NBA’s effort to stop tanking is ‘not working,’ Adam Silver says
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wondered aloud Saturday whether a moral code in professional sports had been decisively transgressed as more teams blatantly lost games — the hated practice of “tanking.”
Silver admitted that the league is still struggling to find solutions to punish teams that intentionally lose for long-term gain.
“I think there was a more classic view of this in the past, where it was just kind of an agreement between partners on terms of behavior,” Silver told reporters at the Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers and site of Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game.
The annual NBA draft allows the worst teams to have the first chance to select the best young amateur talent in hopes of improving those clubs’ dismal fortunes. Since losing equates to a better draft position, teams have learned that if they’re not in playoff contention, bottoming out might be the best way to replenish talent.
The 2026 NBA draft class is recognized as the best in recent years, with several names at the top of the rankings that could alter a team’s future.
The practice of “tanking” is getting worse, Silver said.
“I think what we’re seeing is a modern analysis, where it’s so clear that the incentives are misaligned,” he said.
The league this week fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 for “conduct prejudicial to the league” in connection with the team playing star players in fourth quarters of consecutive games.
“The league is 80 years old. It’s time to take another look at the situation and see if this is an outdated method,” Silver said. “We need to look at some new thinking here. What we’re doing, what we’re seeing right now, isn’t working. There’s no doubt about that.”
“Are we seeing worse behavior this year than we’ve seen recently? » Money added. “Yes, that’s my point of view.”
Jazz owner Ryan Smith sarcastically responded to the NBA in a statement: “agree to disagree.”
Smith also pointed out that one of the games, in which the Jazz were accused of trying to lose, was won by Utah.
“We won the game in Miami and got fined? Smith said. “That makes sense.”
The NBA has attempted to deter intentional losses by determining draft order via a weighted draft, so that losing the most games does not automatically result in the first pick.
Silver said, however, that he’s not entirely sure that the teams with the worst results are necessarily the neediest.
“It’s not clear to me, for example, that the 30th (best) performing team is much worse than the 22nd (best) performing team, especially if you have an incentive to perform poorly to get a better draft pick,” he said. “So it’s a bit of a conundrum.”
This practice is so ingrained in NBA culture that even suggestions for combating it seem difficult to come by. Popular talk show host Colin Cowherd, who is paid to have opinions, recently threw up his hands on the subject and said his only suggestion was that Silver channel his more confrontational predecessor David Stern and yell at losing teams.
“I don’t know what you’re doing with tanking, they’ve been doing it forever. But they did it a lot less with David Stern,” Cowherd said last week. “People feared David Stern.”
