The NBA is keeping every remedy on the table to end tanking, even if it means ending the draft lottery format as we know it.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver admitted Saturday during his annual All-Star Weekend press conference that tanking is currently one of the biggest issues plaguing the league. As most fans know, tanking is the widespread tactic of intentionally underperforming to improve draft seeding. While tanking does occur in other major American sports, it’s rarely as egregious as what goes on in the NBA.
According to The Athletic’s Joe Vardon, league officials gathered in Los Angeles this weekend and discussed “approximately 10 solutions” to the tanking epidemic. The abolition of the rookie draft entirely wasn’t among those solutions just yet, but such a drastic move would reportedly get “serious consideration” if none of the proposed solutions were enough to address tanking.
The NBA has been using a version of the rookie draft process since the days of Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. Removing the draft entirely would have its own set of problems, with teams having geographical and financial advantages in competing to sign rookies outright.
However, such a move could, in theory, completely curb tanking, given that players would most likely consider any team’s success and recent track record — or lack thereof — in deciding where to ultimately sign.
Silver and his advisors will surely go through a dozen or so options before proposing such a league-altering change to team owners and the players’ union. But if nothing works, removing the draft entirely could be an idea the league deems worth revisiting.
