The NBA is currently dealing with a huge problem in the form of tanking. The league inadvertently has rules that effectively incentivize teams to throw away games in the hope of better draft picks.
At a time when the Utah Jazz and the Indiana Pacers have been handed out hefty fines by the league for violating player participation policies, Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia isn’t mincing words about the practice.
“It’s an embarrassment, this whole, my perspective is, tanking is loser mentality. I have never been around anyone. You show me someone who wants to lose, who thinks about losing, I will show you a loser, that’s losers, that’s not my stuff,” Ishbia revealed on The Pat McAfee Show, per a post on X by ClutchPoints.
"It's an embarrassment. It's horrible. My perspective is tanking is loser mentality. … I think it's bad for the NBA."
Suns governor Mat Ishbia on the league's tanking issue.
(via @PatMcAfeeShow)pic.twitter.com/dqK2YShWFf
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) February 25, 2026
“So I don’t like losing, I don’t wanna ever talk about losing. We try to win and the draft works, if you don’t have a good team, you get a good pick. But if you purposely trade for players and then don’t play them, trying to lose games. I think it’s bad for the NBA, I think Adam Silver knows it, organizations know it, it’s gotta change. It will change.
Coming out of the 2026 All-Star break, the race to the bottom has become so transparent that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was forced to levy massive financial penalties against organizations openly throwing games.
“It’s fixable, and Adam Silver, credit to him. He knows it’s a problem, he is gonna fix it. I believe he will fix it, but you can’t have teams like…Right now the incentives are misaligned,” Ishbia proclaimed.
The Utah Jazz were slapped with a staggering $500,000 fine for benching healthy stars Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the fourth quarters of highly contestable games against Orlando and Miami. Shortly after, the Indiana Pacers were docked $100,000 for resting Pascal Siakam and two other starters in violation of the league's player participation policy.
Ishbia’s statements signal that at least some of the owners in the NBA value competition over everything else, even if it proves detrimental due to the NBA’s rules.
