Adam Silver says new taking rules will mean teams 'have no particular incentive to be bad'

Tanking will be at the top of the agenda when the NBA owners meet later this month, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is out doing public relations for his latest "fix" to the issue that bothers the league office and some content creators more than fans of the teams doing it. The proposal, called the "3-2-1" system, would expand the lottery to 16 teams (or 18 in some versions) and is named after how many ping pong balls each team would get, depending upon their finish — with the worst three teams getting two balls while the teams that finish 4-10 would get three. Silver said why he thought this was a good idea when appearing on Stephen A.

Smith’s radio show on Sirius XM ( quotes via Tim Bontemps of ESPN ). "What we've essentially done, and we have a proposal that we're going to be bringing to our team owners at the end of May, and that is to create essentially a system of flat odds, so that you have no particular incentive to be bad. There's even something we're calling draft relegation, that if you're one of the bottom three teams in the league, you'll actually have worse odds than teams that sort of are four through up until teams make the playoffs.

" The new proposal would also grant more power and leeway to Silver and the league office to punish teams it deems to be tanking. That happened this year when the league fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 for trying to skirt the tanking regulations by playing their stars 20 minutes in a game but benching them in the fourth quarter. (Utah adjusted, came up with injuries for their guys, and just sat them all game.

) "And also ultimately additional authority for the league office that if we do see that type of behavior where there's a sense that teams aren't going all out to win, that we can actually take away draft lottery balls, we can change the order of the draft. Teams have to know it's not just about paying a financial fine, which they may think is worth it in order to get a top pick, but that it'll directly impact their ability to get a top draft pick. " Tanking was particularly intense this season — with nine teams actively not looking to win games by the end of the season — because this is a particularly deep and strong draft class.