The Deep 3 Podcast - This New Rule Will Change The NBA Forever | TD3 Clips

Episode Date: May 6, 2026

The NBA lottery changes the NBA is considering will change the NBA forever! #nba   Check out the TD3 merch: https://the-deep-3-shop.fourthwall.com/   Listen on Spotify!: https://open.spotify.com/show/3elbbqVumwqz8wlIdknsLW   Listen on Apple Podcasts!: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-deep-3-podcast/id1657940794   Follow us on TikTok!: https://www.tiktok.com/@thedeepthree   Follow us on Instagram!: https://www.instagram.com/thedeep3podcast/   Isaac's twitter: https://twitter.com/byisaacg   Mo's twitter: https://twitter.com/Mojo99_   Donnavan's twitter: https://twitter.com/Dsmoot3D Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We have one new story we have to talk about today. We've been talking a lot in the recent months about the clear changes the NBA are going to make to the NBA lottery. They're done with tanking. They said, by any means necessary, we will fix this issue. And it seems we finally have the solution they are going to implement. It was reported that this is probably going to be it. Beesoles pull this up. MBA proposes new lottery system to crack down on tanking.

The lottery is expanded from 14 teams to 16 teams. With the relegation zone being the bottom three, you get worse odds. is the number one pick. Teams outside the bottom three get three lottery balls opposed to two for the worst three teams. Playing teams

also receive lottery balls varied by seeds. No team can win the number one pick in back-to-back years. No team can get three straight top five picks so like what the spurges did

can't happen. NBA teams or NBA can punish teams tanking by reducing their odds or moving picks and the system will run through 2029 as a trial. How do we feel about all this? very very polarizing to start out positive i think it makes it interesting because

yo this is the best time to be mid this is the best time to be in the middle what do you mean you could be a team like this charler horace for example from this year and luck yourself out of play yourself out of the playoffs and now you're telling me you could land like a top two pick and get someone like de bonson that's not happening this year but as for instance that's like this is the best time to be mid because you could be somewhat in position and Instead of like, I feel like this rule is good because, okay, like for a lot of teams, if you're middling in, if you're a middleing in the pack team, instead of like making yourself be really asked what you see a lot of teams exaggerate things and drag things and sell off everything. Like the Memphis, for instance, like they were, they were bad, but they're not like this level of bad. They're not a 27 or 28 win team like we've seen them be this year.

They could have been decent. And I think you're completely taken away the shamelessness when it comes to it by flattening, which is like, Like the interesting part of I'm being positive. Yeah. Okay. Since we started this conversation, my initial thought was Tinkin's kind of an unmitigated reality. That you can't say that anything causes it,

but it will be there. That you do need teams that are bad because that's how they get good. They get the best players. And that's how parity happens, right? That the idea of trying to stop teams from being really bad, whether it be on purpose or just because they're bad

is kind of a fool's errand to me in a league that needs parity long term and needs the way for the worst teams to get better. So the idea of addressing that issue at first to me was just kind of unnecessary and doing too much and could just alter the fabric with the league a little bit too much, right?

Now that I see this, I do still believe that if everything was up to me, I would ignore the people on fucking outkick and Fox News saying the NBA is dying and the takings of the reason and just like not let that PR battle go towards them and just try to do some small stuff but not do anything too crazy.

But if I'm allowing myself to believe that Adam Silver is right and that tanking is a huge portion of the NBA's identity that needs to be solved that we can't stand for martial basketball being terrible. I think this specific formula of rules could have good effects for their goals.

So do you guys care about it for the bottom teams? Because like if you're in the bottom three and you get fewer ping pong balls, then your opportunity to get a, to get a, to get a win, B to get a K, like that's lower.

Does that matter a lot for all? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, let me show the graphic first so we can talk about it. This is a visualizer. So currently, the top four teams have the best odds, right? The dark green. Now it will be the middle teams have the best odds. The worst teams have the same odds as the midteams.

So the idea here, before I answer your question, is that instead of bottoming out, you're encouraged just as much trying to make the play in. So when we get to March and your team that's in the middle, and let's say you're in a position that you can go either way, there's just as much incentive for you to try to beat the Bulls and you try to be the 10 seed

because you get the same amount of odds. So if there's eight teams that suck ass right now and four decide to try to make a play and push because there's no reason from them and try to go to the bottom because it weighs out the same, that'll be more good basketball games, that'd be more watchable basketball games

and that don't add out to a better product. That while, of course, there'll still be teams that tank and make sure they're in that dark green side on the right, there'll be less teams because some teams that are on the bubble either way are incendiative vise to try to try to win games. And those bottom few teams are all incentivized

to try to win games and get out the bottom three. So overall, in the margins, more good basketball games will be played. Yeah, you're trying to eliminate all the fuck shit that you see. Like the Wizards, they've been on some fuck shit, but like, Trey could have played when he got traded. Of course, he was Jen and he was Jen and Europe, but he could have played and they used them in spurts

and they limited his minutes. But they wanted to be so fucking bad, so piss poor, and they put out fuck shit. And they didn't, they allowed us to, like, not really know how to talk about their young team or players at all. You know, this happens so often. I think it sucks, but also, too, it's like we see this time and time again already. Like, the most random teams get the number one overall pick happens time and time again. It just, the only thing that really sucks for is, like, I guess, the Sacramento Kings of the world.

Teams that are bad. I mean, not purpose. They're just, they're just bad in general. They're there for a reason. For a team, certain teams are going to be, like, damn near forever. bottom dwellers. And for teams like that, hey, bro, you got to get it out the mud in different ways.

Yeah, I feel like it does, it does kind of hinder the teams that are just, just bad. But I think, and so like, I can understand why people would be a little bit upset and people would be like, you know, like, why is, like, why is Adam doing this? Like, you're really making it hard for,

especially for all these teams to get better. I don't care about them anymore. for all of the reason that that you said they've lost the privilege to care or to have an opinion on this fact they have that's crazy they have no they have for all of the reasons that that mojus said about all these teams like they what happened none anyways you have you have bastardized the game year in and year out tanking and and putting and putting out the absolute worst lineups that anybody could ever imagine in the in the sake of oh yeah we have to get the the number one overall pick and you've made it to where there is a mass psychosis around the league of half the

season doesn't doesn't matter half the teams aren't trying to win you've met you've created this situation yeah you've all we've also had a situation where a decade ago there was a GM that openly came out and told his entire fan base our plan is that we are going to lose for multiple years so that we can get these picks. And it was, and it was fairly accepted. Obviously, he got, he got fired. But, but, but, but now, now it is. Now, now it is. Now, people, in the moment it wasn't though. Yeah. I see what you're saying. But people have looked at at what Hinky does. And it's like, that's actually the, the correct way to, to build a team. You have done all, all of these things. I, you have no say in the matter anymore. Okay. I have to,

I have to do what I have to do for the league. And so that's why, like, any pushback on, on Adam, I'm actually going to defend Adam on this one. He had to do a way he had to be. I think you're being harsh. You're being harsh, but I see your point. Be dramatic. I actually think I don't, I don't think I'm being harsh. You object with being harsh, but I see you.

Maybe you can be harsh because they bastardize a league and harshness is the reward for that. I get it. It's not ridiculous to think that way at all. I think if this is a very nuanced conversation, you need to be bad to be good. We see this in other leagues. The idea of eating your vegetables being bad and getting the good players to get to the top is a universal thing in a sport with a draft. That's kind of just how it goes. Not every league has 82 games though. So if you're bad in the NFL for a season, it's over in a few months

and you don't endure that much suffering. In the 82 games, it's hard to stomach that. So that's why it's a little bit different. And I understand your point of view that, again, if the Browns blow the last four games, if the Raiders bench Max Crosby and blow the last two games, that's a couple weeks. It's a month of gross product, not six months. So that's harder to deal with, and that's why it's not one to one. But it is a harsh reality that if you want the teams to have a draft as a normal league would,

if you want bad teams to get good, you got to give them the good players, right? What you're doing now is you're rewriting the way the league works. And you're saying, we're no longer going to be a league that just works that way. That if you're bad,

you get the good players and things go out a natural cycle of parity. That's not the type of league we want to be because we don't think we're capable of reaching a balance that leads to making sense in that way and being a good entertainment product. This is a plan put in place

to say, the only thing that matters is that we are entertaining the league that people want to watch the games. And right now, you mentioned you call it the psychosis. Like people say the regular season doesn't matter. That is a widely accepted truth among casual NBA fans that regular season does not matter. So whether it be fair or not to the kings, to the pelicans who are just bad for the sake of it, we can't survive long term as a league with fans who think the regular season doesn't matter. And whether it be the only reason or not, tanking is a big part of that. And if we can have a plan in place, that maybe is unfair to some teams and maybe we create a permanent underclass of shitty teams who stay in the gutter forever

because they don't get blessed with Kay Cunningham and they're just shit for 10 years, that's a necessary side effect to give us more good games and more reason for fans to come watch. So I think the answer is, no, it's not fair to those bottom teams. It's not fair at all.

Fairness isn't the plan here. Saving the league and making sure longevity is the plan here. Even then, I think that the league and I felt this way when the second apron got put into place, I don't think that there is a, like the overall goal,

if we're just going to say parody, that fine. But like, I think the goal and the timeline of like, what is the proper way? If you ask the league and you ask Adam Silver for a team to be a contender and be a perennial contender, what is the way to do that? Because there are teams who have done the tanking stuff and have built teams and now we get to the second apron. And you can't pay your own people. Like you could be doing everything right. Just draft, draft, draft, draft, draft.

And now I can't even pay the people that I've drafted and developed and then all these things. And so now you are forcing this other class of teams to suffer because of something else. I think at every single level, there's some unfairness in terms of the way that you are building teams. So I think that if they're trying to rewrite the way, the correct way to build a team, I think it's okay to then go ahead and change this and have this fabric be different. That's the good point that they keep putting things in place to make it harder to do with the original way. The odds change in 2019 made it harder. That was a change to me that shouldn't have happened.

You either should have done the original version we had where the top few teams have a massive difference in ability to get the number one pick. Now it's the top four are all the same and like that kind of made it a little bit more even. Now we see a lot of teams hopping up like the hawks, like the Mavs, get a number one pick. That was the mistake to me. It should be regular like it was originally very swayed towards the worst team getting the best pick or this new way where we're now saying, that you said what's the way to do it. Past few years, it's been be bad, get good, eventually fall apart for parity's sake

because you can't pay everybody. Now the new way is don't do what the Thunder did. Don't do what the Spurs did. Everybody be the Bulls. Because if you're the Bulls and we have seven teams that are the Bulls every year competing, one of you will get blessed with the top four pick every single year.

And everybody will be incentivized to try to be good, try to get as many good players you can from your mid picks and you get in your mid-years and the one year you jump into the top four, land a superstar. Every year try to find Donovan Mitchell at the late rounds

and try to find the superstars hidden. Everybody try to do incrementally the right things and eventually you'll get lucky and get a Victor Womenyama at Kay Cunningham, et cetera. But the goal here is to maximize value in the middle instead of tanking for the best players, which again, right, wrong, fair, unfair,

doesn't matter. They're saying it leads to a more entertaining product and a more healthier league, which I understand in some way. Yeah, I mean inherently like that is true. That is true. I understand it 100%. Again, do 100% agree with it

when it comes to the shitter teams? I don't know not that much but overall when it comes to the fan experience like incentivizing guys to be the bulls or even teams who are just like simply just shit out of luck like the fucking warriors like this would be like if this rule came in and was implemented

in time this would be like their saving grace and that could like create whole new contenders out of nowhere and create a whole new scorelines that we pretty much rarely see and I love it I like it from that aspect but also I like it when it comes to telling all these shitty

teams, hey, like, if you're here, you're here for your own reasoning, you know? This has nothing to do with me. You're here because you're the Sacramento Kings and you never drafted good players over the last, like, 10 years. Outside of maybe like Tyrese Halliburton and Deer and Fox. You know it it does too. It's Adam Silver's fascination with European soccer still. He wants to relegate teams.

This is what he's telling you, is that it was up to him and it was possible he would relegate teams. Everything since he came into the league office has been replicating the Premier League and shit like that. Saying you can't get the top five pick three years in a row, that's as close to relegation as he's legally allowed to do. To say the bottom three teams, he had less odds, that's as close to relegation as he's legally allowed to do. He does not want that to happen. He wants the idea to be what

you just said. You try to win games and we'll see what happens to luck, but the idea of being good is what matters. And I disagree with the notion that you can try to rule your way out of bad teams existing. It's going to fuck those teams over and it is what it is. But if they're saying that's a league we want to be, at least I admired the conviction of saying, we're going to put it in necessary steps to change the way the league operates and not some half-ass measure like the 2019 odd change you know what's also interesting too i think this does morph and it kind of changes how team building will be too completely because like if i'm the utah jazz and i see this i'm kind of scratching my head a little bit because it's like fuck like how many first-round picks that i

give it for jaron jackson junior it was that literally was that necessary i don't know if i'd want to do that anymore the value of first-round picks is literally at an all-time high at this point in Right. Picture worth more for sure. You'll see more crazy stuff which more storylines, more entertainment. Teams will be,

no, it is, great teams will still happen, but it will be completely random. Yeah. Like the Hawks getting the first pick, the Mavs getting the first pick. If these odds were happening this year,

like who's at the top of the lottery that could get a random one pick and change the team, but they're not top of lottery, top of the play in. You use the Hornets. I actually have the odds. Okay, pull up the odds.

Yeah, on what they'd look like this. So if it happened today, the Hawks are the best odds because they have two bites the apple, Grizzlies Hornets. So yeah, the Hornets could get up there and get Agent Obanza and change their team. That'll be fun as fuck. Literally the only time where we see a team that's pretty good like the Hornets, which is like an anomaly. And then I guess the Indiana Paces, for instance, who are literally only bad and only prime to get a top three pick in the draft is because their star player tore their fucking Achilles. They shouldn't be this bad at all. But they are. And I think that makes even a more interesting storyline because they have this new young, like, most of the same.

with whoever it might be to put them in completely different territory they pretty much never been in the history of their existence. It's mad interesting. It's a different sport now. Yeah. This, if they do this,

it changes so much. Like, it's a very different league. It's not like any other American sports leagues they do this. I guess it's close to baseball, but baseball has the free agency elements that are different. And the NBA will now be a league

without free agency in any way that matters because all the star players don't make free agency anymore without a draft as a natural way to get top talent in any way that matters because it's essentially random now. Not actually random, but you know, closer to random. This is much closer to every team

gets 2% than it is a traditional way or a traditional draft. The way of winning is just like, you just have to be nice and you have to find players in the draft and be really, really good. They're demanding everybody be the thunder and find J. Dubbs later in the picks. Find AJ Mitchell's in the second round. Like they're demanding every front office slowly get incredibly smart. And that'll be good for long-term health. Yeah. I promise you the Kings will never have a smart front office. They're broke. I promise you the trailblazers now will never have a smart front office. They're broke. Some of these teams, when they get bad, aren't going to be able to find their Sam Presti

and they'll just be garbage for 10 years until they get lucky. Damn, that's tough, man. That's what they did. He would say, get you relegated, buddy. That's tough. What are the Hawks odds right now? Do you know? They have, I think, the seventh best odds right now. I feel bad for the Hawks.

The only year they get the number one pick was the Riesoschet draft. It's tough, man. Just do it, isn't there? It is. And then this is what it's supposed to be with the newer forms. And we're finally headed into a league that actually incentivized teams for being mid. And there's most mid-time. But we would run this bitch.

But that's okay. You get me? Don't say, what a, you will run this bitch. You're going to be mid forever. Eventually, you're going to be here again. You're never going to leave mid, so you're going to continue to run this bitch. You don't matter now. Yeah, exactly. Did Adam Silver just change my broken ass?

Yes. Yes. And that is the point. He changed your brook ass. life. He changed Miami's broke ass life. He changed Miami's broke ass life. And he's saying the rest of your broke lives that you choose to be broke, go be broke like the Hawks. We want a different

type of broke in our league because Hawks games are respectable to watch in March. Yeah. And again, I do not like the idea on paper, but in terms of I was in league office and Adam was explained this to me, I would understand it. I'm always going to be scared of Adam Silverchanged though. Me too. I go line. Because every time we talk about these changes, there's always a side effect that makes us turn.

Like you fix the problem that you were trying to solve Then you create a whole new problem that we just It's low-key a worst problem And that'll happen With this rule change that will happen People will treat it that way But it won't be a new problem It will be the intended side effect

Because they will see the Kings win 15 games And get the eighth pick And they'll say that's a problem And Adam Silver always say nope, that's the point Right or wrong That's the point When they got the second pick They picked Marvin Baggley

Yep Shenando Yeah and even then too If that's the case If you're a good team Who has good aspirations and you hired the smart people and you put so much money into your scouting department and all that, you could, there's still ways to, to get over this and not be one of the teams who are just shut out of luck and get the 12th pick or whatever it is.

You know, you could be like, okay, see and sniper J-dub. You could be, I don't know, a team like the goddamn pistons. And remember they got like five, they got like the fifth overall pick or something like that for consecutive years. Like you could be smart and wiggled your way around that. or you could just be, again, like the Kings who are, I feel like pretty much like the only bad team in the league who has like legitimately stupid people in that front office who just always make somehow some way the worst decision possible. But to be fair, the Pistons would be the Kings if they didn't get one note one time and get K'd. Yeah.

I'm just rolling out here with Jaden, Ivy, Asar and the guys, the number five, Ron Holland, they would be the Kings. So in some regards, it will also come down to who gets lucky that year. And it'll be your job to do everything you can to be ready for when you get lucky. Yeah, man. It's got to be smarter. I know. You know what I like, though. The NBA does have real problems,

and it's talked about so much online about, like, has the MLB passed them up? They're a dying league and all this stuff. The sentiment is bad amongst casual fans aren't into the league. And everybody has their ideas of why that is. I think almost all of them are misguided. The conversation about why the NBA is failing

has become, here's my personal gripe. This is why the league is failing. This is why the conglomerate will die because my one miniscule own complaint that personally bothers me. is it all, right? That happens a lot. One of the actual real problems I need to solve

is people not think that regular season matters. That sentiment and people not wanting to tune in isn't a huge deal right now. It will be six years from now when the main audience is these 15-year-olds now that don't care about regular season and only watch on social media that consume the NBA through the deep three podcast clips.

People that only do that don't watch games because they're 15 now, when they're 21, if they feel like the NBA regular season doesn't matter, they won't watch games. As millennials age out of the target demographic and Gen Z becomes the main one, and even below that, Gen Alpha, if they don't think regular season games matter,

that will become the biggest long-term issue they could possibly have. I mean, Adam Silverer hears that. He says, oh, watch some highlights, buddy. Yeah, that's all I got for you. And he says that because he had to say something positive. He knows that the biggest threat to him is that young people don't care about sports as much.

And that's coming for every league. Every league across, look across America, ask your younger brothers, younger cousins, they don't care of as much about sports as you do when you're at their age. That's like a, no matter what, they watch YouTube more, they watch streamers more.

They don't care about sports. So making the young people care. Oh, I'm not that bad, not that bad. I'm not on kick streams. I'm not watching all the guys. That is a serious problem coming for all leagues. They got to touch grass, man. You got to roll the ball out, put your hand in the dirt, man.

These kids bitch made, man. Let's just talk about it, bro. All you want to do is hop on top on fucking Twitch and watch all these guys. Oh, man. Yeah. So they don't care about sports, right? That's coming for every single league. NBA has a youngest league, so they will find, they will feel that effect soonest.

So this is his way of trying to make young people care about sports as much as possible, ensure that the games matter as much as possible, you got to respect it. That's a real looming issue for every league. And also, too, all these partners just give you a fucking boatload of money too. So it's like you got to consistently try to make the league better and better and better to hold up to basically year one now that we're in of these new deals with these. Also, the tanking also kind of had to go, you just had a coach arrested for giving for giving away information on the tanking team. Like that is, that is something that you do have. have to be mindful of of like, hey, we are at, at all times, it is more beneficial for a team to

try and win basketball games so that you can knock out tanking, you can knock out gambling scandals and stuff like that. That's the part where it loses me because you never get rid of that. You're never getting rid of shit like that. So hopefully they're not motivated by things like that in the gambling world because that's a Hampshire will you're never getting off of. But hopefully their heart's in the right place and it's about longevity and it's fine. If anyone wants to be mad, bro, put all your satire towards the Utah has.

put all your static towards seems like yeah everyone's the league yeah it's like you got that one dumb ass kid in the class who fucking cheated on a test

or whatever or got the class in trouble was like fucking you know what all y'all homework tomorrow all y'all pop quiz that's literally the Utah Jets

W analogy W analogy comfy very comfy very comfy nice tough copy wordplay also we see

once again cyberbullying works yes oh you can you can cyber bully Adam Silver rent to do whatever you want. That motherfucker is so online.

This is the most online leak ever. Every single change has been in recent years has been because Twitter bothers him. He doesn't like complaints. You can cyber bully him into getting a toupee. I would even go further. I think in the world of sports, bullying just works. I guess. In the world of sports.

You try to bully Roger Goodell to doing something with the NFL. He's going to tell you to go fuck yourself. Okay, maybe it's just a basketball. It's a basketball thing. Also, the MLB may change this for the right. Adam Silver will be bullied and doing anything right or wrong. Yeah. put erasism on the

facts you're right bullying works amen Adam Silver is the most gullible man in the earth he'll do anything he'll do anything