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Philadelphia wins draft lottery reform as NBA votes to keep status quo

The NBA took a vote Wednesday morning on the recent proposal to reform the Draft Lottery. The vote missed it's 23 yays to pass, with a final vote of 17-13.

By Jason Brunskowski
Mike Stobe

As was discussed yesterday, the NBA had a vote Wednesday morning on a proposal to reform the Draft Lottery. It was expected to pass...

However, 13 owners collectively said...

Those 13 owners are...

There's a couple questions worth asking and they go hand in hand:

  1. How did something that had a lot of support fall so far?
  2. Why did each team vote the way they did?

Please understand, this was an owner's vote, not a GM or coach vote.

As for the first question, I guess it depends on where they were getting their sources on support. As the tweet from Mr. Goodwill shows, SVG was for it, but it appears that Tom Gores was not. What happened to the front office and court being on the same page?

Now, think of it this way. An owner does not have a contract and has very little connection to the floor. He may love everything his GM says, love everything his GM and coach do, but he may have absolutely no idea what his team is going to do. Are they going to make the playoffs? What happens if there's a key injury? What happens if I get a lucrative offer to sell the team? Because of these uncertainties, an owner may not like the prospect of being the worst team in the league and somehow ending up with the 7th overall pick in the following draft.

Now as for the second question, though the owner may not have any ties to the floor, they are able to see some things in the future. Many trades have picks involved in them for future years (we're all obviously aware of this...THANKS CLEVELAND!). So, of those teams who voted no, was there a reason?

Phoenix has two first round picks possibly coming their way this year. One is from Minnesota and is top-12 protected this year and next year. The proposed reform would not have likely affected the outcome of this pick this year or next year. However, because of that, it means that Phoenix would likely end up with Minnesota's 2016 and 2017 second round picks instead. The other pick is a top-5 protected pick (this year) from the Lakers. This is also top-3 protected the two following years. The one thing this reform did was give the #6-#9 teams a better chance at moving in the top-5 picks. There's a great chance that LA will not be forfeiting that pick this year anyways (have you seen their roster?)

A lot of people thought Philadelphia would highly be against this reform because of, well, tanking. They are also likely against it because they have a first round pick from Miami on the line this year. It's top-10 protected, so it wouldn't be affected much by this reform, but you don't mess with Philadelphia and their picks. They also have a conditional first rounder going out to Boston, but that's lottery protected (so Boston gets Philadelphia's 2015 and 2016 second round picks instead).

There are 12 teams who have incoming first round picks from trades that are not fully lottery protected. Of those 12, only 5 of those teams voted No. There are also 12 teams who have outbound first round picks that are not fully lottery protected. Of those 12, only 2 of those teams voted No.

(Note: Here's a good link showing all pending picks from previous traded.)

One question I have is why is this an owner's vote? Yes, the owners do have some say in the pick (you should watch Vivek Ranadivé draft room picking Stauskas). However, it's the GMs that do the trading. They are also more connected to the floor as they are more in touch with the other GMs in the league and the coaches of their teams. They also deal with the players some. So why do the owners vote on something such as the draft lottery instead of the coaches and GMs?

So DBB, are you surprised by this outcome? Are you happy with this outcome? What say you?

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