The NBA is seeking to tighten its rules regarding injury reporting and prop betting as well as exploring new ways to discourage tanking, ESPN’s David Purdum and Shams Charania and The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov report.
A memo sent to all teams on Friday also outlined plans to upgrade its education program on gambling, adopt new measures to protect players, coaches, and team personnel from harassment from sports bettors, and enhance its ability to investigate unusual betting activity.
Issues regarding injury reporting and prop betting became magnified by the arrests of Heat player Terry Rozier, former player Damon Jones, and Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups in October as part of a federal investigation. Federal prosecutors accused Rozier and Jones of supplying bettors with nonpublic information regarding injuries, while Billups — though not specifically named or charged by the feds in this instance — is accused of providing a bettor with nonpublic information about the Trail Blazers.
According to the memo, teams will be required to submit injury reports on game days between 11 AM and 1 PM local time, except on the second night of back-to-back games, and then update public injury reports on NBA.com every 15 minutes, rather than hourly.
In terms of prop bets, the league will push “industry stakeholders” such as sports betting companies for limits on under bets, a maximum amount that can be wagered on player props, limiting which players can be subject to prop bets, and getting rid of what it calls “problematic bet types” like ones that can be determined by one play.
Regarding tanking, the league is mulling changes to rules regarding draft pick protection and the draft lottery.
If the changes aren’t “completely sever ties with any and all gambling facilities and tell everyone gambling is bad and you should not gamble on the NBA, you should just be a fan and support your team”, then its not going to change what’s happening. Australia is a great test subject for deregulated gambling, its destroyed that nation’s sports culture just like it’s doing to ours.
Why is it not an issue that LeBron is an ‘ambassador’ for Draft Kings with a multi year deal???
In the business world I live, that is the very definition of a conflict of interest.
A conflict of interest is defined as a situation in which the concerns or aims of two different parties are incompatible.
“the conflict of interest between elected officials and corporate lobbyists”
a situation in which a person is in a position to derive personal benefit from actions or decisions made in their official capacity.
I like the idea that the top pick goes to the team with the most wins after it has been eliminated from the playoffs. Not sure how that would play out, but make every team want to win going down the stretch.
Another idea I have seen revolves around the idea of a pot of money for new players and let the player choose from a group of teams. Makes the teams have to be desirable from a development standpoint to a rookie.
NBA wants to prevent tanking but also create parity. How do they do that? The draft lottery is obviously rigged anyway and every fan knows it. From Ewing to Flagg.
Don’t know why they don’t pull the ping pong balls live to at least limit the conspiracies.
I don’t think it is rigged. The number of people that would have to be involved makes it vanishingly improbable that they could pull it off without it getting out.
The issue is the incentive to tank is so high. Change the incentive to get the best prospect, and you will change the behavior. If the incentive is to win (once out of contention) then those teams will try to win. If the incentive is to have more opportunities and compensation to entice a prospect, they will adjust (for example, which of the top prospects would choose OKC right now? What playing time would you get there?)
NBA teams respond to incentives. The league has to create better incentives.
Oh joy! Oh rapture! Just what the world needs… another conspiracy theorist. If the NBA rigged the lottery, the Knicks and Lakers would have landed the #1 pick at least once apiece during their lean 2010’s seasons.
HELP! HELP! The paranoids are after me!
I assume if they were to change the protections on pick trades that it won’t impact anything prior to the rule.