Addressing the issue of tanking during a panel appearance at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston, NBA commissioner Adam Silver reiterated that the league intends to adjust its rules in a major way ahead of the 2026/27 season, per Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic.
“We are going to make substantial changes for next year,” Silver said. “I think where I’m on the fence — on one extreme, you could completely divorce the draft from teams’ records. Just argue we could take all 30 teams regardless of the outcome, that would completely disincentivize tanking. You could win the finals, you know, and get the first pick. But then there’s gradations of that.”
Despite teasing a complete overhaul of the NBA’s draft lottery system, Silver admitted that the rule changes likely won’t be quite that significant.
“Not to exactly forecast where we’re going, but I think I’m sort — I am an incrementalist,” he said. “I think we got to be a little bit careful, you know, about how huge a change we make at once. I’m not ruling anything out, but I am paying attention to that. And then there’s something significantly more than, I would say, just tinkering with the existing system.”
As reported last month, some of the ideas that the NBA has discussed to discourage tanking are as follows:
- Restricting teams from including protections between top-four and top-14-plus on traded first-round picks.
- 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 previous year.
- 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).
[RELATED: Silver Discusses Tanking With General Managers During Video Call]
That second-last item – basing the odds for lottery teams on their records over the last two seasons – was one Silver cited on Friday, noting that the WNBA uses it. He also noted that he’s hesitant to punish teams in the midst of “legitimate rebuilds” who are “genuinely trying to win games” with young rosters, but suggested that tanking this season ahead of a strong 2026 draft has gone well beyond that.
“It’s a little bit of a perfect storm this season, that you have a perceived, very deep draft,” the commissioner said. “Again, I say ‘perceived’ because scouts’ predictions are wrong. But there’s a sense that you have four players in particular, maybe five, who are true game-changers. You add to that a forecast that the next two years’ drafts won’t be as good, and you create enormous incentive for teams to tank.”
Randomize the draft order. As long as the league continues to reward losing, teams will find a way to exploit it.
Heavy manipulation incoming. Silver is basically going to decide the draft, lols.
Win a chip, get the no.1 pick. Yet, make the conference finals the previous year and can’t pick top 4? Just come out and say ‘I’m selecting the draft order’
You can’t win a chip without making the conference finals, so you could get the top pick
Just calling out the coincidence how Dallas got #1 and the gifting to Lakers.
Teams can only compete when the league does not favor certain markets
Yep
Give it up you Slender Man lookin f&÷k
Does anyone trust Adam Silver to actually fix anything?
He’s such a dumbass
Dude doenst even know nba history
Look up 1994
there’s a reason we are where we were
His changes only made more teams tank because very worst weren’t keeping the best picks
How do the dumbest people get these commish gigs?
Que jugadores que no desquitan lo que ganan se les canceled su contrato.y que haiga una segunda division.
Well said, Yosh.
Honestly not having pick protections sounds rad
Silver:
“…NBA commissioner Adam Silver reiterated that the league intends to adjust its rules in a major way ahead of the 2026/27 season.”
Also Silver:
“I am an incrementalist,” he said. “I think we got to be a little bit careful, you know, about how huge a change we make at once.”
What a complete embarrassment
Tanking isn’t even the main issue they need to worry about.
The sports betting has gotten out of control, with many sportsbooks being deeply intertwined with the NBA.
The on-court product is also a problem. Traveling rarely gets called, players arguing throughout the game, carrying, etc. Why have rules if they aren’t being enforced?
Travelling and carrying/palming the ball.
This is very very high on the list
Literally not in the top 15
After picking Vemby, SAS had #4 and #2 picks next two drafts. Detroit had top5 picks for several years, Houston had top4 picks. Okc is somewhat different story, because they actually hit on lots of 2nd round selections, but there were years when they were intentionally bad. How is this year problem? How is, for example, Denver going to keep up with those teams when the last time they were picking even in top 20 was 2018.
Simple fix.
Starts with no pick protections.
All teams that don’t make the conference finals get equal draft odds. Forces teams to push for the playoffs then forces them to go for the championship once they make it.
Play against a quarter of the league for the ship vs roll the dice against 26 teams for the #1 pick.
Conference finals teams are the last 4 picks.
Champ- 30
Finals loser- 29
Conference finals losers order determined by season record.
i like this one
They need to televise the selecting the draft order. They say it’s random but have refused to let us watch. Long past time to change that. Prove to us that it’s fair and not the League determining who is getting the top picks.
So no specifics yet.
Zzzzz.
If I’m reading it right, I actually like Silver’s approach …….. multiple but small, incremental changes.
They have to be forward-looking – making, big sweeping changes might result in some other problems down the road.
Adam Silver serves the NBA owners. He does what the majority of them want, or he’s replaced. What keeps the majority of a group of billionaires happy? More money. Tanking is costing the league a lot of money. I think a lot of discourse around tanking doesn’t take into consideration how much this is only about maximizing profit.
If there was rigging there would be team lawsuits. Just let it go. How do we know teams aren’t in the back rooms supervising?
Just make bottom 14 get equal odds. And if you need more, go no draft protections.
Making major changes this year would be short-sighted. It’s just a really good year to tank. Give these first and second aprons time, and you’ll see free agency become a more viable option for team-building again. Teams would rather win some games and look like a good free agent destination than lose endlessly hoping for a 14% chance at Risacher/Bennett/Oden.
Silver should go on stage. Yes, we know how to end tanking, but that’s too extreme. We’d rather keep it (and keep talking about it), and instead just do something incremental that we can claim was designed to lessen it.
Actually, what’s listed are perfect “remedies” from the bureaucrat’s perspective. They satisfy the dual bureaucratic purposes of defining the problem downward, in scope and significance, and reducing the most obvious evidence of it going forward. They don’t even mildly discourage the truly shameful forms of tanking, and, comically, they actually encourage the single most shameful form of it, i.e., multi-year tanking ventures like the ones OKC, SAS, HOU and DET recently completed.