Top 5 Anti-Tanking Rules the NBA is Strongly Considering
Adam Silver is fed up, and he isn't going to take it anymore. The Tanking Epidemic has reached epic proportions in the NBA, and the league's commissioner has met with all 30 teams, telling them that new anti-tanking rules will be implemented for next season.
Tanking, as we all know, is the practice of a team intentionally losing to land the worst possible record they can, in order to improve their lottery odds of landing one of the top picks in the following year's draft.
There are a number of proposals on the table to put an end to the madness, and these are for real, not imaginary.
In no particular order, here are the Top 5 Anti-Tanking Rules the NBA is considering for the 2026-27 season:
- Freezing lottery odds at the trade deadline
- Banning Top-4 Draft Picks in consecutive years
- Banning Top-4 picks the season after a Conference Finals (or better) result
- Tying lottery odds to the combined previous two seasons' records for a team
- Play-In Teams to be included in the lottery
During the All-Star weekend, Silver said tanking is at its all-time worst in the NBA, and he intends to do something about it, asap.
To be clear, scrapping the draft and allowing prospects to sign with any team is NOT under consideration, contrary to some rumors making the rounds.
This year, the Sacramento Kings currently have the worst record in the NBA (and just super-charged their tanking by having Domantas Sabonis & Zach LaVine undergo season-ending surgery), followed closely by the New Orleans Pelicans and the Indiana Pacers (for whom Anti-Tanking Rule Proposal #3, above, was drawn up).
Here's an innovative NBA Anti-Tanking Rule that hasn't been considered yet:
We would suggest one other rule that could work, though we haven't heard this one mentioned yet: How about having the lottery odds in reverse order of what they currently are: Of the 14 non-playoff teams that take part in the lottery, the team with the best record of those have-nots gets the best odds of landing the No. 1 pick, all the way down to the 30th place team getting the worst odds of landing the best ping pong ball drop. That would keep the non-playoff teams trying their best right down to the end.
What are your thoughts?
Photo: © Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
