In an eight team league where four teams make the postseason, sure. But in a 30 team league where there aren't enough franchise guys to go around you're essentially dooming bad teams to rebuilding projects that will last a generation.
Just means you have to come up with something that captures the incentives you want, though. Like, just off the top of my head:
- Current draft order, worst-first
- Bimodal lottery ball distribution--9th, 10th, 11th, 28th, 29th, and 30th get the most balls, somewhere in the middle--let's say 20th--gets the least.
- If you were within 4 wins of the playoffs in your conference, you move up 12 spots instead of 4 if you win the lottery. Just missing the playoffs
and picking 8th in the draft is a pretty good deal. (Or, shit, make it 16 spots. I wouldn't let the 10th-place team get the first overall, but make it worth it.)
There are a lot of ways to mess with the lottery if they wanted to reward the un-tank and encourage teams to build a "winning culture" rather than engage the tank.