Report: NBA fails to pass draft lottery reform at board vote

Once thought to be a slam dunk to pass, the NBA's lottery reform was voted down Wednesday at the Board of Governors meeting. 

Seventeen teams voted in favor of the reform and 13 voted against it, according to Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski. Thirteen teams voting against the changes is somewhat shocking, as the proposal was thought to have significant support, with as few as five teams considering voting against the proposal or abstaining.

The teams that voted against the reform were Philadelphia, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Miami and Milwaukee (the five who were thought to be against it initially), as well as Phoenix, Detroit, San Antonio, Utah, Washington, Atlanta, Charlotte and Chicago. The reform measure needed 23 votes to pass. 

"Several teams started to wonder about unintended consequences and voted no to be able to do further study," one owner told Wojnarowski. 

The issue is expected to be revisited, perhaps as soon as the All-Star break, as many teams are thought to have voted against the reform due to the lack of time they had to consider unintended consequences in depth.

In the meantime, the system will almost surely remain as is for the 2015 draft lottery, an important consideration for teams like the 76ers and Bucks. Those teams are in the midst of multi-year rebuilding projects based on the current rules in place, which provide a strong incentive to be very bad.

"Well, we still have the 'Be as shitty as humanly possible' strategy available in the future if we need it," a general manager told Wojnarowski.

The proposed reform would have altered each non-playoff team's odds of landing the No. 1 pick in the draft, as well as their odds of finishing with a top-six pick. The idea was to create less certainty that bottoming out would lead to a reward, with percentages changing as follows: