Adam Silver vows to "fix" NBA tanking
In four weeks, the worst NFL teams from 2025 begin to collect their bonuses for being bad. And while tanking has indeed happened in the NFL, the problem is far more obvious in the NBA. On Wednesday, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver vowed to end tanking in basketball.
" We are going to fix it -- full stop ," Silver said at a Wednesday press conference, via Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal . "We’ve been hard at work on this issue for several months now," Silver added. “Of course, we have a Competition Committee.
They’ve been working on that issue with us. We’ve been talking separately to our General Managers. I do think ultimately this is a decision that needs to be made at the ownership level.
It has business implications, has basketball implications, has integrity implications for the league. " Friend reports that the NBA could give all non-playoff teams equal odds in the draft lottery. The playoff play-in teams also could be included in the power forward Powerball game.
"There is an aspect of team building that is called a genuine rebuild, 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. " The only way to truly eliminate tanking — full stop — is to give all teams equal odds at the first pick.