"Adam Silver's message over the past few weeks has been crystal clear: the NBA commissioner is sick of tanking in the NBA. From fines to now proposing serious penalties impacting draft capital, Silver is quickly moving to halt teams throwing in the towel early. Tanking, of course, has been a tradition since time immemorial in the league. Things have gotten pretty blatant this year, however, with a supposedly stacked 2026 NBA Draft class waiting in the wings."
"Per Charania, these are the big bullet points being bandied about: First-round draft picks would be limited to only top-four or top-14-plus protections Teams' lottery odds would be frozen before the end of a season - perhaps at the trade deadline or a bit beyond A team might not be permitted to select in the top four across two straight seasons and/or after finishing among the three worst records in back-to-back years"
Adam Silver is pursuing stringent penalties to stop tanking, moving beyond fines to proposals that affect draft capital and lottery positioning. Proposals include limiting first-round pick protections to top-four or top-14-plus, freezing teams' lottery odds before season end, and preventing teams from selecting in the top four in consecutive seasons or after consecutive worst records. Other ideas include barring Conference Finals teams from top-four picks the next season, calculating lottery odds using two-year records, including all 20 play-in teams in the lottery, and fully flattening lottery odds. Some proposals are viewed as overly punitive, while others target blatant strategic tanking tied to a stacked draft class.
Read at Bleacher Nation
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