The NBA has a tanking problem, and the league has let it be known that it will find rules to discourage teams from doing so. They have recently come up with three anti-tanking concepts to vote on ahead of their formal vote in May, according to ESPN's Shams Charania. Here are the three concepts that will be presented:
“18 teams in draft lottery (seeds 7-15 in each conference) – flattened odds, with bottom 10 teams having an 8% chance, the remaining 20% odds distributed in decreasing order for 11 through 18, and and a lottery drawing for all 18 picks,” Charania wrote.
“22 teams in lottery using 2-year record (seeds 7-15, plus the four playoff first round exits in both conferences),” Sharania continued. “Lottery teams would reach a minimum win total floor in each season, such as 25 wins. If a team falls short of the floor, it gets slotted to meet the floor. Top 4 drawn as part of lottery, as is currently.
“18 teams in a ‘5 by 5' lottery – bottom 5 teams have equal odds for the top pick, with lottery formed for picks 1-5. Bottom 5 teams have a floor at 10; those that fall out of top 5 get sorted in a separate drawing.”
It will be interesting to see which concept the league votes on, but it looks like all of them will cut down on the tanking that has happened over the past few years. This season, there are a few teams that have been fined for tanking, which include the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers.
The Sacramento Kings have not been fined, but they have shut down three key players for the remainder of the season after they underwent surgery. It's uncertain if those players would have had season-ending surgery if the team had been winning a lot of games instead of being at the bottom of the standings.
Some think the Washington Wizards have done the same thing with Trae Young and Anthony Davis.
