NBA's Potential Tanking Solution Could Destroy the Kings

Why this would be bad for the Kings

If the NBA were to get rid of the draft and turn it into a rookie free agency, the league would be in trouble. Especially, their small-market franchises like the Kings.

The Kings have been near the bottom of the league for two decades, with just one playoff appearance in the last 19 years. The only plausible way for the Kings to turn things around is to get a legitimate franchise-altering player in the draft, but this idea would destroy those chances.

If Darryn Peterson, the top prospect in this year's draft, received the same offer from the Kings and Los Angeles Lakers, who would he sign with coming out of college? Even though the Kings will be guaranteed a top-five pick if they finish with the worst record, there would be a strong chance they would not land a top-five prospect if it were a rookie free agency instead of a draft.

Why this could, but won't happen

In the new era of college basketball, any player coming into the draft is either already getting paid through NIL deals or overseas contracts. The sport is much different from what it was a handful of years ago, as nearly every prospect is practically already a professional athlete before they even sign their first NBA contract.

Due to this, the NBA could feel it is right to give the players some more power as they enter the league, which would be done by giving them free agency rather than a draft.

However, the league has to know that this is not the right decision. The point of the draft is to create the most competitive league possible. By giving the worst teams the best draft picks, teams are far less likely to stay bad, and it creates more competition across the league.

Teams like the Detroit Pistons, Philadelphia 76ers, and Oklahoma City Thunder all went through "rebuild" phases recently, but turned things around because of premium draft positions.

The lottery works, and if anything, it punishes the bad teams too much. Giving the league's worst team a near-50% chance to fall to the fifth overall pick is what hurts bad teams, as it just keeps them bad for longer. The worst team in the NBA has not landed the first-overall pick since the league changed the lottery odds in 2019. That is not solving tanking; it is only making bad teams worse.

There is a slim chance we see any drastic changes to how the draft works, and it should be clear as to why a free agency system would not work.

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