The NBA's tanking problem isn't new. What's new is the league finally admitting their previous fixes failed spectacularly.
Three proposals on the table
Following a board of governors meeting last Friday, the league is considering three significant rule changes to address intentional losing:
- Limiting pick protections to either top-four or 14-and-higher, eliminating the mid-lottery protections that create perverse incentives
- Banning teams from drafting in the top four in consecutive seasons
- Locking lottery positions after March 1, removing late-season tanking incentives
Each proposal has merit. None solves the fundamental problem.
Why the data says this won't work
The Spurs have drafted three consecutive top-four picks: Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper. They're now 22-7 this season after going 78-168 over the previous three years. Was that tanking or good management? The line is impossible to draw, and that's precisely why rules-based solutions keep failing.
Consider the current standings. The Wizards and Pacers are both on pace to win fewer than 20 games. The Kings aren't far behind. These teams aren't breaking any rules—they're simply bad. Or are they strategically bad? The NBA's proposed solutions can't differentiate between incompetence and intent.
The gambling connection nobody wants to discuss
This sudden urgency isn't about competitive integrity. It's about damage control following federal indictments of Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, and former player Damon Jones.
The government's indictment cited how an unnamed co-conspirator—matching Billups' description—allegedly tipped off bettors that multiple Trail Blazers players would miss a March 2023 game as the team began tanking. Portland was 32-40 at that point. They lost nine of their final ten games.
Tanking creates predictable losing patterns. Predictable patterns are exploitable by gamblers. The NBA finally cares because the FBI cares.
The Philadelphia case study
Last season, the 76ers entered with title aspirations and Joel Embiid. They finished by losing 29 of their final 37 games to preserve a top-six protected pick owed to Oklahoma City. That pick conveyed at third overall. They selected VJ Edgecombe, now averaging 16 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 4.0 assists per game.
Philadelphia gamed the system perfectly within existing rules. The proposed March 1 lockdown would have prevented this—but only shifted the tanking window earlier. The incentive structure remains unchanged.
The uncomfortable truth
Here's what nobody in the league office wants to admit: so long as a reverse-standings draft exists, tanking will exist. Flattening lottery odds didn't stop it. The play-in tournament didn't stop it. These new rules won't stop it either.
The Dallas Mavericks won the 2025 lottery with just 1.8% odds. Meanwhile, teams that committed to losing for years—the Jazz, the Wizards—kept missing out on generational talent. The lottery system already punishes tanking randomly. It just doesn't punish it consistently.
If the NBA genuinely wanted to eliminate tanking, they'd eliminate the draft entirely. They won't, because rebuilding through the draft is fundamental to the league's competitive ecosystem. What they're really asking for is tanking that's less obvious—losing without the optics of benching healthy stars in meaningless games.
That's not a solution. That's better PR management.