Here’s 4 Ways To Solve NBA’s Biggest Problem
The NBA’s tanking problem is exploding, with teams losing on purpose to boost their 2026 NBA Draft lottery odds. The Utah Jazz just benched all starters in 4th quarter two games in arow. The Washington Wizards played with only 8 guys, of whom 3 are on two-way deals. In this video, we talk about how pick protections and flattened lottery odds are hurting the NBA regular season and competitive balance.
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24 Comments
Is tanking ruining the league & can the NBA actually fix it? 🤔Drop your thoughts in the comments below!👇
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0:12 Utah is messing with the integrity of the NBA? Ballmer and Kwahi out here hugging trees and you saying Utah is messing with the integrity? Stop it
Yes it definitely is ruining the league. Just like load management. The fans need to strike. Imagine the ridiculous price of court side tickets only for your team to openly and blantenly quit. Like paying for Lobster and getting imitation crab meat. Change the draft requirements to the order of losses, and penalize tankers with equivalent financial penalties.
Some "journalists" do sensational hot takes. Especially ESPN. We've always had tanking, we just have so much more visibility and soooo much more content. In 4k, no less. The Trust the Process Sixers won fewer than 50 games total in the three seasons between 2013 and 2016, averaging about 15 wins per season. So, how is Utah, which, a week into February, has surpassed that 15-win mark, tanking more than the Sixers?
By the way: Utah is probably the first team that is going to surpass the predicted total wins.
Good take bro. Smart insights like always
Solution
1. Scrap being able to protect picks
2. Anyone not in the playin has the same chance
3. If you've selected highly in the previous year then you can't again this year. I.e. if you had a top 3 pick last year you can can't get a top 3 this year.
Another option Would be more complicated but base the percentage over your record over the past 3 seasons
ALL 5 Lakers starters Sat last night vs Wemby and the Spurs.
imagine paying the price hike to secure even the most "cheap" seats to see Luka or LeBron, and not even getting Reeves + 2 others…
I hope Silver fines L.A., but doubt it as their is no integrity left in the league (see: Giannis/Kalshi deal)
Im your fan since the begginųng of your petsonal channel. Love to see you breaking down basketball stuff worldwide 🔥🔥🔥
I don't know man last night Pacers played like their lives depended on the win, and even worse it was against one of the best teams in the east – NY Knicks!!! I've lost 1000 € because of that just because I've thought the same thing as you.
It's different when you have a beat up team that has a promising future and still put players out there that are trying to win. Utah is obviously tanking, they should get the belt for it.
They should give the wizards to Seattle. Jazz to Vegas.
Cap punishments for 2 up to 5 years maybe to whoever gets one of the top 5 picks. If you get 2 picks jn top 5, double cap punishment. Rookies are cheap and that's too big of an advantage with the new CBA.
Than skip the lottery, just lowest team gets first pick and accept x amount of cap punishment for 2 maybe 3 years while they develope the player. Just a random idea…
Here is a soft proposal:
Your pick cannot land in the top 5 if:
-you have the least win in the season
-you got less than 20 wins
This way, if you want to improve your odds, you should never try to be the worst
My take, as a Wizards fan: Just "un-flatten" the draft lottery odds, so that only the worst of the worst try to lose. And get rid of pick protections, they aren't a thing in any other league. I thought this was the direction you were going with your video, I didn't like any of the four proposed solutions. Still a nice video!
easy fix. just make it a WINS based draft order. post all-star break or last month of the reg season, whoever WINS the most games between the bottom half of the league determines the draft order.
It's a huge insult thrown towards fans, who pay a lot to go to the games. The league would be nothing without them, yet spit in the face of fans by allowing this to happen. If your players are not injured they should be obligated to play. For the fans, and also because you shouldn't be allowed to take nights off, or quarters off with no valid reason. You know, like with any job.
they need to introduce relegation and change up how the D league is currently operated
What if the highest odds were for the 6th last team?
It absolutely sucks lol
But I have a wonderful idea how to fix it hahahahah
Maybe they should add a separate playoffs for the bad teams that don't make it to the "real" playoffs, after the "real" playoffs are done! Instead of the stupid goddamn lottery balls!!!
So they actually compete for the top picks… The team that wins from those bad teams, they win the 1st pick, second place gets 2nd pick etc. So the first 10 picks always go to the 10 worst teams, but they actually have to freaking try to get the top picks at some point, and we get to watch more playoff games! lol
This would probably not eliminate tanking completely, but at least it's more "playoff type" games to watch and they would actually compete for those picks IMO… And their own picks would be way more valuable and not be traded away like candy.
And those better teams still get all the other picks… So the real Champs get the 30th pick etc…
AND, there is still a draft after those "fake" playoffs, when it's determined which team gets which pick on the draft based on their rank after the playoffs… so they can all still trade up and down and screw up and hit gold each draft regardless of the pick position, so that doesn't change much… So we would actually just lose the stupid lottery balls that are retarded anyway…. lol And we don't get to see the top loaded teams get those high picks unless they trade valuable players to those teams that suck for the higher picks…
And in addition to that, I think they should shorten the regular season… By at least like 10-20 games, or even more… A lot of those like 20 games suck for each team anyway… They either rest key players against bad teams and on back to back games if they are contending, or they already suck anyway so it doesn't really matter if their record is 20-40 or 20-62 lol And I think the games would be more competitive as a result too. And the record wouldn't give you more odds for a 1st pick… Just means you suck and you get to compete for the 1st pick and try to suck less…
Why would Milwaukee maximize draft odds
They do t have their pick either way
NTA
I wish the NBA just did a completely random, everyone has an equal chance at each pick lottery system that included the 7 and 8 seeds in the playoffs. So all of the lower 18 teams would each have a 5% chance at each pick 1 through 18 (then do the same with the remaining 12 first round picks with the top 6 seeds in each conference). This way everyone is playing to win because whether you make the play-in or the are the 15 seed, your chances are the same.
Also they should order the 2nd round just based on record. And add a third round for good measure (expand 2-way contracts to something like 5 per team).
How to fix it: if you are doing things like Utah, you should get the same % for the lotery as the 1 seed. As easy as that
Is there any real evidence that tanking is a sound strategy? How much better, if better at all, are the players that were picked 1-3 during the last decade than those that were picked 4-10 in the last decade? Are teams good enough at drafting superstars to make tanking effective?