NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has notified all 30 team general managers that the league will implement new regulations next season designed to prevent teams from deliberately losing games to improve their draft lottery position, according to reports from multiple sports media sources Thursday.
Silver has acknowledged the growing problem, stating during an All-Star weekend press conference that the issue is “worse this year than we’ve seen in recent memory.” The NBA’s competition committee also made tanking a primary focus during their January meeting.
Two franchises have already faced financial penalties this month for violating player participation policies. The Utah Jazz received a $500,000 fine while the Indiana Pacers were penalized $100,000 for conduct harmful to the league. Utah specifically benched their top two players, Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr., for entire fourth quarters in consecutive winnable contests.
According to ESPN and The Athletic, the league is evaluating multiple potential solutions. These include equalizing lottery odds across all non-playoff teams, locking in those odds at the trade deadline or another predetermined date, and preventing franchises from selecting in the top four spots in back-to-back years or following consecutive bottom-three seasons.
Additional possibilities under review include expanding the lottery system to encompass play-in tournament teams (positions 7-10 in both conferences) and calculating lottery odds based on two-year team records, similar to the current WNBA system.
With NBA action resuming Thursday following the All-Star break, no franchise has been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. However, five teams – Brooklyn, Indiana, New Orleans, Washington, and Sacramento – currently have winning percentages under .290.
Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia criticized the practice on social media earlier Thursday, calling tanking “losing behavior done by losers” and stating it was “much worse than any prop bet scandal.”
