As the Sixers win more and more games, they put an increasing amount of mileage between themselves and the top pick in the NBA draft. That’s not a concern of the team right now, because you can’t fight success, but this year’s reportedly stacked draft could accelerate the Sixers’ ascension, depending on where they’ll pick.

If the season ended today and the lottery shook out as expected, the Sixers would get the 8th pick. The Kings – who the Sixers own swap rights with, have only a 4% chance of hopping into the top-3 and thus conveying the swap. But there’s one team they could snag a pick from: The Lakers.

We all know the Lakers’ pick is top-3 protected this year and unprotected next. So if LA picks first, second, or third this year, the Sixers own their first round pick next season no matter where it falls. The slim chance of a total collapse and the Sixers getting a free number one pick is enticing if unlikely. But the Lakers have motivation to do their best to keep that top-3 pick this year, even if it means sacrificing a pick in 2018. Enter the Stepien Rule:

Teams are restricted from trading away future first round draft picks in consecutive years. This is known as the “Ted Stepien Rule.”…As a result of Stepien’s ineptitude, teams are now prevented from making trades which might leave them without a first round pick in consecutive future years…

If a team trades two future first round picks and the first of those picks is protected, then that pick would be conveyed in the first draft in which the protection does not apply (as described above), and the second pick would be conveyed two years after the first pick is conveyed. But since both picks must be conveyed within seven years, the protection on the first pick cannot last longer than four years (i.e., the first pick must be conveyed by the fifth year).

The latter part there is important for the Lakers. In the four-team trade that sent Nik Vučević to the Magic and Dwight Howard to the Lakers, many picks were swapped. One was a first rounder. Here are the stipulations on that:

2017 first round pick (from Lakers) (at least 2 years after Lakers send first round pick to Suns [now owned by the Sixers] from earlier trade, protected top 5 in 2017-18; if first round pick is not sent to Suns by 2017, then 2017 and 2018 second round picks)

So, what does this all mean? If the Lakers give the Sixers their pick this year, they’ll also owe the Magic their unprotected first round pick to the Magic in 2019. If they keep their pick this year, thus sending the Sixers their pick in 2018, they owe the Magic two second-rounders. Basically, by being very bad this year, the Lakers can actually stop themselves from being shot in the foot by previously made trade language. Simply:


Luke Walton recently said that he doesn’t believe in “tanking,” saying “You start losing on purpose, I think the basketball gods come back to get you in the long run. … We try to do things the right way around here, which means we’re going to play to win.” In his case, playing to win at all in the future may be playing to lose right now.