{"id":476823,"date":"2026-02-15T16:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T16:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476823\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T16:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T16:41:07","slug":"nbas-effort-to-stop-tanking-is-not-working-adam-silver-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476823\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA’s effort to stop tanking is ‘not working,’ Adam Silver says"},"content":{"rendered":"

INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 NBA commissioner Adam Silver wondered out loud Saturday if a moral code in pro sports has been decisively crossed as more and more teams are blatantly losing games \u2014 the hated practice of \u201ctanking.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Silver conceded that the league is still struggling for solutions to punish teams that lose intentionally for long-term gain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there was a more classical view of that in the old days, where it was just sort of an understanding among partners about terms of behavior,\u201d Silver told reporters at the Intuit Dome<\/a>, home of the Los Angeles Clippers and site of Sunday\u2019s NBA All-Star Game.<\/p>\n

The NBA\u2019s annual draft allows the worst teams to have the first chance at picking the best young, amateur talent in hopes of boosting those clubs\u2019 sad fortunes. With losing equating to better draft position, teams have learned that if they\u2019re not in playoff contention, bottoming out could be the best path to restocking talent.<\/p>\n

The 2026 NBA draft class is recognized as the best in recent years, with multiple names at the top of the board that could alter a team\u2019s future.<\/p>\n

The practice of \u201ctanking\u201d is getting worse, Silver said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think what we\u2019re seeing is a modern analytics, where it\u2019s so clear that the incentives are misaligned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The league this week fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 <\/a>for \u201cconduct detrimental to the league,\u201d in connection with the team sitting star players in the fourth quarters of consecutive games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe league is 80-years-old. It\u2019s time to take a fresh look at this and to see whether that\u2019s an antiquated way,\u201d Silver said. \u201cWe got to look at some fresh thinking here. We\u2019re doing, what we\u2019re seeing right now, is not working. There\u2019s no question about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we\u2019ve seen in recent memory?” Silver added. “Yes is my view.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jazz owner Ryan Smith sarcastically<\/a> responded to the NBA in a statement: \u201cagree to disagree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith also pointed out that one of the games, in which the Jazz were accused of trying to lose, was won by Utah.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won the game in Miami and got fined?\u201d Smith said. \u201cThat makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NBA has tried disincentivize intentional losing by determining draft order via a weighted draft, so losing the most games doesn\u2019t automatically result in the first pick. <\/p>\n

Silver said, though, that he’s not entirely sure that teams with the worst records are necessarily the most needy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not clear to me, for example, that the 30th (best) performing team is that much measurably worse than the 22nd (best) performing team, particularly if you have incentive to perform poorly to get a better draft pick,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a bit of a conundrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The practice is so ingrained in NBA culture that even suggestions to fight it seem hard to come by. Popular talk show host Colin Cowherd<\/a>, who is paid to have opinions, threw up his arms recently on the topic and said his only suggestion was for Silver to channel his more-confrontational predecessor David Stern <\/a>and yell at losing teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what you do with tanking, they\u2019ve been doing it forever. But they did it a lot less with David Stern,\u201d Cowherd said last week. \u201cPeople feared David Stern.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. \u2014 NBA commissioner Adam Silver wondered out loud Saturday if a moral code in pro sports…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-476823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}