The WNBA bases its draft lottery odds on a team’s combined record over the previous two seasons — not just one.

That means a franchise can’t simply bottom out for a single year, reset expectations, and chase a generational prospect. To earn the best odds, a team has to demonstrate sustained struggle. It rewards long-term rebuilding, not short-term collapse.

Meanwhile, in the NBA, flattened lottery odds were supposed to discourage tanking. Instead, they’ve arguably changed the math. Teams no longer need to finish with the league’s worst record. They just need to stay in the lower tier and hope for upward movement on lottery night.

We’ve seen it happen — teams outside the very bottom jumping into the top four and landing franchise-changing players. That unpredictability creates drama, but it also raises questions about incentives.

If competitive balance is truly the goal, which system protects it better?

Is it the NBA’s model, which prioritizes lottery volatility and discourages outright races to the bottom? Or the WNBA’s approach, which ties draft advantage to multi-year performance trends and makes “one-year tank jobs” far less effective?

Would a two-year system in the NBA actually curb tanking — or would it slow down necessary rebuilds and punish teams trying to reset quickly?

At a time when lottery positioning conversations start before the All-Star break, this feels like more than a theoretical debate.

Should the NBA seriously consider adopting the WNBA’s model?