While the NBA took several steps this year to crack down on tanking, commissioner Adam Silver said Friday "we're still going to have some work to do" to end the practice.
Tanking, or the practice of bad teams losing games to improve their draft lottery chances, has been an issue for years. Last September, the league took a big step, announcing that beginning next season, the teams with the three worst records in the league will all have a 14 percent chance of getting the No. 1 draft pick. Currently, the team with the worst record has a 25 percent chance, the second-worst team has a 19.9 percent chance, and the team with the third-worst record has a 15.6 percent chance.
In addition, the league fined Mavericks owner Mark Cuban $600,000 for his suggestion that "losing is our best option." Silver also told the USA Today Friday that the league had talked with several teams this season "about what the product was they were putting on the floor, and I’ll leave it at that."
Yet Silver, who admitted the tanking problem is an "incredibly difficult issue,” said the NBA doesn't want to be in the business of setting teams' lineups.
“The last place I want to go as the commissioner of the league office is to start dictating minutes and which particular players should be playing at what points in the game," Silver said (via USA Today). "I recognize that the incentives are not aligned right now, that there's a huge incentive to increase your chances in the draft lottery, especially under the old system.”
While Silver is optimistic that the tweak to the NBA Draft lottery odds will help, he thinks more can be done to combat the tanking issue.
“We'll see how much of an impact that has,” Silver said. “But my sense is we're still going to have some work to do.”
