Not only does the NBA have a tanking problem this season, league commissioner Adam Silver thinks it might be worse than it’s been in recent memory. Silver addressed the controversial team-building strategy on Saturday during All-Star weekend, and said he is considering all options on how to fix it.
NBA wants solution to tanking issue
Finding a solution to this problem is not going to be easy.
Silver acknowledged that there is pressure from media and fans for teams to avoid being stuck in the middle of the league. That means if they are not going to compete for a championship, there is a real rooting interest for teams to be bad in order to get the best odds for the top pick in the draft.
When you add a draft year like this into the mix, where they are several top-tier prospects that will be available, it only further incentivizes teams to try to lose. You do not necessarily need to even have the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NBA Draft to find a franchise player. There are several potential stars in this class.
The problem has become so big this season that Silver resorted to fining the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers for some of their recent lineup decisions.
The draft lottery, in theory, is supposed to be a deterrent for that sort of strategy.
It is clearly not enough of a deterrent.
Silver also pointed out that due to the extreme measures teams are taking to tank, it could be giving a misleading look at as to which teams are actually the worst teams in the league. The top picks in the draft, across all sports, are supposed to go to the worst teams that need the most help. Tanking artificially manipulates that.
“If teams are manipulating their performance in order to get higher draft picks even in a lottery, then the question becomes … are they really the worst-performing teams?” Silver said. “It’s not clear to me, for example, that the 30th-performing team is that much measurably worse than the 22nd-performing team, particularly if you have incentive to perform poorly to get a better draft pick.
“It’s a bit of a conundrum. As I’ve said, the All-Star [Game] is 75 years old. The league is 80 years old. It’s time to take a fresh look at this to see to whether that’s an antiquated way of going about doing it.”
It is going to be an extremely difficult problem to fix.
The $500,000 and $100,000 fines handed out this week are not even a drop in the bucket to billion-dollar franchises, especially if it results in getting a potential cornerstone player who can one day help make the team a contender. Owners will happily write that check every time.
The league would have to get drastic in its potential fixes to really make some sort of a difference.
Taking away draft picks for repeat or blatant offenders would be a potential step. Or perhaps moving them from the top of the draft to the bottom of the draft if their actions are blatant enough. Silver said docking draft picks is on the table.
