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.
The draft needs to stay exactly as it is. How else do teams that spend over the cap reset and rebuild? Look at the Bucks — they’ve been trying to stay competitive throughout Giannis’s career, maxed out their cap, and still came up short with moves like the Lillard trade. Look at the Cavs. They went all-in supporting LeBron, got stuck with bloated support-player contracts when he left, and had to tear it down, collect picks, and rebuild through the draft before supplementing with trades and free agency.
You can’t compare NBA team-building to MLB, where there’s no salary cap, a much deeper minor league system, and a draft where stars can be found in the second, third, or even twentieth round — plus international free agency. You can’t compare it to the NFL either, with its seven-round draft and non-guaranteed contracts. The NBA has too many structural restraints for a cap-strapped team to improve any other way.
At some point, every team needs a reset — otherwise you end up like the Lakers, improving only around the margins and praying one marquee free agent chooses you. What happens when LeBron leaves and nobody wants to come to LA? It happened before. Pre-LeBron, top free agents routinely passed on the Lakers and Knicks to sign elsewhere.
So embrace the rebuild. Let teams formally declare a rebuild window — four years to turn things around. During that period, the NBA sets firm, reduced ticket prices. Fifty-dollar tickets become twenty-five-dollar tickets, giving fans a real reason to come out and watch young players develop while the organization focuses on improving the game-day experience. The only way to return to full prices is by reaching .500. Fail to do that in four years and ticket prices stay reduced — and the team forfeits its first-round pick. Incentive and urgency built in.
The reality is, if your cap is maxed out, the draft is your best path back. Detroit, Cleveland, San Antonio, and OKC have all proven it. Utah, Memphis, and Washington are about to do the same.
How do businesses rebuild in other industries? Maybe by just running the business better instead of trading the farm for Damian Lillard?
reflect- Comparing any other industry to sports and entertainment is foolhardy. This is a completely unique sector.
@reflect
Most businesses don’t have the competitive restraints put on ownership. Once you’ve committed to winning and have to pay to retain players then your handcuffed. What alternatives did they have win Giannis pushes them into “win now” move? What other players were available on the market that would have the same impact? Once Giannis leaves they ai I go thru the same process as others. Dump veteran contracts and prioritize young assets and hope for a high lottery pick and a franchise building talent. Rebuild and try again. But there will be 3 to 4 period of them losing. It’s exactly what San Antonio, OKC, Detroit and Cleveland had to do.
What planet are you on?
“You can’t compare NBA-team building to MLB”. I didn’t say a thing about the MLB. In fact, I said about 20 words – you’ve responded with 5 paragraphs. You’ve gotta stop having arguments in your own head and expecting people to be on the same page.
Cam- He was clearly using an outside example to explain why randomizing the draft is a terrible idea. Not every statement needs to specifically address your comment.
@myaccount2 – gotta remember which burner you’re on before you post.
What a thoughtful take this is. Reading anything here that isn’t shrill and at least borderline rude is a treat. Thanks KnicksFan.
thank you.
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
HELP! HELP! The paranoids are after me.
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?
Who doesn’t love a childish name calling attack? The prime missing pieces were failure to use “very, very”, then tossing in a wider assortment of ad hominem insults.
Shut up Adam
Ok kiddo
He’s terrible at his job
Tanking isn’t a top 15 problem with the league
Calling someone a dumbass and then immediately dropping “doesnt” is the funniest thing I’ve read in days
Ok kiddo
Low iq take
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.”
Your attributing the top quote to Silver when, in reality, that’s the media’s inference and use of a headline to grab readers’ attention. Silver never specifically said he was going to adjust tanking rules in a major way.
It’s true that the first paragraph is something I wrote, not something Silver said. But Silver did say, “We are going to make substantial changes for next year.”
My interpretation was that they’re not going to overhaul or abolish the draft lottery or do anything that drastic, but they still want to make significant changes to the current system — not just a tiny tweak or two.
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
Load management too
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
Watch the Lakers Celtics Knicks get the top 3 picks after losing in the 2nd round lmao
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.
100%
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.
Are you referring to the draft lottery? Everyone knows it’s rigged, from Ewing to Flagg.
Sure – because 28 other teams have happily kept their mouths shut while the NBA conspired to help LA and Dallas.
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.
Here’s how you deter tanking
1. Get rid of protections on picks. Like seriously get rid of protections all together. Teams won’t be as eager to trade unprotected firsts as they are guaranteed protections. It’ll stop teams from tanking trying to keep their first, think Dallas did that a few years ago
2. Reward ROY winners in both conferences with an additional first between rounds 1 and 2.
Reward teams with rookies who make all nba 1st teams with picks after that round. Theoretically it’ll give bad teams who play rookies more more draft picks to trade to improve their teams or more chances to hit on core players
3. Wild idea – nba champion gets the first non lottery pick. Rest are based on elimination and record for playoff teams. Reward the winners
“Barring teams from selecting in the top four if they make the conference finals the previous year.”
What nonsense is this? So in that scenario the Pacers, who never tanked in the past, would not have been eligible to pick high this year because their star player tore his Achilles tendon in game 7 of the NBA Finals, they lost their starting center and everybody else in injured? Who comes up with stuff like that?
Fix load management and it fixes everything. This is a silly ghost hunt
One thing I’ve noticed about fans ideas on tanking/lottery fixes is they only like ideas that benefit their teams. Shows how unserious y’all are.
What about drug tests
First: The draft lottery needs to have flat odds for all the teams in it. Take away a modicum of the incentive to losing that exists now. Non guaranteed playoff spot teams only. You will NEVER eliminate tanking, but you can curb it slightly. Doing anything more than flattening odds is going to damage more than it fixes. Second: Get rid of this fake “injury management” Scam. It’s the most widely used device in tanking teams. Start there. It’s not real. If the guy can’t play they have to be on the IL. No other statuses. Active or IL no more DTD, Rest or Injury Management statuses. That’s it. In reality the player can play or he can’t. The league needs to start policing medical staffs and validate these team decisions. As a close follower of the league for most of my life. That trend is infuriating to see proliferate as the key strategy in taking. I do not blame players, I blame medical staff, GMs aced owners. Players want to play, with the exception of a couple Divas out there.
Include all eight play-in teams in an 18-team lottery.
Determine only the Top 3 each year by lottery, with less heavily weighted odds based on the most recently completed season record only.
Prohibit teams from winning Top 3 selections two years in a row, with prior-year winners capped at No. 4 the in a year one team repeats, 4 or 5 if two repeat, etc.
Determine all picks after the Top 3 in order of best record to worst, so the No. 4 goes to the play-in team with the best record. Meanwhile, the team with the worst record who doesn’t win one of the Top 3 would drop all the way to No. 18.
I think that system would add real risks to any team tanking, since even one lottery win by a team not in the bottom three would drop the third worst team 15 draft slots.
Teams in or on the verge of the play-in tournament would also be incentivized to make that tournament and get the highest regular season win total since that would ensure the best play-in team no less than the 4th overall pick.
There are many, many commenters here who follow the NBA much more closely than me. I’m curious to hear what you consider the strengths and shortcomings of my proposal.