NBA commissioner Adam Silver vowed to put an end to tanking when he spoke to the media Wednesday. When asked about the issue, Silver said the league was “going to fix it. Full stop.”
The NBA attempted to do exactly that at its Board of Governors meeting this week. Three new anti-tanking ideas were reportedly introduced at the meeting, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania.
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The three proposals vary in both size and structure. Here’s how each one would work, per Charania.
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The first proposal involves an 18-team lottery. That lottery would include the bottom 10 teams that miss out on the play-in tournament and the eight teams that qualify for it. The bottom 10 teams would have equal odds in the lottery. The other eight teams will have their odds split in descending order.
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The second proposal involves a 22-team lottery. It includes the same teams involved in the first proposal, but adds the four teams that get eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Teams would then be ranked in the lottery based on their record over the past two seasons. Charania said the top-4 teams would be drawn as part of the lottery in this scenario.
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The third proposal also includes 18 teams — the same outlined in the first proposal. The teams with the five worst records would have the same odds. A lottery for the top-5 picks would be drawn and the remaining 13 teams would then get their own lottery. Any of the five teams with the worst records that don’t wind up with a top-5 pick would be guaranteed to pick in the top-10 in this system. So a truly awful team wouldn’t slip too far down the draft board.
None of those proposals are finalized, and they will likely be refined ahead of being put to a vote in May.
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While Silver said stopping tanking would be a major focus of the league, he also admitted it’s a tough thing to completely eliminate from the game.
“There is an aspect of team building that is called a genuine rebuild, a rebuild with integrity,” Silver said. “The problem we’re having these days is it’s become almost impossible to distinguish between the tank and rebuild.”
A number of teams have faced tanking allegations in recent seasons. Both the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers received fines from the league for “overt” tanking behavior in February. The Jazz were also fined for suspected tanking last season.