The NBA, in the hopes of further discouraging teams from tanking, has begun soliciting input from team owners and general managers on possible rule changes, reports ESPN’s Shams Charania. According to Charania, the league sought feedback on a number of ideas at a Board of Governors meeting last Friday, including:
- Eliminating mid-lottery protections on traded picks, so that traded picks could only include either top-four protection or top-14 (or higher) protection.
- Prohibiting teams from drafting in the top four in back-to-back years.
- Locking lottery positions as of March 1.
As Charania explains, the NBA is looking for ways to discourage teams from “deliberately manipulating” their rosters in an effort to land a higher draft pick or hang onto a protected pick. The league’s goal, Charania says, isn’t to stop young, rebuilding teams from using their normal rotations, but to reduce instances of clubs sitting regular starters and encourage them to remain competitive down the stretch.
Some of the most egregious instances of tanking in recent years have involved teams looking to retain control of traded picks with protections on them. Charania points to the 2023 Mavericks, who owed the Knicks their top-10 protected first-rounder and held out key players in the final games of the season in order to hang onto that pick despite still being in contention for a play-in spot. The first proposed rule described above would be designed to target those cases.
The second proposal would have had an impact on multiple recent drafts if it had been in effect. For instance, the Rockets and Spurs, two of the Western Conference’s most promising up-and-coming teams, drafted in the top four in several consecutive seasons — Houston selected Jalen Green (2021), Jabari Smith Jr. (2022), Amen Thompson (2023), and Reed Sheppard (2024) with top-four picks, while San Antonio did the same with Victor Wembanyama (2023), Stephon Castle (2024), and Dylan Harper (2025).
The third proposal would disincentivize post-March 1 tanking, but wouldn’t necessarily eliminate instances of teams tanking prior to that date.
The NBA is focused on tanking in part because gamblers have allegedly been able to access inside information about lottery-bound teams sitting certain players in recent seasons, Charania notes. Federal investigators say that an unnamed co-conspirator, who matches the description of Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups, told a bettor that several Portland players would miss a game in March 2023 as the team began to tank.
In the wake of that federal probe into illegal gambling that resulted in the arrests of Billups, Heat guard Terry Rozier, and former player and coach Damon Jones, the NBA is attempting to close off avenues for bettors to gain access to and use inside information. The league sent out a memo to teams last week detailing adjustments to the injury reporting process and proposed changes affecting prop bets.
No rule changes aimed at tanking have been approved at this point, but the subject figures to be an ongoing topic of discussion at upcoming Board of Governors meetings.
They are doing such a good job of making a longtime hardcore fan care less and less about its product, thankfully college hoops has had an all time great schedule.
The problem with college sports continues to be the fact the players are simply minor league pros waiting to get to the big leagues. Last night renowned powerhouse North Texas slipped past Science and Arts of Oklahoma 121-56. Scheduling? College could vastly improve its scheduling by placing the top 15 teams in a super-conference and do a home/away 28 game schedule. Promote and relegate with the next conference down like British Soccer. I have a cadre of family and friends who went to the University of Oregon. The Ducks now are in the 18 team Big 10 Conference and travel to New Jersey for conference games. Imbecilic.
Yeah I’ve went to college ball. Some teams actually play a C taller than 6″10
The mid lottery protections should’ve never existed in the first place
“Prohibiting teams from drafting in the top four in back-to-back years.”
Definitely a good place to start as far as the league is concerned, but my gut says they will make rather toothless changes that wouldn’t adequately address the issue and we’ll replay this same scenario in a few years time. Hope I’m wrong.
I remember having what I thought was a pretty reasonable solution for tanking last year, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was lol. Ugh.
EDIT- Found it. So it was: Expand the lottery to 8 teams, have flat lottery odds for the lottery, and have normal lottery odds for the remaining non-playoff teams. In other words, you’re either in the (flat) lottery or you’re in the play-in, and if you’re good enough for the play-in you’re more likely than not to want to move up in the standings rather than down.
Silver, I await your call—and a cushy six figure job. You’re welcome.
(But no top-4 picks in b2b years would be nice in and of itself. Just not sure enough owners would get behind that idea)
The lottery already has more than 8 teams…did you mean expand the play-in to 8 teams?
No, they didn’t mean the lottery in that sense, but rather the number of picks that actually draw number combinations for, which is currently the first four picks, and they’re advocating for 8 picks instead.
I think he’s saying if you’re in the play-in, you’re not going to be in the lottery if you don’t make it to one of the top seeds. He also may mean if you’re one of the top two teams that miss the play-in, you’re out of the lottery as well. If protections follow suit and go to Top 8, the Mavs gimmick wouldn’t have worked.
“Expand the lottery to 8 teams, have flat lottery odds for the lottery, and have normal lottery odds for the remaining non-playoff teams.”
Note the word “expand” which means to make bigger, currently only the top 4 (4 is less than 8) picks are the only ones they actually draw combinations for, and the rest lined up from worst record to best.
I get it now; thanks for clarifying!
GREAT that you were able to find the EDIT, Shea. This or some variation on it seems like a good solution.
A typical case of someone doing something just so it looks like they’re doing everything, or when imbeciles pretend they’re much smarter than they actually are—when in reality it’s quite the opposite…
1. Who exactly is going to be prevented from tanking by the fact that, in a future fictional trade, they can’t put top-8 protection on their pick, only top-4 or top-14? Who is going to shy away from planning the next five years of a franchise because of this?
2. This is a classic “something for nothing” measure: even though there are consistently terrible teams, it’s not typical for anyone to be drafting in the top 4 all the time anyway.
3. This might be the biggest nonsense of all… Do they really think teams only start tanking on March 1? Or that when March 1 becomes the deadline, everyone for whose season is already lost won’t start tanking in the second half of February?
In regards to no 2, I think it’s about preventing things like the Spurs having a top 4 pick in 3 consecutive years, which may not happen very often, but still it’s not a good thing for the league when if it does (although I’m sure Spurs fans loved it.) So the thing about arguing against a rule against something that doesn’t happen often is that you kind of also accidentally make the argument for why it’s not a big deal to do it.
Hysterical, or it would be if it were not so sad. Tanking is the biggest Elephant in the NBA’s room. You don’t hunt Elephants with a sling shot.
#1 – Deals only with a few discrete instances of tanking for a small period, and, like #3, the “solution” merely moves the point of contention. It’s being addressed only because these embarrassed the league. Teams valued their draft pick more than making the play-in (Silver’s baby which itself was supposed to stop tanking).
#2 – Good idea from an equity standpoint. Prevents the SAS fiasco, or lessens it. But it’s too microscopic of a change overall to have any impact on tanking. Teams don’t tank over multiple years thinking they’ll lock into back to back top 4 picks, more like they’ll get annual top 10 picks.
#3 – Really? Comical. This will definitely encourage tanking, as it creates a tanking season. After which tanking teams can let their teams try to win, and who knows, even make the playoffs. More teams will tank knowing it’s not all or nothing. I can only imagine what late February games might look like.
Tanking, like crime, won’t stop until it no longer pays. Slightly reducing the benefits to some offenders in some instances only validates the practice overall.
Quite funny considering the draft was just held behind closed doors and us fans just had to take the word of the nba on the entire draft order.
How about just removing trade protection on draft picks altogether?
That might kill trading too much for the league’s liking.
Sounds like a challenge to get teams to tank before March 1 and create even more meaningless regular season games
Better late than never but man has the damage been done and there’s a lot left to untangle
I could go on forever but I’ll spare everyone
Id like to add 1 addendum tho ….Limit the amount of 1 st rd picks 1 team can have in their 7 year collectors album
We love action in the NBA but it all goes down the drain when a collection of teams are just looking to acquire all the tradable firsts leaving little left for others to actually make trades which all fans love to see
Okc is the poster child here and you cant blame others for following the footsteps . I know its uncouth to say out loud but the Okc dynasty (yea its official) was fueled mainly bc of shamless tanking.
Everyone’s entitled to different thoughts but I will look at OKC with a stain in 10 years that I never had for those 90’s Bulls , Spurs Shaq/Kobe Lakers or the GSW dynasties in the last 30 years . That stain also soaks in Silver as well
I think late and this feeble is at least close to never. Silver’s solutions will always be narrowly drawn; its a bureaucrat’s way of suggesting the problems are narrow. But this is another level. He basically just picked out the instances that were personally embarrassing to him. He didn’t care that DAL lost on purpose, only that Kidd had a PC announcing it. He didn’t care that UTH tanked in the second half of 3 straight seasons. Only when Ainge told him to f-off last year did he seem troubled by it.
FWIW, I’d remove the Duncan’s Spurs from the stainless list. Maybe if they didn’t already have a top 5 player in Robinson, Pop’s tanking antics wouldn’t have seemed so sophomoric (in truth they were relatively tame by today’s standards).
If tanking’s day of reckoning is on its way, it won’t be due to Adam The Myopic. More likely it will be due to the new level of success that tanking has brought to its practitioners. With OKC, it’s now (for the first time) hit championship levels. Easy to keep quiet about this abomination when the tanking teams are just winning on draft day. What happens when the former perma-tankers (OKC, SAS, HOU, DET, etc.) are the only title contenders. With no real free agency, and expansion on the way, it’s not only possible, but likely.
Likely indeed
In Adams pursuit of parity he created a group of powerhouses built on the backs of losing, I cant fault those today who want to follow in the Holy quest
Damage has been done
I thought about omitting the Spurs but they traveled so long (and well) I felt them worthy of the list.
You are correct this is the first time 2k has played up so well, troubling precedent; but the news today is still a plus rather than negative, but damn…. damage done
Tanking is part of the game… and no one cares about gambling apart of gamblers, so who cares, right?
Looking at the rule proposals in isolation is short- sighted; Tanking is a complex problem, and the solution to complex problems is rarely simple. There is no magic wand that banishes tanking forever, best you can do is layer multiple fixes that each makes things a little better. I do like the earlier suggestion to limit the number of FR picks that a team can bank. I say implement the rules, then leave it alone for 2-3 years and evaluate the impact.