There was a lot of talk for a few weeks about Tanking in the NBA. It’s horrible, every team is doing it, it must be stopped. I don’t think it’s so bad.
Why does tanking happen? It starts with parity. The system in the NBA (like most leagues) is designed to keep the rich from getting richer. They want an entertainment product where all franchises have a chance. They use several tools to do this. For instance, the salary cap and shared TV revenue and luxury taxes keep small market teams from being outspent by large market teams. And the draft is designed to send better players to bad teams to increase parity. Bad teams should get better. A more even league is a better product.
How do you decide if a team is bad? You measure wins and losses. Objective. But. A team that actually isn’t so bad can generate losses. It’s easy to fake being bad.
As long as bad teams are rewarded, some teams will try to be artificially bad to get the reward. Almost all proposals to change the drafting system ignore this basic truth. The only proposals that address this issue directly remove the reward for bad teams, in other words, draft position isn’t based on performance. Everything else is just tweaks around the edges – trying to maximize parity while allowing some tanking, but not too much.
How much is too much tanking? This season for sure. Lots of teams are tanking. But this season is unusual in two ways. Tanking won’t be nearly as bad next year.
- Injuries. There is a tension between short term vs long term. Being a bad team for only one year might get you a great player. If the player is good enough it is may be worth being bad for that year to be good for many years. Or you might be forced into it. Due to ACL injuries to D Lilliard, T Haliburton, and Jayson Tatum respectively, the Bucks, Pacers, and Celtics all had stars out for just that one year. This is a perfect opportunity for tanking. Your team is abnormally bad for one year already. If it works, the next year you get your star player back and a draft stud. [Interestingly, the Bucks never tanked, the Celtics never tanked (despite pressure to), though the Pacers are going full tank.]
- A deep and rich draft class. Most draft years do not have a franchise altering player. Not every draft produces Wemby or Flagg. The Hawks had the overall #1 pick in 2024 and only got Zaccharie Richaser who is… fine. (See how many other names you recognize from that draft.) But this upcoming year has a extraordinarily deep draft. The top three are all considered franchise studs, and the next few are also very good players. That changes the math. Most teams wouldn’t tank for a shot at one player in the draft because the odds of getting a stud aren’t good enough. But tanking now gives you a great shot at three studs and several more quality players. If you can get six lottery tickets for the same price, of course you’re likely to play.
My advice to the league is… relax. Calm down, Adam Silver. Do some of the small tweaks under discussion, just to look like you’re doing something. But give it a year, see what happens. It will probably be a much smaller issue next year. And if it is still a big problem — the only real solution is to separate the draft order from performance. Good teams get a shot at the studs, just like the bad teams.