Four years ago, the Detroit Pistons finished the 2019-2020 National Basketball Association (NBA) season at 20-46, placing 26th in the league, failing to qualify for the quarantine bubble and signaling the beginning of a rebuild. Led by an aging Blake Griffin, clinging to his last few bits of athleticism while battling through injuries, the roster needed a major overhaul.

You might think that slowly, over time, the Pistons would be able to build a competitive roster to return to relevance. You would be wrong. Detroit has won more than 20 games just once since, with 23 in the 2021-22 season, and they’ve been objectively terrible in all aspects over the last few years. And what do the Pistons have to show for all this suffering? Well, third-year guard Cade Cunningham is a great young player, but that’s about it. Rookie wing Ausar Thompson and second-year guard Jaden Ivey have potential, but outside of them, Detroit’s tank job hasn’t yielded much substance. 

You might then be thinking, “What if the Pistons just don’t draft well?” There is definitely some truth to that. Drafting Killian Hayes in the 2020 draft, who is not even on the roster anymore, as the seventh overall pick, didn’t help out the Pistons’ cause. But neither does the NBA’s league structure, namely, the draft lottery system. 

It’s important to note that the Pistons aren’t the only team mired in mediocrity. The San Antonio Spurs, Washington Wizards, and Houston Rockets all have not had winning seasons in at least four years, with plenty of other teams staying in the bottom of the league standings for most of the past decade. So what’s the problem then? Do none of these teams know how to effectively run a franchise? Well, the NBA is a league of stars through and through. Lebron James famously made eight straight finals just a few seasons ago, and the Golden State Warriors held the Western Conference hostage for years behind Steph Curry. Stars are hard to come by, and for most teams, the only way to get one is through the draft. 

The NBA draft, however, does not work like most traditional sports leagues. In the NFL, for example, the team who finishes last in the league is awarded the first pick. In the NBA, however, a team’s draft position is largely dictated by luck. All teams that miss the playoffs enter a draft lottery with odds that are all over the place. The team with the worst record has just a 14% chance of receiving the first pick, the same odds as the next two teams, and a nearly 50% chance to fall out of the top four all together. 

The current system was introduced as a way to combat tanking in 2019, and in its defense, there are some success stories. The New York Knicks avoided a total rebuild and instead built their team mostly through free agency and trades, same with the Sacramento Kings, Los Angeles Lakers, and Denver Nuggets. But the lottery has mainly had the reverse effect, keeping too many teams in the cellar for too long. 

The problem boils down to how important an earlier spot in the draft is. Just this past year, the difference between the first and second pick was a unicorn big man with skills the league has never seen before in Victor Wembanyama, and an athletic wing who has potential for stardom but with a long way to go in Brandon Miller. The Pistons, by the way, who once again finished last in the NBA, received the fifth pick for their struggles. How would their situation be different if they had Wembanyama to pair with Cunningham? 

For those who then say, “the Pistons should try to win” since tanking doesn’t seem to be working, they have! Detroit started the years with numerous veterans like Bojan Bogdanovic, Alec Burks, and Joe Harris. These players were there to help the team reach the play-in, but their efforts are not enough. In today’s NBA, you need stars, which for the vast majority of teams, are only available through the draft. 

So what exactly is Detroit supposed to do? 

To get any free agent worthwhile, they’d likely have to overpay. No one exactly wants to play for such a hapless team, and who can blame them? The draft is supposed to be an equalizer, a way to increase parity by giving the worst teams an advantage. But the system is broken. The last team by record hasn’t received the first overall pick in six years. The NBA is currently enjoying the greatest amount of parity it has seen in years, but some teams won’t be able to enjoy it. 

The lottery system ultimately encourages what it set out to destroy, and leaves teams hapless, with losing records for years on end. Out of those teams mentioned before — the Spurs, Wizards, and Rockets — only the Spurs seem to have a bright future ahead, and only because they got lucky and won the lottery last year. The Rockets have improved, admittedly, but still are on pace to miss the playoffs again, and the Wizards are in the same place as they were years ago, with no exciting young players to mention. 

Even just a change to the odds would be a major improvement. A few years ago, the last place team had a 25% chance at the first overall pick, and couldn’t fall farther than fourth. Still not great odds, but it was something, and going back to that system would be a vast improvement. 

Most importantly though, there’s no end in sight for the Pistons. They’re stuck, and they’re stuck for what is probably going to be a while. The NBA is doing them no favors, and now the city of Detroit’s basketball team remains listless, hoping that maybe this is the year the lottery ping-pong balls fall right for them to lead the team out of mediocrity.