loves the NFL cares much at all that the Las Vegas Raiders tanked at the end of last season to be able to take Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza first overall in last week’s draft? Or that a half-dozen baseball teams are out of playoff contention before the Fourth of July?)
Under a reverse-order-draft-again system, Utah would have gotten Flagg last year with the first pick, and Washington would have taken Harper second. And, guess what? Utah and Washington would have gotten off the tanking merry-go-round this past season. Maybe not forever, but certainly for a while. It would be someone else’s turn to pin their hopes of a turnaround on getting one of Dybantsa or Peterson or Boozer at the top of the draft.
Or, at least, the NBA could implement a version of MLB’s draft rules, which are connected to teams that receive funds from other clubs via revenue sharing. If you’re a tax recipient in baseball, you can’t get a lottery pick in three consecutive drafts. If you’re a tax-paying team at the top of the second competitive-balance tax threshold, such as the Dodgers, Mets or Yankees, you can’t pick in the top six in back-to-back years. And a team that gets the first pick in a draft, no matter its financial standing, can’t pick higher than 10th in the following year’s draft.
On the field, baseball tried to logic its way to idealized outcomes, with its teams leaning all the way into analytics to come up with defensive strategies like the shift. And, it made sense; batting averages dropped to almost nothing, and with far fewer people on base, stolen bases slowed to a trickle. Pitchers, knowing half of the field was now taken away, dominated hitters. You didn’t need a dynamic offensive team to compete night in and night out, just a couple of guys who could hit bombs.
Yet MLB found out that many of its fans still liked bunts and steals and singles to right field, and nuked almost all versions of the excitement-killing shift a couple of years ago, along with implementing a pitch clock to speed up its game times. Baseball followed the numbers to their logical conclusion, saw people didn’t want the game engineered into stasis, and made changes to make the game more exciting for its fans and teams while keeping the guys around who could hit bombs. Win-win.
Similarly, the NBA can keep seeking lottery perfection, or realize that none of its solutions address the bigger underlying problem of how elite talent, the lifeblood of every league — but especially this one — gets distributed.
Get the worst teams the best young prospects, and non-stop tanking will ebb. The practice will go back to being a bug, not a feature, of the NBA ecosystem.
By David Aldridge, via The Athletic