The NBA Board of Governors discussed the practice of teams who are out of playoff contention resting players that is perceived as both developing younger players yet also trying to improve their lottery position.
"I think that is also a serious issue for the league," said Adam Silver. "It’s not a new issue, and the league, sometimes there are other advantages to that end-of-season resting. Sometimes there are opportunities to give other players on the roster additional minutes. But there’s no question there’s also a certain amount of jockeying that’s going on there as teams look to go into the draft.
"I think that the larger subject of the lottery, the odds for the lottery, how so-called lottery picks are protected, in certain cases you have lottery picks 1 through 3 protected. That is something that we discussed at our board meeting and agreed that we need to revisit it in a holistic way."
This season, the Los Angeles Lakers are in a position where they will lose their pick this year and in 2019 if their selection falls out of the top-3.