There have been a lot of great stories in the NBA this year. The strength of the league in so many areas, though, only serves to highlight what a problem tanking has become, because that seems to be all anybody wants to talk about.
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Tanking has existed for a long, long time, and it’s easy to see why. Stars make the NBA go, and so throwing away a season to give yourself the best possible odds at landing a future star just makes sense for teams that wouldn’t be able to compete otherwise. Next year’s draft class is a historically good one, and so we’re seeing tanking teams go above and beyond in order to ensure that they lose.
Teams like the Jazz have just flat out pulled their best players on the few occasions that they’ve led going into the fourth quarter, essentially throwing the game midstream. Commissioner Adam Silver has had enough, and during All-Star Weekend, he outlined the ways the league is considering fighting back.
He’s already fined teams for the most egregious behavior, but heading into next year, he’s open to the possibility of removing some or all protections on draft pick trades. Silver is also considering not allowing a team to pick in the top four two years in a row, or in the year after they’ve made a conference finals.
The list of possibilities is long, and it’s caused everyone around the league to chime in with their own thoughts. It’s not that Draymond Green has ever needed an excuse to share his feelings, but on the latest episode of his podcast, he detailed two ideas that he thought could work.
First is flattening the lottery odds for all teams that don’t make the playoffs. That one is on Silver’s list, and Draymond thinks it’s the most fair solution.
“I think if you flatten the lottery odds and all 14 teams have the same probability to get the No. 1 pick, the No. 2 pick, I think that helps a bit,” he said. “Because then you’re not just throwing every game, like you’re in the lottery, the chances are [the same]. So I like that one the most.”
Draymond also agrees with Charles Barkley that there’s a solution not on Silver’s list that would straighten teams out real quick. “You can’t raise ticket prices if you’re below .500,” Draymond repeated. “Because why are you raising ticket prices?” He went on to say that NBA teams take advantage of the stars on other teams by charging more even though they refuse to improve their own team.
As Draymond said, “A high tide raises all boats,” which is why other teams sell out their arenas when players like Steph Curry or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander come to town. If they’re not putting a competitive product on the court and trying to win though, maybe their boats don’t deserve to be lifted, so to speak.
Hitting billionaires in the wallet is one of the only ways to get through to them, so Barkley’s proposal definitely has some legs. It’s also extremely fan friendly, which is the whole point of fixing tanking in the first place. Fans don’t want to see bad basketball, and they don’t want to see teams lose on purpose. If you’re going to do it anyway, at least make it affordable for them to come out to the arena.
