The NBA Draft Lottery was created to give the non playoff teams the first chance to draft eligible amateur and overseas basketball talent to improve their team. In recent years teams have intentionally put inferior talent on the court to increase their chances at a top draft position. This would occur with teams that were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. It would be advantageous for all non playoff teams to take this approach.
Recently owner of the Dallas Mavericks Mark Cuban was fined $600,000 for public comments admitting to tanking. Sam Hinkie, former general manager of the 76ers spent the 2010 through 2013 seasons stockpiling draft picks and trading veterans for expiring contracts to provide cap room and bring in young talent. This resulted in the team’s inferior talent and also may have finally cost Hinkie his job. Some front office executives may agree that tanking creates the fastest way for a team to rebuild their roster while others may suspect that players are learning how to lose as opposed to competing.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has made it clear that active tanking won’t be tolerated and beginning next season in the 2019 draft lottery, the rules will change. Instead of the worst team garnering the highest chance (25%) to land the number one overall pick, the worst three teams will have a 14% chance at the top pick. Silver has sent a memo to all of the NBA teams reminding them that active tanking won’t be tolerated. Here is a portion of the memo that went out to all teams and was obtained by USA Today.
“If we ever received evidence that players or coaches were attempting to lose or otherwise taking steps to cause any game to result otherwise than on its competitive merits, that conduct would be met with the swiftest and harshest response possible from the league office.”
Adam Silver has made it clear that any intentional plans by organization, player or coach to intentionally lose games will not be tolerated and hurts the integrity of the game. We’ll see if this memo changes how some non-playoff teams approach games for the remainder of the season.