Commissioner Adam Silver says the NBA is keeping a close eye on tanking this season while conceding that he understands why teams might want a better shot at landing a generational prospect like Victor Wembanyama, reports ESPN’s Baxter Holmes.
“We put teams on notice,” Silver said. “We’re going to be paying particular attention to the issue this year.”
Silver made the comments in a Q&A session with Suns employees after apologizing multiple times on behalf of the league in the wake of Robert Sarver‘s workplace misconduct. Sarver is now in the process of selling the team after facing public backlash from team sponsors and others around the NBA.
According to Holmes, Silver said tanking was a “serious issue” and the NBA has had “hundreds of meetings” to address the issue. While the bottom three teams in the standings will each only have a 14% chance each of landing the top pick after the NBA flattened the lottery odds in 2019 to disincentive intentionally losing, that might not matter for the upcoming season, and Silver acknowledged that tanking will likely occur in 2022/23.
“It’s something we have to watch for,” Silver said. “A draft is, in principle, a good system. But I get it, especially when there is a sense that a once-in-a-generation player is coming along, like we have this year.”
Silver didn’t mention the French center by name, sources present told Holmes, but stated that the league will tweak the draft as necessary.
“Teams are smarter, they are creative, and they respond — we move, they move — so we’re always looking to see whether there’s yet a better system,” Silver added.
The commissioner said the league has considered a relegation system to address tanking, which would involve demoting the bottom two teams in the standings and promoting a couple of G League teams, similar to European soccer leagues, but said it would be “destabilizing,” per Holmes.
“It would so disrupt our business model,” Silver told employees. “And even if you took two teams up from the G League, they wouldn’t be equipped to compete in the NBA.”
Addressing a question about expansion, Silver said the NBA won’t seriously consider it until it negotiates a new media rights deal in 2025, but noted that there are several cities that are strong candidates.
Sonics in 2025???
Adam Silver need to stay in his lane on this one. Victor Wembanyama is coming out!!! He’s 7’4 and can shoot like Kevin Durant. Who ain’t going to tank for that. I guess the Utah Jazz didn’t get the memo. They 2-0 on the young season. But believe it or not even after trading Royce O’Neale Rudy Gobert Patrick Beverley and Donovan Mitchell they still got some nice players on the roster.
Starters
Lauri Markkanen
Jared Vanderbilt
Kelly Olynyk
Jordan Clarkson
Mike Conley Jr.
Bench
Collin Sexton
Malik Beasley
Walker Kessler
Rudy Gay
Talen Horton-Tucker
That’s a roster that can definitely make the play in.
I bet Utah fans are glad to get some white players.
I don’t care if they’re white or not however would like them to just go ahead and tank
They’re too good. They have a lot of quality NBA players…sadly.
@curtis
I think it’s clear that Ainge is clearly showcasing the vets to set them up for midseason trades although I think he’ll pull the trigger if a good deal comes sooner? I do think Markannen has a good shot at staying with Utah because he’s still very young, under control for multiple years and might actually develope into a star with them.
Agreed, Conley, Clarkson, Beasley, Olynyk and Vanderbilt all would have value to a contender.
But but the commish said he will be “paying particular attention to the issue this year.”
As if that means anything. What’s he going to do if the are smart and tank?
gary bankston, it’s always great when you take the actions of a portion and label the entire state as guilty.
The 76ers’ tanking from 2014 to ’17 (4-year tanking)
Example
IF any team tanks 4 consecutive years, they should be blocked the draft picks the next year.
Large cities should not tank 4 consecutive years because the small market would win nothing
It’s gotten them all the way to the 2nd round lol
How are they tanking? Didn’t Simmons have a broken foot.. and so did Embiid?
Hinkie traded Holiday for Noel and a future 1st knowing Noel couldn’t play, he then traded Spencer Hawes and Evan Turner for 2nd rounders at the deadline so the team would bottom out. He then drafted Embiid knowing it would take a while before he could play. They basically sucked for years on purpose. Don’t you remember “Trust the Process”? Embiid even got his nickname from Philly’s tank. I think t
It took Holiday almost a decade to become a reliable player. And let’s not pretend that Hawes and ET were anything more than 2nd unit guys. Getting ET with the #2 pick was terrible for the Sixers. Wish they went with Boogie.
Yes tacocat I guess that’s pretty good tanking.
@Sillvan
What actually is tanking? They’ve been unable to attract big FA even when Embiid as a winning team. How hard can you imagine it to be when the team had nobody. The process stretched out as long as it did because Embiid (injuries), Okafur (bust), Simmons (failed to improve) and Fultz (bust) and passing on some future allstars. The Warriors likely wouldn’t have botched those drafts.
Aren’t they tanking this season, too?
Yes, expand more……
And have 20 teams in the playoffs each year.
There are just too many quality players out there.
LOL
Heck, have all teams make the playoffs (or play-in or whatever nonsense they call it) except for the bottom 2. The regular season is a long exhibition season anyway to see who fits on the teams with enough time to let them make trades before the playoffs start.
The NBA is looking more like a government work program and grievance center than a professional sports league. It’s surely not the best of the best. They can book NBA games before the circus starts – warm up the crowd.
I actually think the regular season is so people can watch basketball.
You think maybe?
Samuel hates the NBA but cares enough every once in awhile to go into the comment section to whine about it’s current state.
He hates the Red Sox more. He’s over there all the time whining.
You’ve just described the in season tournament.
Silver isn’t going to do anything except talk. What about violence in the NBA? Not really liking this guy. I don’t care about the play in tournament or any other tournaments they plan. Give Seattle a franchise and get lost.
Violence?
Two Quality takes in one thread. He should keep going, he’s on a roll.
I don’t really see the problem with tanking, especially in the NBA. Yeah it sucks when your team stinks but most knowledgeable fans understand that you need stars to win and the best way to get them is the draft.
I’d rather know my team is tanking than be in NBA purgatory constantly playing for the 9 or 10 seed every year with no realistic chance of winning a championship.
Yes Ryan but the only problem is that you have to draft well. I’m of the opinion that tanking never works you just need to have skilled draft pros because a lot of times teams picking 15 get a better player than teams picking number 8.
I use Sacramento as an example all the time.., they’ve drafted horribly the last 25 years. You’ve got guys in the twenties that are picked and are studs. But I do get what you’re saying.
Relegation? That’s never fly. So eone spends billions on a team just to have it relegated to the G-League
Want to stop tanking? Get rid of the idea that the worst teams get better odds. Make the draft order an UNWEIGHTED lottery 1-30
That’s much worse than tanking. Much, much worse.
That would have interesting effects on trading as teams may be reluctant to give up draft picks so fewer trades. Instead create 3 draft groups of 10 teams. They rotate each year which group draft 1-10, 11-20 and 21-30. Each year, within a draft group, the order of teams is random.
@Stan 2 I agree with your concept. Only thing I disagree with is that top maybe 3 teams in each league should be barred from it. Unweighted odds would decentivize tanking
While we’re at it, let’s randomly draw a team out of a hat every night and make them play blindfolded! It’s no less ridiculous than going to an unweighted lottery system for every pick. If the ball bounces the wrong way for a bad basketball team, they may well be bad for half a decade. And isn’t that why some people scream and yell about tanking to begin with?
F%&* tanking. Go Jazz do ur best.
The Spurs winning the lottery and drafting Big Vic is the only thing that’s keeping Popovich around…
So the teams (ahem, OKC…) that traded 2/3 of their rosters for a boatload of draft picks over the past few years, that’s OK, but *this year* losing, trading away 2/3 or more of your roster gets the Mish’s attention…sounds about right.
Right !!!
Thought you knew: when Presti does it, it’s not a sin!
LOL. Silver is such a clown. He’s tanking’s ultimate enabler. Now that his system has 20% of the league trying to lose, and another 20% seriously considering joining them, he thinks the league might have a problem.
Don’t watch for it. Don’t have 100’s of meetings. Just STOP incentivizing it. Tweaking the draft system (but keeping it based on reverse standings) won’t do a thing to stop tanking, any more than they did in 2019. It may make it more equitable among the various tankers, and it might change some of the teams that tank. No more than that.
Not a lot Silver can do here since it’s all subjective in the end when it comes to lineup decisions. Unless he wants to take these cases to some sort of arbitration, but that’s still an uphill battle.
And I certainly don’t think teams should be penalized for trading away vets/good players in order to get draft capital and tank.
The only way to curb tanking is to tinker with the rules once again. Some ideas I’d consider loosely consider
-If you’ve had top-3 lottery odds for two or more years, you’re excluded from the top-3 in Year 3.
-Lottery odds would be based on a combination of worst finish AND best finish after the All-Star break. So a team which went 20-61 and 6-32 post-ASB could end up with worse lottery odds than a team which went 26-56 and 10-26 post-ASB (how the math would play out TBD).
The only way to curb tanking is to realize it doesn’t work. Look at the Sacramento Kings draft history. Top 10 all the time but draft crap results. Teams in the twenties get guys that are amazing.
Best thing to do instead of tanking is hire some real draft evaluators lol.
Klay Thompson #11 after Jimmer fredette. Steph Curry #7 or so after Johnny Flynn and Ricky rubio. Need I go on? Kobe #17 or so, Kawhi Leonard #15 or so..
To be fair Kobe was a different era and he changed draft strategies overall. In that era teams tended to go with 3 or 4 year college players. They wanted guys that could come in and produce right away.
I think selective tanking does work, like what the Raptors did a few years back and my Spurs will do this year. But I agree to the extent that a) scouts and front office are 10x more important and b) promoting a good, winning culture >>> endless tanking.
But to your point, whatever new tanking rules the league comes up with the Kings should obviously be exempt from them lol. Not like it would make a difference.
I don’t have a problem with “tanking” because, as you alluded to, if you have a smart front office it works. The team is bad for 2 or 3 seasons but then it all pays off. The Raptors are a good example. I believe the Spurs will get it right.
And if a team has an incompetent front office, we’re not really talking about tanking anymore. When you can’t get it right with 3 or 4 years of high picks it’s a collection of bad basketball decisions.
If they want to stop tanking, make all the teams that don’t make the playoffs have their own separate “playoffs” and the winner gets the #1 pick.
Nothing wrong with tanking, if you can’t win there is no much point in trying, right?
Would be pretty awful to have 30 teams wanting to win every year as you would have 29 failed teams, as of now you have realistically 5 or 6 at the most that can win, so it is much better!
No regulation will ever occur
Im not sure what can really occur, Ive got some ideas but they all have some holes in them push come to shove
I think most can agree we don’t need a 82 game season – Perhaps cap the end season standings at 72 games then have the last 10 be scheduled playoff teams v playoff teams then the rest have some sort of tourney for the lottery balls – Not perfect but it would add excitement. Im not sure there is a perfect here