The NBA finds itself at an existential crossroads right now. While the elites of the league are pushing the boundaries of basketball and expanding its potential across the globe, teams at the bottom rung have been acting in ways that question the ethical grounding of the game.
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In many ways, the NBA has never been better. The level of talent is off the charts thanks to an abundance of stars both old and new, and it looks like we’re heading for an incredibly competitive postseason. The road to get there, though, is fraught.
That’s because almost a third of the league is at the point where they’re openly tanking to position themselves for what looks like a historically loaded draft. Teams are out here losing on purpose, and they’re getting more creative about it.
Commissioner Adam Silver stepped up during All-Star weekend and essentially declared war on anyone harming the integrity of the game. The problem is that there’s proven data to show that tanking works.
Only five players can be on the court at a time for a basketball team, and so getting one truly special player can completely change a team’s fortunes. Many of the best teams in the league are where they are because they had at least one terrible year record-wise. That’s how the Spurs got Victor Wembanyama, the Wolves got Anthony Edwards, and the Pistons got Cade Cunningham, for example.
Many proposals have been thrown around in recent weeks to fix the tanking epidemic. Former coach Stan Van Gundy joined the Golic & Golic podcast this week to offer one that has been picking up steam. “I’d get rid of the draft,” SVG said.
“No draft. You’ve still got the salary cap. If you wanna go give Cooper Flagg $45 million a year coming out of the draft, do it. He’s a free agent. Everybody coming out is a free agent. With no draft, there’s no incentive to lose. There’s none at all. It’s not a matter of your odds or anything else. There’s no incentive,” he elaborated.
That idea would certainly eliminate tanking, but it could have other unfortunate side effects. It, for instance, favors teams in more desirable big markets. Places like Utah and Milwaukee already have a tough enough time attracting free agents, so why would a rookie willingly sign there when they could just go to Miami, New York, or L.A.?
Van Gundy was open to other ideas as well. He mentioned the “draft wheel,” a concept pioneered by former Celtics general manager Mike Zarren over a decade ago. The wheel essentially locks teams into a certain draft choice each year in a random, equal way, thereby removing a team’s record as the way their draft position is determined.
With 30 teams in the league, a 30-year wheel would ensure that each team would have every pick from 1-30 over that period.
No matter what the NBA chooses to do, there are going to be detractors. What’s clear, though, is that something has to be done because tanking has made a big chunk of the season unwatchable.
Fans of bad teams often have to endure years of losing on purpose (trust the process) just for the hope that things will work out in the end. For a league that should otherwise be in a great place, it’s a bad look.
It’s encouraging that Silver seems to be taking the tanking issue more seriously than ever before. He has already fined the Jazz and Pacers for tanking-related practices, and he has promised to enact further discipline if teams go too far in the pursuit of improving their draft odds.
That’s a start, but as long as the current system is in place, teams will always have that incentive to be bad on purpose. Whether it’s abolishing the draft entirely, using the wheel, or something else, it’s time for the NBA to take this problem head-on.
