05-28-2026, 07:02 PM
Pro: A live lottery! While ESPN's Brian Windhorst wrote about the "secret" room, sources expect the lottery itself -- not just airing of the results -- to become a live, televised event. No more conspiracy theories. All of it happening in real time. The potential for tremendous theater. How a new lottery would play out is yet to be determined. The NBA's current method -- the first ping-pong ball selected determines the first pick, and so on -- is certainly one possibility, although that would eliminate much of the drama. Picking the 16th team first and going backward to No. 1 makes more sense as a television product. (The league would accomplish this by using a team's final drawn ping-pong ball, rather than its first, to determine draft position.)