Can NBA’s new proposals fix tanking? Is it even worth it for the league to try?
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Eric Koreen, Mike Vorkunov, Tony Jones
There are many reasons beyond wagering for the NBA to want to disincentivize teams from punting on games or seasons.
It’s not even the All-Star break, and the NBA is already opening itself up to the tanking question.
According to reports, the league is considering rule changes to discourage teams from accepting losing, partly a response to the gambling scandal that has been one of the top stories of this season. Of course, tanking predates the league’s tie-in with legal sports gambling, and there are many reasons beyond wagering for the NBA to want to disincentivize teams from punting on games or seasons.
However, the league presenting a few options at a recent board of governors meeting is a big step. The Athletic’s Tony Jones, Eric Koreen and Mike Vorkunov discussed the nature of the problem, the proposals and other steps the league could take to stop or minimize the incentive to lose.
How big of a problem is tanking?
Jones: I think it’s a moderate issue. I don’t think it’s the biggest issue the league faces, but I don’t disagree that the league could probably use some reform of sorts. The setup now discourages teams from trying to win if they don’t truly think they can compete. But I think the biggest issue inside the issue is the lack of any other recourse for small-market teams.
If the Utah Jazz have $50 million in cap space, but, because of the nature of the market, can’t use that space in order to attract talent, then their only road to improvement is through the draft. And for them, that means tanking. There are multiple markets that face that same issue, and that has an affect across the league.
Koreen: It’s second on my personal list behind player availability, which is a big part of tanking. I am both philosophically and practically opposed to incentivizing losing. With the former: This is professional sports, and trying to win should be paramount. Any benefit for not doing that should be eradicated. Fans should not have to wonder whether it’s better for their favorite teams to win or lose.
If teams weren’t trying to exploit this regularly, it wouldn’t be an issue. But we’ve seen teams throw away seasons at a time (the Wizards, Jazz), portions of a season (76ers, Nets) or just select games at the end of the season (Mavericks) in the name of long-term interests. That it makes a whole month of the season uncompetitive only underscores the importance of the issue.
Vorkunov: I think it’s less of an issue than we think, but more than it should be. Some of the great tank commanders of years past have been pretty flagrant, and I think that has created cynics out of all of us.
Tanking has created these two big problems. There’s one problem, which is the on-court product, and another, which is the trust problem. When teams are trying not to win, it devalues the sport in those cities and also for the other teams they play. Winning should be paramount, so creating an inverse incentive structure for organizations and fans is troublesome. If you’re watching games hoping your team will lose, then why watch the games at all?
The trust problem, to me, comes from how players get held out with injuries or whatever reason, and it’s hard to trust that those reasons are true. That can lead to a lack of trust in the rest of the product.
What is the most egregious example of tanking you’ve seen?
Jones: The Jazz shelving Lauri Markkanen and Walker Kessler for large chunks of last season is obviously what’s being talked about. But Utah is hardly the only team that has done this. Oklahoma City sitting Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for large chunks of multiple seasons was egregious — and it obviously worked.
Golden State’s tank job that landed them Harrison Barnes was apparent. I once saw the Los Angeles Clippers tank a playoff spot in 2022 so they could get into Utah’s side of the bracket, when the Jazz were the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, so that’s even an example of open tanking not being limited to draft position.
Koreen: I’ll choose to not answer the question I made up and instead describe my favorite example of tanking. It’s often said that front offices tank, while coaches and players don’t. The 2005-06 Minnesota Timberwolves needed to have their draft pick land in the top 10 to retain it. In the final game, that plan involved journeyman forward Mark Madsen playing 30 minutes to go 1 of 15 from the field and 0 of 7 from 3. That game accounted for 43.8 percent of his career 3-point attempts. He took nine 3s in his other 452 games across nine seasons.
Somehow, that game still went to overtime, with Minnesota eventually pulling out the loss. The Wolves kept their pick, eventually winding up with Randy Foye. They traded away Brandon Roy in the draft-night trade.
Vorkunov: I don’t know which is the most egregious, but every example of a team losing out at the end of the season is like a beautiful snowflake. The problem is that if you get too many of them, after a while you’re stuck in a snowstorm.
What do you think of the ideas the NBA is repoprtedly discussing — an earlier date to lock the lottery odds, making it so teams can’t be at the top of the lottery multiple times in a row and limiting the ways traded draft picks can be protected?
Jones: I think my favorite is teams not being allowed to be at the top of the lottery multiple times. I don’t think the other stuff is feasible or should become actual rules. But the repeat lottery winners the one that I think is the most fair for the overall health of the league.
I don’t think the San Antonio Spurs should be able to have an opportunity to draft Dylan Harper one season after having the opportunity to draft Stephen Castle, one season after having the opportunity to draft Victor Wembanyama. In the first two cases, they moved up from their initial lottery odds. If a team moves up once, then that’s well and good. But the type of luck the Spurs have enjoyed in three of the last four years makes it seem intentional, even if we all know that it isn’t.
Koreen: As a whole, these are half-measures. That sounds like a criticism, and it is, but I recognize it as inevitable. The NBA is trying to balance many priorities and is clearly worried about overcorrecting. I am sure the league does not want to eradicate hope for lesser franchises and fears that any extreme solution to tanking would do just that.
I believe limiting how often a team can finish in the top three or five of the lottery is a positive step. I would go further but I think that could be part of a better solution than the one they have now.
I’m less sold on the other potential fixes. Changing the date the odds lock would only change when teams will accept losing, not if they will. While restricting the nature of protections would limit the number of tanking inflection points, there will still be teams willing to throw away parts of seasons so long as you get a better chance at the top picks with more losses. Also, that would do little to curb the worst teams from embracing seasons-long rebuilds.
Vorkunov: I think the NBA has to solve for a very particular kind of problem here, not solve tanking. It’s trying to solve tanking to prevent it from being weaponized by sports gamblers. That, to me, is different than finally getting rid of tanking. (Though if I’m being cynical, maybe now the NBA can use the political capital to push through the kind of sweeping changes it might not have been able to otherwise.)
This particular problem is about getting rid of moments where information about players sitting that’s gained minutes or hours ahead of the public can be used to make wagers on the teams involved. That’s different from a team putting it on easy mode after the All-Star break. One is a macro choice. Another is a repetitive set of micro choices. (Yes, I know there’s overlap.) Those probably can have different solutions.
What is your ideal fix to tanking?
Jones: Give the teams with the worst records the best shot at securing the highest picks. But those teams can’t secure high picks in consecutive seasons — let’s call it top four. If a team knows that there are fewer bites at the apple, it will theoretically put more of a priority on trying to win games.
The Jazz are facing one of the biggest such conundrums that I’ve seen. They are clearly a team that is currently capable of making the Play-In within the Western Conference, and maybe competing for as high as the No. 8 spot. They owe their first-round pick, top-eight protected, to the Oklahoma City Thunder, in what is a historically good draft. So, what do they do? Do they continue to play at the level they are capable? Or do they take their foot off the pedal?
The NBA will be watching how they behave.
Koreen: There should be no incentive to lose — ever.
Every team that does not make the second round of the playoffs has an equal chance in the lottery. However, there is no link between record and draft order. All 22 of those slots are drawn, as opposed to the current lottery, which determines just the top four spots.
In addition, any team picking in the top five is ineligible to pick in the top five the following season. Any team that wins the first pick is ineligible to pick in the top five for two seasons, and first for five seasons.
The crux of this is no team, in my mind, is going to pass up on a chance to make the second round of the playoffs for a 1-in-22 shot at winning a lottery. However, I can see a potential Play-In team prioritizing a 1-in-14 shot at the lottery over making the playoffs and probably losing to a much better team in the first round.
Vorkunov: I think some of these ideas still apply here. Getting rid of the draft would certainly be interesting and could create a new kind of transaction cycle the NBA could exploit and market to maybe bring a new, vibrant form of free agency, since the current version is kind of zapped. Think of the NBA’s version of college’s national signing day. There are many different ways the league could construct draft free agency that still affords the worst teams an advantage (that’s the whole point of the draft) without recreating the current incentive structure.
But, as I said earlier, the NBA needs to solve for the sports-gambling-specific version of this problem. I’d love to see the draft go, but that might be too big a solution for this. I think limiting pick protections is a simple way to fix tanking. Only allowing picks to be protected top-four and top-14 (and maybe top-one) kind of takes things out of a team’s control and makes the choice more binary — i.e. whether you’re in the playoffs or not. The lottery odds are flatter now, so there’s little difference between owning the fourth-worst record and the eighth.
I think one out-there approach would involve the NBA and teams to break kayfabe when explaining why they’re sitting players. If a team can admit that it’s sitting out its best players way ahead of time, then it’s harder to bet on those games with insider information. If, say, the Pacers decide they want to optimize their luck in the draft lottery and sit Pascal Siakam, they should be able to announce on March 4 that Siakam will sit the rest of the season instead of having this prolonged dance about whether he’s playing from night to night. Or, maybe the Kings decide they’ll sit most of their starters in a certain game, then allow them to announce it a week ahead of time. If the goal is to cut down, or eliminate, the windows of time gamblers are trying to take advantage of, it pays to be as out in front and transparent as possible.
Play devil’s advocate to your own proposal: What would be the push back?
Jones: The pushback to my proposal would be to ask the question of what about the Utah Jazz? Or the Oklahoma City Thunder? Those are teams that can’t go out on the free-agency market and improve, like, say, the Los Angeles Lakers or the New York Knicks. Their only recourse is to horde a bunch of draft picks, find a great talent at the top of the lottery, and then draft well around that top-three pick.
The Jazz have drafted well around the top three — point guard Keyonte George has emerged as an All-Star candidate. But they haven’t gotten a top-three pick in their current rebuild.
The Thunder have done both. They struck gold late in the lottery with Jalen Williams. They struck gold in the top three with Chet Holmgren.
Koreen: It would make it too hard for bad teams to get better. Any plan that disconnects the tie between losing and draft slot will be ripe for that criticism. I see that as a feature, not a bug, but I understand how it could create a sense of “This will never get better” for fans of teams languishing near the bottom of the standings. However, if such a system means teams will be less likely to trade their best players for lottery tickets, I believe fewer teams will be as far away from success as they are today.
Additionally, this idea would likely cut down on transactions, which often dominate the NBA news cycle. See above: If it results in more players spending longer with their teams, great. Maybe there are more player-for-player trades driven by fit instead of weighing the present versus the future. And even with the risk teams would be taking by trading future picks, a) they could still protect them; and b) those competing for championships would still make “go for it” trades.
Vorkunov: Well, you can’t get rid of the draft because it’s been around for decades and is a television show. (All TV shows get canceled eventually, except for Sesame Street, thankfully.) Allowing early player shutdowns would probably just be a bad look for the league. If you thought load management (which at least had a sports science component) invited criticism, wait until fans start tagging the league for openly sitting good players so teams can be worse versions of themselves. Some teams won’t like limited pick protections — I’ve spoken to some front office executives already who don’t — because complexity is their job, but these are the tough choices the NBA is paid to make. It would also be a long-term problem because the first year with no encumbered picks is the 2033 draft.
Otherwise, these ideas are genius, and I see no downside, obviously.