Commissioner Adam Silver told all 30 of the NBA’s general managers on Thursday that the league intends to enact rule changes to combat tanking ahead of the 2026/27 season, reports Shams Charania of ESPN.
According to Charania, Silver was said to be “forceful” about his desire to resolve the issue, which he addressed at his All-Star press conference. Silver said during that media session that the league is considering “every possibly remedy” to reduce the practice of tanking.
Sam Amick of The Athletic confirms Charania’s report, and hears from a person with knowledge of the meeting that a consensus among those involved — Silver, members of the league office and the GMs — was reached that tanking “threatens the integrity and long-term viability” of the NBA. The GMs also agreed that changes to the current system need to be made.
“We’re all to blame,” one GM said, per Amick.
Mike Krzyzewski, who is now a member of the league office (his title is special adviser to basketball operations), praised the GMs for “acknowledging the issue and attacking it,” according to Amick, who notes that the former Duke head coach is often present for GM and competition committee meetings. Charania hears Krzyzewski also told the GMs to prepare for the rule changes, which will reportedly be in place for next season.
The league already flattened the draft lottery odds in 2019, Amick observes, but that hasn’t prevented teams from trying to jockey for position at the bottom of the standings, particularly when there’s a draft class that’s viewed as particularly strong (like this year).
According to Charania, the league and its teams have discussed the following possible rule changes during January’s competition committee meeting and Thursday’s GM call:
- Restricting first-round picks so they can have either top-four or top-14-plus protections
- Prohibiting teams from having top-four picks in consecutive years and/or after consecutive bottom-three finishes
- Barring teams from selecting in the top four if they make the conference finals the year before
- Freezing lottery odds at the trade deadline or an unspecified “later date”
- Flattened odds for all lottery teams
- Lottery odds being allocated based on two-year records
- Lottery extended to include all eight play-in teams (instead of the four who don’t make the playoffs)
Sam Quinn of CBS Sports explains (via Twitter) why he thinks all of those proposed changes are flawed.
2 year record is an interesting one. Freezing or flattening odds might be the easiest path.
make it so all lottery teams have the same odds.. nothing else needs to be done but that… period… full stop.. no need for the rest of the nonsense
Teams have made trades with draft restrictions 6 years out already. When is this tanking rule supposed to be enacted?
Honestly I think the league is spending way too much time on this tanking stuff. I just want better games/play period
I don’t think there’ll be a one-stop, all-encompassing solution to this ….. there are too many factors in play here, some teams have competent front offices, others not etc …… some of their proposals looks sound, but IMO the danger here is they over-do things and it brings about new issues down the road.
I wish the priority was looing into how to lessen all of these injuries.
Healthier teams, top players playing makes for more competitive games.
Judging from that list, it does feel like the league is actually taking this seriously. Consider my optimism dial moved from a 1 to a 2.