NBA The Tanking Question

[Correct Crusader]

As I'm sure all of you are aware of, lately tanking has been in the news!

What should the NBA do, if anything, to fix tanking?
What do you think?

This redditor mentioned a system that I think could work.

 

[bozhemoi]

I honestly don't see why this is suddenly such a concern (other than the Thunder being whiny bitches). Teams want to get better and getting those top draft picks is one of the vital ways to do it. It's always been this way -- only, yeah, this year OKC has been bitches about their Utah pick.

Also, I think the league is making this a big talking point because they don't want to deal with the Clippers/Ballmer stuff.

 

[Correct Crusader]

I honestly don't see why this is suddenly such a concern (other than the Thunder being whiny bitches). Teams want to get better and getting those top draft picks is one of the vital ways to do it. It's always been this way -- only, yeah, this year OKC has been bitches about their Utah pick.

Also, I think the league is making this a big talking point because they don't want to deal with the Clippers/Ballmer stuff.

I think the Jazz are being unbelievably gross in the way they're tanking. I think that warrants some concern.

 

[bozhemoi]

I think the Jazz are being unbelievably gross in the way they're tanking. I think that warrants some concern.

To me, not really. They won a spate of games they shouldn't have in the last six weeks or so. They also put their chips in getting JJJ and this looks like the last year they'll be tanking. The league really just needs to give them a top pick. Only Sacramento and the Jazz have never won the lottery.

 

[Correct Crusader]

To me, not really. They won a spate of games they shouldn't have in the last six weeks or so. They also put their chips in getting JJJ and this looks like the last year they'll be tanking. The league really just needs to give them a top pick. Only Sacramento and the Jazz have never won the lottery.

Their team is good enough to make the playoffs this year, especially with JJJ. That's the issue.

 

[Mugen]

Some form of tanking will always be present in the NBA since a single player can affect a franchise's entire future tbh.

I've never really minded it but I also recognize that I'm a diehard fan that's gonna watch the games either way and that the real problem is its effect on casual NBA fans.

Even tank merchants like the Spurs weren't super in your face about it like the Hinkie Sixers and what the Jazz are doing now.

I dont think the system needs a overhaul but they probably need to do away with the crazy pick protections. I like the suggestion of either making it something like Top 4 only or lottery protected. I also think you need to incentivize teams to make the playoffs and not do what the Mavs did a few years back to get Lively. The play in has been a success and giving first round playoff losers a chance at the lottery seems like another good tweak IMO.

 

[Seventyniner]

Tanking does need to be addressed. Some teams are playing a different game than others, trying to lose where others are trying to win. Schedule imbalances due to timing of playing tanking teams distort the final standings.

I don't think the PhD idea above would work, it would merely cause teams to tank earlier and get themselves eliminated from playoff contention as early as possible so they get more chances to accumulate gold points or whatever.

The wheel is a great system but getting there from here isn't really possible. One team would be stuck without the possibility of a #1 pick for 29 years.

One idea I saw was to do the wheel but with only 5 slots with 6 teams in each instead of 30 and 1 team in each. The picks (#1-6 for one slot, #7-12 for another and so on) would be randomly assigned with equal probability. Then 5 years later when a team gets back to the coveted #1-6 slot, they can't receive the same pick number they did the last time. That means any team that gets the #1 pick can't get it again until 30 years later.

It's a bit hard to explain, but it's elegant and essentially reinvents the Wheel, but in a way that every team has a 1/6 chance of the #1 pick in the next 5 years. After the initial 30 years, the full Wheel can be used based on the results of the past 30.

Expansion teams in Seattle and Vegas could cause a problem, it would need some fleshing out.

 

[spursfanfromafar]

My idea goes like this - I like the no protections except for the top 4. And I think they should give some extra weights to those teams that make the play in.

So the lottery of 14 needs to be changed to a lottery of 18 with flattened odds and some weights for the play in teams. And no protections except for Top 4 and Top 18. This way there is an even lower incentive to tank in order to get a top pick. And there is a greater chance to get a top pick if you make the play in rather than not.

 

[spursfanfromafar]

Tanking does need to be addressed. Some teams are playing a different game than others, trying to lose where others are trying to win. Schedule imbalances due to timing of playing tanking teams distort the final standings.

I don't think the PhD idea above would work, it would merely cause teams to tank earlier and get themselves eliminated from playoff contention as early as possible so they get more chances to accumulate gold points or whatever.

The wheel is a great system but getting there from here isn't really possible. One team would be stuck without the possibility of a #1 pick for 29 years.

One idea I saw was to do the wheel but with only 5 slots with 6 teams in each instead of 30 and 1 team in each. The picks (#1-6 for one slot, #7-12 for another and so on) would be randomly assigned with equal probability. Then 5 years later when a team gets back to the coveted #1-6 slot, they can't receive the same pick number they did the last time. That means any team that gets the #1 pick can't get it again until 30 years later.

It's a bit hard to explain, but it's elegant and essentially reinvents the Wheel, but in a way that every team has a 1/6 chance of the #1 pick in the next 5 years. After the initial 30 years, the full Wheel can be used based on the results of the past 30.

Expansion teams in Seattle and Vegas could cause a problem, it would need some fleshing out.

The wheel is too radical for the owners ..especially small market teams to agree. It was already discussed, debated and shelved

 

[bozhemoi]

Their team is good enough to make the playoffs this year, especially with JJJ. That's the issue.

So what? Let them tank. They traded for JJJ for next year.

Truly don't get why this is an issue.

The problem people are trying to solve for is that this hurts teams that are jockeying for playoff position, because they are playing teams that don't want to win.

Every solution I've seen just punishes teams for trying not to win (because they want to eventually get better). The only ones that can possibly work are ones that reward bad teams for not tanking. If I see those proposals, they'd make more sense.

 

[scott]

To truly answer this question, we need to all agree on what problems we are trying to solve for. From my perspective, it appears there are two conditions the league would probably still want met:

1. Help bad teams get better
2. Maximize the competitiveness of each game, but for the spirit of the game and for the fan experience

So with that in mind, I’ll go with what is essentially what Vecenie recently suggested (or maybe he read it somewhere). I posted this in DAF’s thread is very similar to this one:

Take 10% of player’s salaries and 10% of basketball related income for the teams and put it in escrow. This prize pool (which both the players and teams have a stake in) gets split up at the end of the year based on record (and pro rata to player salary). If you win 41 games, you get exactly your money back. If you win more, you make more. If you lose more, you lose money.

This gives tangible incentives (that kind of already exist but not really) for teams to win games, all the way to the end. Game 82 is worth as much money to the players and owners as game 1 is. Guys like Lauri would tell the Jazz FO to fuck off with their non-sense of sitting him all the time, players wouldn’t be accepting of being on a losing franchise year after year.

The obvious downside to this, of course, is the impact on Free Agency. Bad teams would have an even more difficult time signing players who aren’t going to want to risk part of their pay.

But ultimately.. I tend to think this isn’t really a problem that needs fixing. It’s kind of prevalent in every sport. Teams position themselves to lose and pull off upsets because players don’t give a fuck about tanking for the guy who might replace them. It’s happened a little earlier than normal this year because the draft class is strong both in terms of the top end talent and how deep it goes (I’ve heard the TOp 6 is pretty good? I’ve not followed).

 

[Robz4000]

To truly answer this question, we need to all agree on what problems we are trying to solve for. From my perspective, it appears there are two conditions the league would probably still want met:

1. Help bad teams get better
2. Maximize the competitiveness of each game, but for the spirit of the game and for the fan experience

So with that in mind, I’ll go with what is essentially what Vecenie recently suggested (or maybe he read it somewhere). I posted this in DAF’s thread is very similar to this one:

Take 10% of player’s salaries and 10% of basketball related income for the teams and put it in escrow. This prize pool (which both the players and teams have a stake in) gets split up at the end of the year based on record (and pro rata to player salary). If you win 41 games, you get exactly your money back. If you win more, you make more. If you lose more, you lose money.

This gives tangible incentives (that kind of already exist but not really) for teams to win games, all the way to the end. Game 82 is worth as much money to the players and owners as game 1 is. Guys like Lauri would tell the Jazz FO to fuck off with their non-sense of sitting him all the time, players wouldn’t be accepting of being on a losing franchise year after year.

The obvious downside to this, of course, is the impact on Free Agency. Bad teams would have an even more difficult time signing players who aren’t going to want to risk part of their pay.

But ultimately.. I tend to think this isn’t really a problem that needs fixing. It’s kind of prevalent in every sport. Teams position themselves to lose and pull off upsets because players don’t give a fuck about tanking for the guy who might replace them. It’s happened a little earlier than normal this year because the draft class is strong both in terms of the top end talent and how deep it goes (I’ve heard the TOp 6 is pretty good? I’ve not followed).

Top 3 in this draft are Flagg-tier at least talent-wise (starting to question Peterson's drive and mentality), but there's plenty of players in the lottery that can become All Star caliber in the right situation and if some things break right for them imo.

 

[spurraider21]

teams bottoming out to rebuild has never really been frowned upon, its kind of the expected way to reset. trade away your good players to teams that want to win now, like we did with Derek White and later DeJounte Murray. the only time i really remember a team being hated on for this approach was the Trust The Process sixers who basically publicly acknowledged they'd be doing so for multiple years.

the type of tanking that the league is having an issue with is teams sitting out or shutting down healthy players that probably could/should play.

the type of tanking the league absolutely cant have for competitive reasons is teams like the jazz intentionally throwing games by benching active players to ensure the team blows a lead and drops a game

nobody got mad that the jazz reset by trading gobert/mitchell. people only got mad at the jazz when they started sabotaging games

 

[spursfanfromafar]

To truly answer this question, we need to all agree on what problems we are trying to solve for. From my perspective, it appears there are two conditions the league would probably still want met:

1. Help bad teams get better
2. Maximize the competitiveness of each game, but for the spirit of the game and for the fan experience

So with that in mind, I’ll go with what is essentially what Vecenie recently suggested (or maybe he read it somewhere). I posted this in DAF’s thread is very similar to this one:

Take 10% of player’s salaries and 10% of basketball related income for the teams and put it in escrow. This prize pool (which both the players and teams have a stake in) gets split up at the end of the year based on record (and pro rata to player salary). If you win 41 games, you get exactly your money back. If you win more, you make more. If you lose more, you lose money.

This gives tangible incentives (that kind of already exist but not really) for teams to win games, all the way to the end. Game 82 is worth as much money to the players and owners as game 1 is. Guys like Lauri would tell the Jazz FO to fuck off with their non-sense of sitting him all the time, players wouldn’t be accepting of being on a losing franchise year after year.

The obvious downside to this, of course, is the impact on Free Agency. Bad teams would have an even more difficult time signing players who aren’t going to want to risk part of their pay.

But ultimately.. I tend to think this isn’t really a problem that needs fixing. It’s kind of prevalent in every sport. Teams position themselves to lose and pull off upsets because players don’t give a fuck about tanking for the guy who might replace them. It’s happened a little earlier than normal this year because the draft class is strong both in terms of the top end talent and how deep it goes (I’ve heard the TOp 6 is pretty good? I’ve not followed).

Idea makes economic sense / rationality but will be shot down in the first hearing by the players' union. Maybe even by owners of small market teams.

I agree with you that losing in order to improve is a viable strategy across sport. Which is incentivized in the NBA by the draft lottery. But blatant tanking by nearly half the number of teams for a talent rich draft raises integrity questions that affect the image of a sport. What is the point of watching a Utah Jazz game after Feb 6 if all they do every year is to try to maximize their odds by sitting their best players. Multiply that by 14 and we have a severe problem.

So a reform is definitely necessary. Check my idea in the previous post on increasing draft lottery to 18 with some weights for play in teams for the top 4 pick odds. Plus protections not allowed except for top 4 and Top 18. And continuation of flattened odds. What could go wrong?

 

[scott]

Idea makes economic sense / rationality but will be shot down in the first hearing by the players' union. Maybe even by owners of small market teams.

I agree with you that losing in order to improve is a viable strategy across sport. Which is incentivized in the NBA by the draft lottery. But blatant tanking by nearly half the number of teams for a talent rich draft raises integrity questions that affect the image of a sport. What is the point of watching a Utah Jazz game after Feb 6 if all they do every year is to try to maximize their odds by sitting their best players. Multiply that by 14 and we have a severe problem.

So a reform is definitely necessary. Check my idea in the previous post on increasing draft lottery to 18 with some weights for play in teams for the top 4 pick odds. Plus protections not allowed except for top 4 and Top 18. And continuation of flattened odds. What could go wrong?

Agree 100% that the union and probably at least half of the owners would shoot it down... but it's an interesting idea.

What if we did something kind of like the current lotto system, but the odds were weighted away from the absolute worst records? There is a fine line here though because you don't want to accidently encourage even more teams to tank.

I think previous posters are right, that you just need to limit the upside for repeat tankers.

 

[Anonymous Cowherd]

I dont get all the pearl clutching about tanking. I like tanking! I'm fine with my team tanking, I actively enjoy it when other teams tank.

The NBA has no relegation, there's really one thing only to win, and there's a full 82 games just to get to the playoffs to then win it. What really sucks is being mid all the time! All these pieces about tanking and they basically never state the obvious that there's a natural punishment for tanking which is, you get eliminated from the possibility of winning. And that really should be punishment enough.

If tanking is so bad, make it more likely that a team finishing 8th in the East wins it all. Or make winning your Division a bigger deal. Or dont, and just stop whining about a rational and defensible action which can also have obvious positive medium-long term effects.

 

[Robz4000]

I dont get all the pearl clutching about tanking. I like tanking! I'm fine with my team tanking, I actively enjoy it when other teams tank.

The NBA has no relegation, there's really one thing only to win, and there's a full 82 games just to get to the playoffs to then win it. What really sucks is being mid all the time! All these pieces about tanking and they basically never state the obvious that there's a natural punishment for tanking which is, you get eliminated from the possibility of winning. And that really should be punishment enough.

If tanking is so bad, make it more likely that a team finishing 8th in the East wins it all. Or make winning your Division a bigger deal. Or dont, and just stop whining about a rational and defensible action which can also have obvious positive medium-long term effects.

Don't mind tanking myself either tbh; worked out well for the Spurs obviously.

 

[Ariel]

I don't think this is a great idea, for most teams mathematical elimination comes actually pretty late, this would matter only in the last 10 games or so for the worst teams and even less for most others, so the problem at large isn't solved at all for 90%+ of the season. Also this proposal tries to address the lottery randomness as a problem that needs fixing, when I think it's an essential part of the solution. All in all, I don't think this is even helpful, let alone the solution.

I've already floated proposals based around the idea of a points based system that spans across multiple seasons, in which the worse you are in the standings the more points you get, but the better you do in the lottery the more points are deducted. In this way once you get lucky tanking is less effective while bad teams eventually get rewarded. This wouldn't do away with tanking but produce more evenly distributed results and disincentivize 3-4 year tanks like Philly's process, while keeping the random nature of the lottery.

On top of that, another adjustment could be awarding the maximum odds not for the worst team, but for the n-th worst team, as a counter balance to prevent shameless tankers in favor of teams that are genuinely bad despite trying to be good. It would go something like this (example):

• 1st best odds: teams 7 and 8
• 2nd best odds: teams 6 and 9
• 3rd best odds: teams 5 and 10
• 4th best odds: teams 4 and 11
• 5th best odds: teams 3 and 12
• 6th best odds: teams 2 and 13
• 7th best odds: teams 1 and 14

You can play with parameters as needed, say pivoting from a lower or higher seed, play with the odds, etc. But basically the point remains that you should have a batch of teams that will try to avoid being "singled out" as horrendously bad (tankers) because of diminishing returns of being bad, while still rewarding bad teams but in a more balanced fashion.

 

[Bruno]

It feels like all this talk about tanking from the league is made to avoid talking about NBA's true issues like Ballmer/Kawhi and gambling.

Antetokounmpo buying Kalshi stakes is way more threatening for the league integrity than Utah and Indiana tanking.

Regarding tanking, I think it's fine at it is. The only change I would do is to restrict what kind of protections can be put on traded picks. Only protections allowed should be top1, top2, top3, top4 and top14 protected. It would remove situations like the current one between Utah and OKC.

 

[O_V]

I had a plan to fix the lottery years ago on SpursTalk, it made perfect sense and would work great. What needs to happen now is the league needs to just determine the draft order. Teams with the appearance of impropriety get punished and don't need to have it explained why. That would stop shit organizations from destroying good talent because they don't have the ability to develop it.

That said, it doesn't really matter much because L.A. is sitting out there having paid Kawhi Leonard from the time that he was a Spur and nobody's gonna do shit about it.

And add to that, it looks like Mark Cuban was paid Cooper Flag to try to get gambling legalized in Texas, and it only cost him a year and Luka Doncic.

This league is dead. The only reason I still pay attention is because we happened to get the greatest player of all time who will still be playing when I die.

 

[CrustyCoastBendFan]

Who's really upset about tanking? Is it the fans of the teams that aren't tanking? No. Is it the fans of the team that are tanking? No. Why should you care if a team is tanking and your team is not? If your team is the one that's tanking, well, good for you, maybe they can probably draft trade and sign a way out of shittyness. If you are a fan of one who is not, tanking teams should be the least of your concerns.
The only ones who really give a shit about tanking are these intellectually deficient people in the media who think that they're gatekeepers of some kind of standard. These are the same people who spent the last 20 years propping up the LEfraud and the Burner KDera of the NBA. Think about that. Where was all this integrity gatekeeping where super teams were formed on Vacay time among but buddy superstars in the Caribbean? Or when a social media obsessed insecure Burner account making Superstar jumped to a team he just lost to in a conference finals? This so-called player empowerment era has no integrity in it at all. It's the antithesis of integrity.

Taking isn't 100% cure all. You still have to run a competent organization and build a foundation or you can spin your wheels for 30 years like the Clippers did and other franchises are doing. And don't give me the protected pick blah blah bah.

In this past 2025 draft, if you had a top 1 protected, 2 protected, 3 protected, 4 protected, all the way to the top 7 protected pick it did you no good, because the Spurs and the Mavericks jumped up and drank your fucking milkshake, hello, Cooper flag, and hello, Dylan Harper.

At the end of the day this whole tanking non-situation is just a bunch of people looking for something to write whine and bitch about because that's what the media does nowadays.

Complaining about tanking and complaining to your HOA about your neighbors hedge is the same goddamn energy.

So if you somehow find yourself with an opinion on this, take it easy, fella. Go out and touch grass.

 

[LeBowen]

Tanking was always a thing, but sitting down healthy max contract players in order to lose games wasn't.

Utah this season: 18-38
Without Markkanen: 1-14
When Markkanen plays less than 33 minutes: 3-11
When Markkanen plays more than 33 minutes: 14-13

Not to mention that they're getting way too good to tank because their players are developing and that they've won their last 2 games when Lauri and JJJ played just 20-25 minutes, despite trying to tank and sitting them in the 4th quarter.

There's nothing wrong with teams blowing it up and being bad because their rosters are bad and/or inexperienced. Current Nets being the best example.
There's also nothing wrong (as far as the rest of the league goes) with incompetent teams being bad while trying to win. Current Kings and Pelicans being the best example.
But when you have teams sitting players on purpose in matchups against other bad teams, something needs to be done.
Wizards sat their entire starting lineup in order to guarantee the loss against the Nets. And you're trying to tell me that's fine?
Especially in this era where not only you can gamble on everything, but it's actively promoted before, during and after the game?

Pick protections need to go, I don't care it's going to affect the trade market, they're the main reason for a lot of tanking.
Remember when Mavs sat healthy Luka because their pick was top10 protected, intentionally missed the play-in they would've easily made and got rewarded with Lively for their efforts?
Or even last season when we gave Bulls their pick back.
They were tanking in order to keep their protected pick, were sitting at 22-35 at the all-star break, finished the season 39-43 with Collins and Tre as their additions replacing Lavine.

 

[Exstatic]

I honestly don't see why this is suddenly such a concern (other than the Thunder being whiny bitches). Teams want to get better and getting those top draft picks is one of the vital ways to do it. It's always been this way -- only, yeah, this year OKC has been bitches about their Utah pick.

Also, I think the league is making this a big talking point because they don't want to deal with the Clippers/Ballmer stuff.

It’s been a talking point for years,not just since the Ballmer thing, and the big deal is that games with a tanking team, or both teams tanking are a bad sports product. People feel cheated holding those tickets.

 

[Exstatic]

teams bottoming out to rebuild has never really been frowned upon, its kind of the expected way to reset. trade away your good players to teams that want to win now, like we did with Derek White and later DeJounte Murray. the only time i really remember a team being hated on for this approach was the Trust The Process sixers who basically publicly acknowledged they'd be doing so for multiple years.

the type of tanking that the league is having an issue with is teams sitting out or shutting down healthy players that probably could/should play.

the type of tanking the league absolutely cant have for competitive reasons is teams like the jazz intentionally throwing games by benching active players to ensure the team blows a lead and drops a game

nobody got mad that the jazz reset by trading gobert/mitchell. people only got mad at the jazz when they started sabotaging games

They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. The only way you can tank and not be punished is to completely strip the talent like we did by offloading White, DeRozan, and DJ. They’re trying to hold onto and even accumulate talent, and that will always get you in trouble. It’s a trap, though. Those guys will bloat their cap before aging out, and even if they win this lottery, that player will eventually stand alone in the not too distant future. No top FAs want to go to a Utah, so they’ll offload whoever they get this year, like they did Gobert and Mitchell,and start over.

 

[LeBowen]

They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too. The only way you can tank and not be punished is to completely strip the talent like we did by offloading White, DeRozan, and DJ. They’re trying to hold onto and even accumulate talent, and that will always get you in trouble. It’s a trap, though. Those guys will bloat their cap before aging out, and even if they win this lottery, that player will eventually stand alone in the not too distant future. No top FAs want to go to a Utah, so they’ll offload whoever they get this year, like they did Gobert and Mitchell,and start over.

Ainge's plan is perfect if they finally get lucky (Jazz and Pacers are the only teams that never moved up in the lottery) and get a top3 pick.
George-Bailey-Markkanen-JJJ-Kessler is already a .500 team when everyone is healthy, if they get Dybantsa and he's the real deal, they'll be a top4 team in the West by 2028.