Who wouldn't want to take a giant dump on a season so they could get Shaquille O'Neal, LeBron James, Victor Wembenyama, or Cooper Flagg? That's a no brainer. So while tanking may not be becoming to fans or people who say they care about the game, it is a very wise strategy for a franchise who has no aspirations as a championship contender.
HOW DID WE GET HERE?
That's been the way forever, which is why in 1985 the NBA adopted the lottery format. This came after the 1983 and 1984 drafts where the Houston Rockets were able to get Ralph Sampson and Hakeem Olajuwon as consecutive No. 1 overall picks. To fix that, the NBA had a lottery for non-playoff teams where they all had their names in a big giant ball and David Stern picked them out. The Knicks were picked first, and got to draft Patrick Ewing.
The lottery has changed over the years to curb the tanking that magically continued. It changed the chances teams had in various ways, but the tanking not only keeps going, they actually made it worse. Due to flattening the odds a bit, being one of the four worst records gives you the best shot at nailing down the top pick. So more teams are willing to punt on their season in order to hit it big. We've also seen teams decided to tank making the playoffs (remember the Mavericks a couple of years ago?) in order to get a shot at a top four pick ... which is more meaningful than to be a sacrificial lamb to the best team in the playoffs.
And that works. We've seen the Hawks and Mavericks recently jump all the way up to the No. 1 overall pick, and saw the Spurs jump up a few times to grab a top three pick. So now we not only having the bad teams tanking to be worse, but playoff level teams tank so they can get into the lottery.
Fans and media are now really mad at this, because we are not only seeing bad teams clearly fold their seasons, but good teams sitting their best players so they don't win games. The Washington Wizards, for example, traded for Trae Young and Anthony Davis but are shutting them down for the season so they can get a great draft pick to play alongside them next year. We've watched the Mavericks sort of do the same thing, while the Jazz are sitting healthy players during games. The cries from the fans and talking heads have reached commissioner Adam Silver, who now is promising changes to the format.
WHAT ARE THESE CHANGES
There have been some proposals that I don't think solves the actual problems and will, instead, create different unintended issues. Things ranging from two-year win totals to not being in the lottery consecutive years to keeping good teams that tumble away from the lottery. All of this is stupid and way too complicated to actually work.
Here is what is proposed and what I don't like about them:
*First round picks can only be top 4 or top 14 protected. No. Get rid of protections altogether. If you are going to trade a pick, trade the damn pick. Stop with adding "yeah but if it is a really good pick, we get to keep it" to it. This makes offering picks in trades a bit more risky and less complicated.
*Lottery odds freeze at trade deadline or later date. This is beyond stupid. So you are essentially telling bad teams that they really need to start tanking when the season starts, right? And we will see bad tanking up until this date (and some bad trades made). As sports fans, we are used to teams trying for a good season and it just doesn't happen. Those teams end up playing out the string as crap teams. That's true in every sport. But to have them start off this way is troubling. And do you actually thing that once these odds are established mid-season that these teams will all of the sudden start playing real ball?? No!
*Not allowing teams to have top four pick in consecutive years. Another stupid one. If your goal is to lift up small market franchises, then why do this? The San Antonio Spurs are now a league darling in no small part because they had top four picks in three consecutive seasons. The Los Angeles Lakers had the No. 2 pick in three straight drafts. We got Shaq and Penny like this. Why would you stop that and how does that help these bad teams get better ... if that is what you care about?
*Can't pick in top four the year after reaching the conference finals. This is beyond stupid. We live in the day and age of free agency, max contracts, tax aprons and player enpowerment. We just saw the Dallas Mavericks in the 2024 NBA Finals ... then get the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft in 2025. That team is back in the lottery for 2026. We saw the Cleveland Cavaliers reach four straight NBA Finals, then LeBron James leaves in free agency and the Cavs crater. So the 2019 Cavs with no LeBron or Kyrie can't get a top four pick? What sense does that make? The 2025 Pacers reached Game 7 of the NBA Finals where their best player shredded his Achilles, and you are saying the horrid 2026 Pacers can't get a top pick? The same league that watched David Robinson have an early season-ending injury turn into Tim Duncan .... that began a nearly 20-year dynasty is a bad thing?
*Lottery based on two-year records. So now we need teams to have a two-year commitment to tanking?
*Lottery extended to all play-in teams. Of all the proposals, this is the one I can sorta get behind. This will keep what Dallas did a few years ago from happening. But this still doesn't solve the problem of teams tanking into this horrible seasons.
*Flatten odds of all lottery teams. Well, I have a bigger plan.
SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAN, SPORTZ?
Put everyone in the lottery. All 30 teams (or their traded picks). Slot each spot, 1 thru 30, in a massive TV event.
How do you stop tanking? You remove the incentive for tanking. You remove the premise that the worst teams get rewarded with the best (and cheap) young talent coming into the NBA. You do that, no team will have any reason to tank.
It is just that simple.
I must say that to get on board with this plan, you need to get your head where my head is already at -- that the habit of sending the best rookies to the league's worst teams is rather pointless. It is like trickle down economics -- the idea sounds good but it doesn't work in practice. It used to do great back in the 1980s and a lot of the 1990s, but it doesn't work like that anymore.
Since 2000, only No. 1 overall picks Kenyon Martin, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Kyrie Irving and Deandre Ayton reached the Finals with the team that drafted them. Only Kyrie won a title (LeBron left the Cavs for the Heat and then came back to win his title). Of the No. 2 overall picks, only Darko Milicic, Kevin Durant, James Wiseman and Chet Holmgren reached the Finals with the team that drafted him. Of those, only Durant didn't win ... but Milicic and Wiseman had no actual part of their teams winning a ring. Of the No. 3 overall picks, only James Harden, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Luka Doncic reached the Finals with their drafted team (Luka was drafted by the Hawks, but dealt to the Mavs on draft day). Only the duo of Brown and Tatum with the Celtics won a title.
So does snagging the top lottery picks really turn into championships? No. Sure, it may make you better, but teams like the Kings, Wizards, Jazz, Hornets and Pelicans have lived in the lottery and have barely popped their head out of the water. So why is it so important to keep this system going? Why must we keep sending our best incoming players to poorly ran franchises?
The Kings have been bad for over a decade ... and they don't win the lottery. Of all their lottery picks of the last ten years or so, the Kings have dealt away their best ones (Tyrese Haliburton and DeAaron Fox). Why must we keep giving them more chances at this? Hell, when I was growing up, seeing Elgin Baylor represent the Clippers at the lottery was how I tracked the passing years.
So stop it. Every year all 30 teams go into the great big ball and let Adam Silver stick his hand into it and pull out one card that has the name of the team who will pick No. 1 overall. Next pick is No. 2. And so on until we reach all 30. You can make the second round the inverse order of record if you want ... but stop rewarding bad teams with great players. Stop rewarding tanking.
What would be even better (funnier) is that instead of Silver, you have the team with the worst record pull out the first envelope/card. The team with the second worst record make the second selection. Then keep that going. The fear of those reps from the bad teams mixed with the celebratory nature of the teams who moved way up would be fantastic. It would make for great television, something that is the whole point of Silver's NBA land.
Maybe go one further. Maybe give every team one ping pong ball for this lottery. Than give the team that wins the NBA Cup (which I'm not a big fan of) get a second ping pong ball. When that lottery happens, the Cup winner has double the chance of everyone at grabbing a better pick. Then go true lottery on everyone and have those ping pong balls fly to the 30 spots to see where each pick lands. Or just one hole where each ball ascends one at a time.
That's for the TV guys to decide, but having every team in the lottery with flat odds in the way I want to go. I don't care if the Thunder wins the top pick. Cool. Let them take Cam Boozer or Darryn Peterson. We saw the Pistons be able to draft Milicic (that story would be stronger had they taken Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh or Dwyane Wade instead). So why not let good teams make these great picks?
That could really help those middle-class teams. Imagine, for example, the Timberwolves winning one of the top picks and able to inject Boozer, Peterson, AJ Dybantsa or Caleb Wilson on their roster. Or the Nuggets being able to grab one of those guys. Or even the Orlando Magic or Los Angeles Lakers. What if the Knicks could move up and get a Dybantsa? Why is that a bad thing? Is that worse than the Wizards globbing through another meh season?
Again, if you don't really care about tanking ... don't do anything. But if it is a reason you ball up your fist at the NBA, then just eliminate the incentive.
And that works. We've seen the Hawks and Mavericks recently jump all the way up to the No. 1 overall pick, and saw the Spurs jump up a few times to grab a top three pick. So now we not only having the bad teams tanking to be worse, but playoff level teams tank so they can get into the lottery.
Fans and media are now really mad at this, because we are not only seeing bad teams clearly fold their seasons, but good teams sitting their best players so they don't win games. The Washington Wizards, for example, traded for Trae Young and Anthony Davis but are shutting them down for the season so they can get a great draft pick to play alongside them next year. We've watched the Mavericks sort of do the same thing, while the Jazz are sitting healthy players during games. The cries from the fans and talking heads have reached commissioner Adam Silver, who now is promising changes to the format.
WHAT ARE THESE CHANGES
There have been some proposals that I don't think solves the actual problems and will, instead, create different unintended issues. Things ranging from two-year win totals to not being in the lottery consecutive years to keeping good teams that tumble away from the lottery. All of this is stupid and way too complicated to actually work.
Here is what is proposed and what I don't like about them:
*First round picks can only be top 4 or top 14 protected. No. Get rid of protections altogether. If you are going to trade a pick, trade the damn pick. Stop with adding "yeah but if it is a really good pick, we get to keep it" to it. This makes offering picks in trades a bit more risky and less complicated.
*Lottery odds freeze at trade deadline or later date. This is beyond stupid. So you are essentially telling bad teams that they really need to start tanking when the season starts, right? And we will see bad tanking up until this date (and some bad trades made). As sports fans, we are used to teams trying for a good season and it just doesn't happen. Those teams end up playing out the string as crap teams. That's true in every sport. But to have them start off this way is troubling. And do you actually thing that once these odds are established mid-season that these teams will all of the sudden start playing real ball?? No!
*Not allowing teams to have top four pick in consecutive years. Another stupid one. If your goal is to lift up small market franchises, then why do this? The San Antonio Spurs are now a league darling in no small part because they had top four picks in three consecutive seasons. The Los Angeles Lakers had the No. 2 pick in three straight drafts. We got Shaq and Penny like this. Why would you stop that and how does that help these bad teams get better ... if that is what you care about?
*Can't pick in top four the year after reaching the conference finals. This is beyond stupid. We live in the day and age of free agency, max contracts, tax aprons and player enpowerment. We just saw the Dallas Mavericks in the 2024 NBA Finals ... then get the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft in 2025. That team is back in the lottery for 2026. We saw the Cleveland Cavaliers reach four straight NBA Finals, then LeBron James leaves in free agency and the Cavs crater. So the 2019 Cavs with no LeBron or Kyrie can't get a top four pick? What sense does that make? The 2025 Pacers reached Game 7 of the NBA Finals where their best player shredded his Achilles, and you are saying the horrid 2026 Pacers can't get a top pick? The same league that watched David Robinson have an early season-ending injury turn into Tim Duncan .... that began a nearly 20-year dynasty is a bad thing?
*Lottery based on two-year records. So now we need teams to have a two-year commitment to tanking?
*Lottery extended to all play-in teams. Of all the proposals, this is the one I can sorta get behind. This will keep what Dallas did a few years ago from happening. But this still doesn't solve the problem of teams tanking into this horrible seasons.
*Flatten odds of all lottery teams. Well, I have a bigger plan.
SO WHAT IS YOUR PLAN, SPORTZ?
Put everyone in the lottery. All 30 teams (or their traded picks). Slot each spot, 1 thru 30, in a massive TV event.
How do you stop tanking? You remove the incentive for tanking. You remove the premise that the worst teams get rewarded with the best (and cheap) young talent coming into the NBA. You do that, no team will have any reason to tank.
It is just that simple.
I must say that to get on board with this plan, you need to get your head where my head is already at -- that the habit of sending the best rookies to the league's worst teams is rather pointless. It is like trickle down economics -- the idea sounds good but it doesn't work in practice. It used to do great back in the 1980s and a lot of the 1990s, but it doesn't work like that anymore.
Since 2000, only No. 1 overall picks Kenyon Martin, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Kyrie Irving and Deandre Ayton reached the Finals with the team that drafted them. Only Kyrie won a title (LeBron left the Cavs for the Heat and then came back to win his title). Of the No. 2 overall picks, only Darko Milicic, Kevin Durant, James Wiseman and Chet Holmgren reached the Finals with the team that drafted him. Of those, only Durant didn't win ... but Milicic and Wiseman had no actual part of their teams winning a ring. Of the No. 3 overall picks, only James Harden, Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, and Luka Doncic reached the Finals with their drafted team (Luka was drafted by the Hawks, but dealt to the Mavs on draft day). Only the duo of Brown and Tatum with the Celtics won a title.
So does snagging the top lottery picks really turn into championships? No. Sure, it may make you better, but teams like the Kings, Wizards, Jazz, Hornets and Pelicans have lived in the lottery and have barely popped their head out of the water. So why is it so important to keep this system going? Why must we keep sending our best incoming players to poorly ran franchises?
The Kings have been bad for over a decade ... and they don't win the lottery. Of all their lottery picks of the last ten years or so, the Kings have dealt away their best ones (Tyrese Haliburton and DeAaron Fox). Why must we keep giving them more chances at this? Hell, when I was growing up, seeing Elgin Baylor represent the Clippers at the lottery was how I tracked the passing years.
So stop it. Every year all 30 teams go into the great big ball and let Adam Silver stick his hand into it and pull out one card that has the name of the team who will pick No. 1 overall. Next pick is No. 2. And so on until we reach all 30. You can make the second round the inverse order of record if you want ... but stop rewarding bad teams with great players. Stop rewarding tanking.
What would be even better (funnier) is that instead of Silver, you have the team with the worst record pull out the first envelope/card. The team with the second worst record make the second selection. Then keep that going. The fear of those reps from the bad teams mixed with the celebratory nature of the teams who moved way up would be fantastic. It would make for great television, something that is the whole point of Silver's NBA land.
Maybe go one further. Maybe give every team one ping pong ball for this lottery. Than give the team that wins the NBA Cup (which I'm not a big fan of) get a second ping pong ball. When that lottery happens, the Cup winner has double the chance of everyone at grabbing a better pick. Then go true lottery on everyone and have those ping pong balls fly to the 30 spots to see where each pick lands. Or just one hole where each ball ascends one at a time.
That's for the TV guys to decide, but having every team in the lottery with flat odds in the way I want to go. I don't care if the Thunder wins the top pick. Cool. Let them take Cam Boozer or Darryn Peterson. We saw the Pistons be able to draft Milicic (that story would be stronger had they taken Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh or Dwyane Wade instead). So why not let good teams make these great picks?
That could really help those middle-class teams. Imagine, for example, the Timberwolves winning one of the top picks and able to inject Boozer, Peterson, AJ Dybantsa or Caleb Wilson on their roster. Or the Nuggets being able to grab one of those guys. Or even the Orlando Magic or Los Angeles Lakers. What if the Knicks could move up and get a Dybantsa? Why is that a bad thing? Is that worse than the Wizards globbing through another meh season?
Again, if you don't really care about tanking ... don't do anything. But if it is a reason you ball up your fist at the NBA, then just eliminate the incentive.
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