A new anti-tanking rule could reshape the NBA Draft — and the Chicago Bulls might become one of its biggest winners
The Chicago Bulls have hovered for years in that frustrating middle ground of NBA purgatory — too competitive to bottom out, yet not nearly equipped enough to break through as a serious playoff threat — but a newly proposed anti-tanking rule could alter their draft fortunes more than any roster change the front office has made.
The idea, originated by NBA insider Marc Stein, is simple yet potentially transformative: only teams that win at least 27 games would remain eligible to win the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft Lottery.
This rule would directly target franchises that intentionally dive toward the bottom of the standings, reducing the incentive to lose on purpose and discouraging late-season tanking strategies that have frustrated fans and irritated league executives for decades.
As Stein explains, reaching 27 wins equates to winning roughly one-third of a team’s games, a threshold that would still keep the lottery intact but ensure franchises maintain at least a baseline level of competitiveness.
The proposal represents a more structural correction to tanking than fining teams for questionable injury management, penalties the league recently applied to the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers after investigations revealed intentional misuse of rest designations.
Commissioner Adam Silver has publicly acknowledged that change is coming to the lottery format — whether through subtle tweaks, large-scale restructuring, or potentially eliminating the current system altogether.
Within that broader context, Stein’s 27-win rule is gaining traction among fans and analysts as a middle-ground solution that strikes the balance between fairness, competitiveness, and entertainment value.
For a team like the Bulls — competitive enough to avoid bottoming out, yet rarely positioned at the top of the lottery — such a rule could be nothing short of a franchise-altering gift.
Chicago has refused to tank intentionally in recent years, instead assembling teams that consistently land in the 39–41 win range, seasons good enough to flirt with the Play-In Tournament but too average to claim elite prospects.
The Bulls have won 39 games, 39 games, and 40 games over the last three seasons, a streak of mediocrity that has kept them firmly out of range of franchise-changing draft talent.
This season, they hold 24 wins with 26 games left to play, a position that places them tenth in the current lottery standings entering the All-Star break.
Under the existing rules, Chicago only holds a 3.0% chance of landing the No. 1 pick and a 13.9% chance of climbing into the top four — percentages that rarely lead to meaningful draft luck.
But under Stein’s proposed rule, the calculus would shift dramatically.
Seven NBA teams have fewer than 20 wins entering the post-break schedule, and the Memphis Grizzlies have exactly 20 — meaning eight teams realistically risk failing to reach the 27-win threshold.
If even half of those franchises finish short of 27 wins, they would be ineligible to win the No. 1 pick, automatically pushing them to the back of the lottery, regardless of their record.
That shift would catapult teams like the Bulls upward, transforming their mediocre-but-competitive season into a major advantage in the draft order.
Even more striking, under the current standings as of February 18, the three teams with the worst records — the franchises that typically hold an equal 14.0% chance at the No. 1 pick — would likely fail to reach 27 wins.
That would leave an unexpected trio at the top: the Milwaukee Bucks, the Chicago Bulls, and the San Antonio Spurs (via Atlanta), creating one of the strangest lottery favorite groups in modern NBA history.
The Bucks, comfortably competitive in reality, would become a statistical beneficiary of rule-based reshuffling, while the Bulls — a team known more for stubborn competitiveness than losing streaks — would suddenly find themselves positioned to draft a franchise-changing superstar.
Such an outcome would represent the exact type of structural shift fans in Chicago have dreamed of: a system that rewards competitive integrity rather than punishing it.
For years, Bulls fans have watched teams like the Spurs, Rockets, Pistons, and Magic rack up top-three selections by virtue of intentional roster downgrades and strategic rest.
Stein’s system, however, would reward the Bulls’ decision not to embrace full-scale tanking, giving them a legitimate path toward the top pick without tearing down the entire roster.
Of course, this rule does not exist yet, and Silver has not explicitly endorsed Stein’s framework — but he has made it clear that the league is prepared to rethink the lottery in an effort to curb tanking.
Even if the change does not arrive in time for Chicago to capitalize this year, the proposal highlights how close the franchise is to a structural advantage it has previously lacked.
And as Bulls fans need no reminder, surprising things happen in the lottery — the Dallas Mavericks jumped from tenth to first last season to draft Cooper Flagg, proving that improbable outcomes remain part of the sport’s DNA.
Chicago may not receive its anti-tanking miracle yet, but the idea that competitive mid-tier teams could soon be rewarded rather than penalized feels like the first meaningful sign that the league is finally ready to push back against strategic losing — and that the Bulls, perhaps for the first time in years, might find themselves on the winning side of a rule change.
