Zach Lowe

So if you really want the number one pick and you own a first, you can still trade draft slots.

So like I can trade you my draft, my first round draft slot unattached to a particular pick.

in 2032.

And now if I'm a team, I have two first round draft slots, but I can take all my credits and bid them on the number one pick.

And credits can roll over so I can keep all my credits.

If I see a draft two or three years down the line, I can bid 300 credits on the number one pick.

We can trade credits back and forth.

We can trade players for credits.

And I'll just read how it works.

In late April, each team secretly submits a credit bid for each pick they have.

In early May, the league publishes all the bids.

On lottery night for the first pick, the top four highest bidders for that pick are put into a lottery amongst themselves with probability proportional to the number of credits each team bid toward that slot.

So there could be a team with a huge edge based on if they put a gazillion credits.

The winner of this mini lottery gets the first pick, gets charged halfway between their own bid and the bid of the lowest bidder and is removed out of the pool.

For the second pick, the number five bidder is added to the three non-winners and another lottery is held.

And we do that all the way down until the end.

You are subtracted 20 credits for every playoff series that you win so that the worst teams in any given year still should have the most credits.

Teams can have more than one pick slot in either round of the draft.

Each slot is associated with a separate bid.

Teams may bid zero.