Celtics never would've gotten Jayson Tatum in new NBA Draft lottery rules originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

The new NBA Draft lottery rules can't change the past.

That's a good thing, because if they had existed when the Boston Celtics ended up with Jayson Tatum, this pairing may never have existed.

The new rules are set to flatten out the odds of getting the No. 1 overall pick while also limiting how often a team can pick super high up in the draft consecutively.

That would've hurt the Philadelphia 76ers in 2017, when they were in the midst of The Process.

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And since it was the 76ers who essentially made a trade to get Markelle Fultz from the Celtics atop the board, allowing Boston to drop down and end up with Tatum, who knows what would've happened instead?

Maybe Boston takes Fultz, and some mystery team in the third spot instead of Philly ends up with Tatum.

Or if the Celtics had already diagnosed something being wrong with Fultz's shooting, do they take Lonzo Ball?

In this scenario, Boston may never have won another NBA title since the Big Three departed.

And there might be some other team out there with Tatum rocking the No. 0 and getting big buckets toward their own ring.

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It's a fascinating thought experiment, for sure. Obviously, changing one piece of draft history changes all of it. Picks in subsequent years are different because of changed records and altered needs.

In short, it's good these new rules don't go back in time.

But taking a look back in time does show that things could wind up very different in the future.

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