Throughout Adam Silver’s tenure as commissioner, the NBA has repeatedly sought to solve problems that don’t have a well-defined solution. Look no further than this weekend’s brand-new Team USA vs. Team World All-Star Game, the fourth different format for the annual showcase in the last four years.
Now, the league has its sights set squarely on tanking.
On Thursday, the NBA fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 for “conduct detrimental to the league” after the team removed Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. before the fourth quarter of two games on Feb. 7 and Feb. 9. The Indiana Pacers were fined $100,000 for “violating the Player Participation Policy” by sitting Pascal Siakam (a designated “star” player) and two other starters on Feb. 3, coincidentally a loss to the Jazz.
NBA fines Jazz $500,000 and Pacers $100,000 over roster management
Jordan Dajani
At the bottom of the press release announcing the penalties was a scathing quote from Silver.
“Overt behavior like this that prioritizes draft position over winning undermines the foundation of NBA competition and we will respond accordingly to any further actions that compromise the integrity of our games,” Silver stated. “Additionally, we are working with our Competition Committee and Board of Governors to implement further measures to root out this type of conduct.”
Good luck.
The impact that one elite player can have in basketball is unique among team sports. As long as the draft exists and remains the most reliable way to acquire that type of talent, teams, especially those in small markets, are going to do what it takes to position themselves for a top pick.
That’s no secret, and it’s not as if the NBA has ever been pro-tanking. But if the last few years have taught the league anything, it should be that technocratic tweaks do nothing to affect root causes, and often lead to unintended consequences.
Flattening the lottery odds was designed to stop strategies like the Process Sixers. Instead, it has often prevented the worst teams from getting the best picks, leaving them stuck in no-man’s land with good, but not great prospects. The team with the worst record has received the No. 5 pick in each of the last three lotteries, and hasn’t gotten the No. 1 pick since 2018.
Creating the Play-In Tournament was supposed to give more teams a pathway to the postseason. Instead, it’s derided by some fans and might have created more tanking from the middle. Why would a team fight to get the No. 8 seed and lose in the first round when it could sink into the lottery and win the No. 1 pick with the 11th-best odds, or jump up to No. 2 with the seventh-best odds (as the Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs did last season)?
The last few days have been filled with endless commentary about tanking and how it could be fixed: a postseason tournament to determine the lottery spots; the lottery wheel; freezing the lottery odds at a certain point in the season; preventing teams from drafting in the top-four in consecutive seasons; limiting the protections on draft picks.
But much like the flattened lottery odds and Play-In Tournament, all of those ideas would have obvious drawbacks, as my colleague Sam Quinn explained in-depth a few months ago.
Tanking is a necessary NBA evil, but the league is once again trying to solve an unfixable problem
Sam Quinn
The consternation and desire to do something is understandable. No one wants to watch teams that are trying to lose, and the jockeying for position has started earlier than ever this season because multiple franchises have protected picks they’re desperate to keep and this could be an all-time draft class.
But what might be bad for the league, for fans and for players is not bad for teams. The chance to draft an Anthony Edwards or Victor Wembanyama or Cooper Flagg or Darryn Peterson is worth a few months (or maybe even years) of misery or bad press or fines.
Short of eliminating the draft, which isn’t going to happen any time soon, and likely never will, there’s nothing the NBA can do to eliminate tanking. It can only determine how difficult it is for the worst teams to get the best picks.
The league should accept that reality rather than rolling out a new layer of red tape.