INGLEWOOD, Calif. — As if he encountered a pesky defender incapable of limiting his deft shooting touch, Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry dismissed the inquiry.
What else can the NBA do to reduce tanking?
“Is it really that big of a problem?” Curry said with a hint of incredulousness. “I’m asking.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver thinks so.
Last week, the league issued fines to the Utah Jazz ($500,000) and Indiana Pacers ($100,000) for sitting key players despite being considered available on their respective injury reports. The Jazz benched Jaren Jackson Jr. and Lauri Markkanen for the entire fourth quarter against the Orlando Magic (Feb. 7) and Miami Heat (Feb. 9). The Pacers rested Pascal Siakam and Bennedict Mathurin against the Jazz (Feb. 3).
In a statement, Silver said “overt behavior like this that prioritizes draft position over winning undermines the foundation of NBA competition.” Less than an hour after Curry downplayed the severity of the league’s tanking problem during NBA All-Star media availability, Silver reiterated his concerns.
“Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we've seen in recent memory? Yes, is my view,” Silver said in a press conference during All-Star weekend at Intuit Dome. “We're going to be looking more closely at the totality of all the circumstances this season in terms of teams' behavior.”
Silver added that he “wanted teams to be on notice.” The reasons go beyond how Utah and Indiana handled their respective rosters. Nearly a third of the NBA’s 30 teams are likely out of play-in tournament contention, including the Dallas Mavericks (19-35), Jazz (18-38), New Orleans Pelicans (15-41), Brooklyn Nets (15-38), Pacers (15-40) and Sacramento Kings (12-44) and Washington Wizards (14-39).
Those teams have either made trades or sat key players at some point this season both to develop younger prospects and to maximize NBA draft lottery odds. As Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker said. “It’s not good for our game.”
How Bad is Tanking in the NBA?
Because of that, the NBA plans to have more meetings either to tweak or add policies in hopes of reducing tanking.
Under the NBA Draft lottery system, the league determines the top four picks through a random drawing using ping-pong balls. Among the 14 non-playoff teams, those with the worst three records receive the best odds to land the No. 1 pick (14%). The odds then scale down for teams that finish between the fourth- and 14th-worst record as follows: fourth-worst (12.5%), fifth-worst (10.5%), sixth-worst (9%), seventh-worst (7.5%), eighth-worst (6.0%), ninth-worst (4.5%), 10th-worst (3%), 11th-worst (2%), 12th-worst (1.5%), 13th-worst (1%) and 14th-worst (.5%).
“I truly believe this, in terms of the basketball gods, they never, ever reward teams when you piss off the basketball gods,” said Hall of Famer Reggie Miller, now an NBC Sports analyst. “If you’re purposefully losing or not playing your best player to get a better or higher draft pick, it never really works out that way.”
Miller mentioned that the Dallas Mavericks landed the No. 1 pick last year despite finishing with the 11th-worst record following the controversial Luka Dončić trade to the Los Angeles Lakers. Since the NBA Draft lottery’s inception in 1985, the No. 1 pick unexpectedly went to the 11th-worst team (twice), 10th-worst team (once), ninth-worst team (twice) and eighth-worst team (once). Those examples represent rare exceptions, though. The No. 1 pick has gone more often to teams with the worst record (eight), second-worst record (four) or third-worst record (nine).
New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, a vice president of the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) Executive Committee, said “we’ll definitely have a conversation about it, and we’ll see what we can do to make it a better product.”
Detroit Pistons coach JB Bickerstaff, president of the NBA Coaches Association, said the league needs to have a “serious conversation” about tanking and added “that’s something we’ve been discussing” among coaches.
“Typically it’s the coach that takes the brunt of it,” Bickerstaff said. “Whether it’s a philosophical decision that’s from ownership to the front office, the coach is the one that has as to be in the front of it and go out and execute it. They typically take the shots from everybody because they’re the ones that have to go out and execute the plan. It’s something that we take seriously and something that we hope will work with the league on to try to eliminate it as much as we possibly can, because it is something serious that impacts coaches in a big way.”
Others around the NBA don’t see tanking as problematic as the league office contends it is. They opined that Silver took exception to the Jazz and Pacers because they sat players before the All-Star break and were less subtle about it. Curry looked at the issue through a big-picture lens.
“The league is in a great place overall in terms of the attention, the skill level, the global reach, all of that stuff,” Curry said. “Every year, you’ll address the issues. I don’t have those answers, though.”
Regardless of how severe tanking actually is, below is a look at some possible answers.
Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Take Away Draft Picks
Regardless of whether the NBA’s recent fines were justified or not, those are essentially just tiny luxury taxes for billion-dollar franchises to absorb. What if the NBA penalized tanking teams, however, by removing draft picks?
“There is talk about every possible remedy now to stop this behavior,” Silver said.
The NBA has done that to teams that have tampered with prospective free agents. So it seems plausible the league would entertain this idea. A team could feel dissuaded from trying to maximize its draft lottery odds if it becomes vulnerable with losing its pick, at the very least.
Despite the recent financial penalties to Utah and Indiana, however, it can become hard to prove that a team is actually tanking. Some non-playoff teams can accelerate their rebuilds by further developing young players with more minutes and trading away assets to clear cap space.
Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images
Abolish the Draft
Sources confirmed a report by The Athletic that the NBA’s Competition Committee has discussed various ideas to reduce tanking recently. They also confirmed that no one discussed ending the draft itself and making eligible rookies enter the NBA through free agency. But sources stressed they haven’t ruled that idea out.
That proposal met resistance in the past decade amid concerns about how that policy could favor large-market teams over small markets. Some believe those dynamics have since changed. Some rookies may prefer joining a rebuilding team to ensure a bigger role and potentially a larger contract later in their career. Some rookies may prefer joining an NBA title contender so they can develop more gradually and learn from established stars.
“The fundamental theory behind a draft is to help your worst-performing teams restock and be able to compete,” Silver said. “We want parity, but parity of opportunity. There's still going to be better-managed teams, etc. We need a system to fairly distribute players. I think it's in the players' interest as well as the teams that you have a level of parity around the league. There's only so many jobs and so many cities.”
Have a Lottery Tournament
The NBA launched the play-in tournament when the 2019-20 pandemic season restarted in a campus bubble. That gave playoff contenders a chance to secure a seed and build rhythm going into the postseason. The league continued that concept in subsequent years. After some initial pushback, the play-in tournament has enticed some teams to remain competitive in the last two months of the regular season instead of prioritizing draft lottery odds.
“We feel like there is a lot of competition,” Curry said. “It’s something that every year, the NBA wants to address. That’s why the play-in tournament exists. Things evolve. Problems arise. And everybody wants to shine a spotlight on all of the negatives of the league. But let’s focus on the positives with how great the competition is at the top. There still is relevance regular-season-wise with seeding and playoff chases.”
Tracy McGrady, another Hall of Famer and NBC Sports analyst, wondered aloud if the league can expand that tournament under different parameters.
“Having the last teams or the teams that don’t make the playoffs have to play for a position in the lottery and the first pick in the draft,” McGrady said. “Then you’re playing for something. Right now, they’re not playing for anything.”
Sources said that the NBA Competition Committee has discussed that idea in past meetings, but it has never gained traction amid skepticism about the intended goal. NBA players aren’t considered responsible for tanking because of their want to secure a bigger role and contract. The competition committee also concluded that this policy could give players less of an incentive to win because an incoming rookie potentially could take their roster spot.
What’s Next?
It’s not clear when or how the NBA will further address tanking. Despite varying opinions about the problem and solutions, league officials, coaches and players seem aligned at least on one thing.
“You need to have the best product available out there,” Toronto Raptors coach Darko Rajakovićsaid. “Every game should be competitive. Every game, our fans and everybody deserves to have a great product on the court. This is now in the hands of the NBA, and teams have to figure out the best way how to do it.”
Mark Medina is an NBA contributor for Athlon Sports. Follow him on X, Blue Sky, Instagram, Facebook and Threads.