The date of the draft lottery has not been formally announced, but Mayo notes it’s expected to take place during the Winter Meetings.
Joe Doyle of Prospects Live first reported last month that it’ll be run at the Winter Meetings on December 6.
As part of the Players Association’s efforts to reduce the incentive for non-competitive teams to lose games, the latest collective bargaining agreement introduced a lottery to determine the top six overall selections.
A team’s odds of landing a higher pick are still weighted in favor of the clubs with the worst records, although the three worst teams all have identical chances of landing the top selections.
All 18 non-playoff teams are technically in the running for any of the top six picks, albeit with increasingly diminished odds for the clubs with better records.
After the first six selections are drawn, the remainder of the first round will run in inverse order of the standings among the teams not awarded a lottery pick.
The lottery only comes into play for the first round of the draft. From the second round onwards, pick order is determined in inverse order of the prior season’s standings (aside from compensatory and competitive balance selections).
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