NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and the league office are in the process of developing new anti-tanking rules for the 2026-27 season. In addition to contacting all 30 general managers around the league about the issue after the All-Star break in February, Silver spoke about the idea of tanking across the league and what he plans to do about it on Friday.
“We are going to make substantial changes for next year,” Silver said at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston on Friday morning, according to Mike Vorkunov and Jared Weiss of The Athletic. “On one hand, you can completely divorce the draft from teams' records… That would be a major shock to the system. Not to completely forecast where we're going, but I am an incrementalist.”
In conversations with the board of governors, the competition committee, and general managers around the league, Silver and the NBA have already begun discussing several concepts to put an end to tanking.
Some of the changes discussed in conversations include modifying how pick protections work, freezing lottery odds at a specific date in the season, eliminating the possibility of teams receiving a top-four pick in consecutive years, allocating lottery odds based on a two-year window, flattening odds for all teams, among others.
This new concept Silver proposed and discussed in Boston on Friday would certainly be a “substantial change,” as first-round draft picks would no longer be determined by where all 30 teams finish in the final standings. Essentially, this would make tanking irrelevant since attempting to lose games to receive a better draft pick would no longer be relevant.
At this time, it is unclear what exactly will change with the league's anti-tanking rules. Silver was simply giving a glimpse as to what some of the topics being discussed are and what altercations could be on the horizon before the 2026-27 season.
Adam Silver, NBA already handing down punishment for tanking
While the league continues to evaluate the tanking landscape and changes that will need to be made, Silver did recognize that there is a difference between those organizations that are rebuilding and those that have already thrown in the towel on the season at hand.
The NBA does not want to punish teams for playing their young players late in the season but rather prevent teams from shutting down multiple players with the intention of losing.
Both the Indiana Pacers and the Utah Jazz received heavy fines for this very reason.
Whereas the Pacers were fined $100,000 for violating the Player Participation Policy by holding players out who were deemed healthy by an independent physician, the Jazz were hit hard with a $500,000 fine for what was deemed “conduct detrimental to the league.”
Utah removed star talents like Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. from their games on Feb. 7 and Feb. 9 against the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat, respectively, before the fourth quarter, and neither player returned to the game for the final 12 minutes of play.
Upon review, the NBA said both players were able to continue playing, but the Jazz made the decision to pull them and not have them return, with the league assuming that the Jazz were intentionally trying to lose. Ultimately, the Jazz lost 120-117 to the Magic after leading by seven points entering the fourth quarter, but Utah actually defeated the Heat 115-111 without Markkanen and Jackson playing in the fourth.
On Friday, Silver acknowledged that he is more concerned about the ethical shifts in tanking this year due to what he called a “perfect storm” of a promising draft this June, followed by less-talented drafts over the next few years, according to Weiss.
“There’s been a destigmatization around certain behaviors, and I think that’s a broader societal issue. I think in other aspects of society, the guardrails have come off a little bit.”
During his yearly All-Star Weekend press conference, Silver said tanking during the 2025-26 NBA season is “worse” than it's ever been in recent memory and that the league would consider “every possible remedy” to fix the problems existing within the current draft and lottery system.
As a result, Silver and the NBA will spend a lot of time over the next few months to implement new changes before the 2026-27 season officially begins in July.
