The Brooklyn Nets are 0-4, the first week of the NBA season is almost in the books, and the conversation around their rebuild is already moving beyond the present. Friday’s NBA Cup meeting with the visiting Detroit Pistons is next on the schedule, but one leaguewide question has landed on Brooklyn’s doorstep: does the new NBA lottery system really change how teams think about tanking?
John Hollinger of The Athletic laid out why the answer could still be yes for the Nets. Brooklyn traded away its first-round pick to the Houston Rockets through the Mikal Bridges deal, which would normally wipe out any reason to lose games on purpose. But Hollinger pointed out that the picture is a little more complicated than that.
“Take this season’s Brooklyn Nets, for instance. They owe their first-round pick to the Houston Rockets via a swap from the Mikal Bridges trade,” Hollinger wrote. His larger point was that even with the league’s updated draft lottery setup, some teams may still find motivation to chase better draft odds.
“Normally, you’d think this would give them no incentive to tank. But in this instance, not quite,” Hollinger continued.
“The Nets do control their first-round pick in 2028 and would seem to have a decent chance of again having one of the league’s 10 worst records and an 8.1 percent shot at the top pick. However, the Nets will be ineligible to win the 2028 lottery if they win it in 2027 - even if that pick goes to Houston”
That’s the wrinkle for Brooklyn. The Nets don’t control their 2027 first-round pick, which goes to Houston, but if that pick lands in the top five, it still affects their future lottery eligibility. Under the current system, a 2027 lottery win would block them from winning the 2028 lottery, the year they actually hold their own first-round selection.
So while the old setup left Brooklyn with nothing to gain from losses, the new one creates a smaller, more complicated incentive structure. The NBA’s own view, as noted in the report, is that the benefit would only come from improving their odds by 0.02% on the high end.
For a team already staring at an early 0-4 hole, that’s the sort of detail that could matter later.
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Day'Ron Sharpe also gave the Nets a lift inside with 15 points and 13 rebounds, a reminder that the roster can still produce when pieces are missing. Even so, the win came with a familiar caveat for Brooklyn, which was already playing without Egor Demin and Mikel Brown Jr., leaving the team to lean heavily on its depth and on Traores ability to settle things down when the game tightened. [Read more 🡒]
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His impact showed up in Brooklyns first win of the season, when he finished with 14 points, six rebounds and a block. He has also knocked down at least one three-pointer in every game so far, a steady sign of how quickly he has become part of the rotation as the Nets head into an upcoming matchup with the Knicks. [Read more 🡒]