The subject of tanking has become a hot-button topic in recent weeks, prompting NBA commissioner Adam Silver to address it over All-Star weekend. ESPN’s Bobby Marks spoke on NBA Today on Monday about the commissioner’s response, including his comments about potentially stripping picks from teams.
“Change is coming here when we’re looking at this lottery system, and basically not incentivizing teams to lose to gain advantage in the draft,” Marks said (YouTube video link).
There have been different ideas thrown out as potential remedies for the current system. Marc Stein, in his latest Substack article, suggests a new approach, wherein teams could only secure the highest odds for landing the top pick once they clear 27 wins.
Stein uses 27 wins as the cut-off because that would mean winning at least a third of the season’s games, and would discourage teams from bottoming out completely. Some semblance of competitiveness would be required to hit that mark and qualify for a top pick. Teams that didn’t reach 27 wins would have lower odds of landing a top-four pick in this scenario.
Whatever the choice is, Stein writes that it’s important that the league doesn’t overreact to a particularly egregious single-year tank battle due to what is considered a generational draft.
We have more from around the world of basketball:
- Law Murray of The Athletic released his post-All-Star Break power rankings today, which he broke into five categories: top contenders, in a good place, the bubble, not the tier to fear, and basement floor. His top contenders category includes five teams, led by the Pistons, followed by the Spurs, Thunder, Knicks, and Celtics, while his second tier is a three-team race between the Cavaliers, Nuggets, and Rockets. On the other side of the spectrum, he has five “basement floor” teams, with the two lowest being the Wizards at 29 and the Kings, whom he calls “a true factory of sadness,” at 30.
- It was recently reported that Nigel Hayes-Davis would be leaving the NBA to return to Europe, signing a deal with Panathinaikos that will extend through 2028. He explained the decision to choose the Greek team instead of joining one of his former squad, Fenerbahce Beko. “Everyone knows Fenerbahce was an option and what I did there over the last few years, especially what we accomplished as a team last season. It just felt like that chapter was closed and that I had given my all,” he said, per Kevin Martorano of Sportando. Hayes-Davis was the EuroLeague Final Four MVP a year ago as Fenerbahce won the 2025 title.
- Former NBA star Pau Gasol confirmed his involvement in NBA Europe, though what exactly he will be doing has yet to be fully clarified, Martorano writes for Sportando. “At the moment, there is no defined role. I’m simply working with the NBA, with FIBA, and speaking with teams to see what the evolution of basketball’s growth in Europe should look like,” the two-time NBA champion said. “From there, we’ll see what role I will ultimately take on, whether at the league level or with a team.” He also outlined his vision for what the project would be able to accomplish: “We need to build everything from scratch. Basketball is a globally important sport, and I believe we have the space to enhance it both as an experience and as a show, going beyond the simple magic of the game itself. That is exactly what we are here to do.”
Will get to the point where Silver decides the draft order, lols.
Man, I am so sick of all the talk about tanking, is part of the game, nothing wrong with it, get over it, move on to more important topics, right?
@ElDon
I agree with you 100%. This isn’t mlb where you have cheap owners that sacrifice competitiveness with wanting to win. There’s a clear mandate that all teams must spend “X” amount of revenue on player salaries. Now some may be hesitant to spend the max out go into the luxury tax and thus might not be committed to winning by that’s not something the draft can fix. Players are mostly interested in location and ability to compete and if your either a small market team in an undesirable location or a team that TRIED to compete OR made mistakes and find yourself with aging stars on bloated contests and no how of competing then unloading those contracts and trying to stock up young assets and picks is the best way to rebuild. You can’t compare the nba to how things are done in the NFL (non-guaranteed contracts, 7 round draft and no requirements to salary match) or mlb (40 round draft, no salary matching, no hard salary cap), 6 levels of minor league play, 3 completely cost controlled years plus 3 arbitration years and the ability to add salary to replace injured or underperforming players). Instead of worrying about changing the draft how about embedding the suck. Make it so teams can declare themselves in a “rebuilding period”. Put a cap in the years they can use to rebuild. Penalize them if they aren’t at least a 40 win team by the end of that capped period. Force them to reduce the face value of their tickets during that “rebuild period ” so that fans aren’t paying full prices for a lesser product. Offer financial incentives for owners to right their ships and get back to competitiveness. It shouldn’t take more than 4 years for a team to rebuild.
You know what Mr. Adam Silver? Why not just bust open the Draft Lottery altogether. Despite the league reducing the odds and /or distributing them, the “Sam Hinkie’s” would still play on odds and ‘Trust the Process’. I think, as long as there are “better chances”, teams would “position” themselves according to who they are targetting in the draft. A “bottom team” should then rely on other means of getting better other than ‘tanking’. Bust the draft lottery open by putting in equal odds to each team’s draft positions, not just the non-playoff teams. Bottom teams can get better via trade, free agency, player development and some luck in draft lottery amd the draft itself (diamond-in-the-rough picks). Bust the lottery draft open and end tanking once and for all.
If he wants to make the league better, maybe let players know there are hot mics everywhere? We all now know Ant-Man hates the Wolves and wants to play for the Hawks next season. If the Wolves don’t win it all this year, Ant-man goes to Atlanta, bet on it. His exact quote to Jalen Johnson was “I cant wait to go home, and yall go so many wings, like you and Kuminga”.
Ants going to Atlanta, Giannis going to Golden State, and Steve Kerr is going straight to hell! Atta boy Davey!!
Silver just makes everything harder than it needs to be….all you have to do is give every team the same odds. No more tanking
@The Big
And the small market teams that friend on the draft because they can’t attract star FA suffer?
Yea so?
I’m with Steph Curry on this one, it isn’t such a big issue. You still have 20 teams fighting for the playoff positioning, and also the opportunity to see younger players try to develop team chemistry on the tanking teams is something I enjoy, especially with the nets, as I hope to see more of Danny Wolf and Ben Saraf, who both have displayed selflessness and competitiveness in their limited minutes so far. So unless the players on the court are trying to intentionally lose – tanking isn’t an issue imho.
Furthermore, revising the draft lottery system won’t stop teams that aren’t competitive from sitting their “stars”. Once you’re out of playoff contention, the smart thing to do is to develop your young players by giving them the majority of minutes and letting them close out games, while protecting your “stars” from injuries so that you can trade those losers for any possible return, and not get yourself into a DeRozan situation after the trade deadline!
I don’t think it’s lottery odds that are driving tanking. It’s traded picks with protection. The difference between 7 and 8 might be a couple percentage point chance at 1 through 4, but the difference between 8 and 9 is losing the pick entirely. Maybe they need to look at the rules regarding protection on traded picks.