TORONTO — The Toronto Raptors draft situation couldn’t be more mundane going forward: 

They own all their own first-round draft picks and their next five second-round picks.

As well, they are a team that pretty firmly has their foot in the ‘we’re trying to win' camp, coming off a 46-win season, a fifth-place finish in the Eastern Conference and a solid showing in the first round of the playoffs. A veteran starting lineup slated to earn 99 per cent of the salary cap next season is another bat signal.

But did their team building options get just a little bit better after the NBA confirmed its plan for lottery reform Thursday?

They may well have. We’ll get to that. 

The reforms were made in response to what can fairly be described as an epidemic of tanking — multiple teams focussing on losing as many games as possible in order to improve their draft position — that swept the league in recent seasons.

Whether the NBA got it right or overreacted will take time to sort out. 

That the league recognizes it’s a work in progress is reflected that the new rules will be up for re-evaluation in 2029. It also says a lot about how difficult it has been to thread the needle between creating a system (a draft based loosely on reverse order of finish) that provides struggling teams a pathway to improve while not making losing games and crashing entire seasons — sometimes several of them — the most viable strategy to build winning teams. 

Part of the league’s problem is that with a little luck and some expertise, tanking really works. 

There’s not just a little irony that the same week the league reached agreement to solve tanking, the three teams remaining in the NBA playoffs, have benefited hugely from previously losing in some shape or form. 

The Spurs have a dynasty in the making thanks to drafting Victor Wembanyama first overall in 2023, Stephon Castle fourth in 2024 and Dylan Harper second in 2025.  The........

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