NBA May Tinker With the Lottery

Cypress trees line the hotel driveway here at the NBA’s annual league meetings. And most coaches and general managers are concerned with tee times, not collective-bargaining agreements.

Only minor changes and adoptions are expected at these meetings, which run through Sunday. The biggest may be a revamping of the lottery system to give the truly bad teams more of an opportunity to get the top pick. Other changes may include changes in interpretation of the zone-defense rules.

Otherwise, there’s the desert heat to contend with, a few miles from the site of the Skins Game and the Bob Hope Desert Classic.

The lottery move comes at a time when more than a third of the league’s teams will be involved next year. With 11 non-playoff teams slated for it, the current system has a feeling of unwieldiness -- with each non-playoff team having an equal opportunity to obtain the top choice, as last year, when the Bullets could have either had the top pick or the ninth pick or one of several in between.

At the draft lottery there was some question about the fairness of a system in which the consensus choice for worst team in the league -- Miami -- could slip down to No. 4. The Heat wound up picking behind Sacramento, the Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio after it was not one of the top three teams chosen.

The new system would run along the same lines as the NFL’s supplemental draft. The worst team would have chances weighed in its favor by having its team represented more frequently. The worst team would have 11 chances, the next worst 10, and so on.

All recommendations from the committees meeting here must be approved later by the NBA’s Board of Governors.