""In the old days it was just sort of an understanding among partners in terms of behavior," Silver said before Saturday's All Star Saturday events. "I think what we're seeing is modern analytics where it's so clear that the incentives are misaligned. ...Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we've seen in recent memory? Yes, is my view.""
""If teams are manipulating their performance in order to get higher draft picks even in a lottery, then the question becomes ... are they really the worst-performing teams?" Silver said. "It's not clear to me, for example, that the 30th performing team is that much measurably worse than the 22nd performing team, particularly if you have incentive to perform poorly to get a better draft pick.""
The NBA identifies tanking as significantly worse this season and is exploring every possible remedy, including revoking draft picks, to stop overt losing strategies. Fines were imposed on the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers for conduct perceived as intentional underperformance. Modern analytics and the lottery's incentive structure are cited as drivers that make losing advantageous for better draft positioning. Conversations with GMs and the competition committee raise doubts that the teams with the worst records are truly the worst-performing. The league is considering rethinking the draft system after 75 years while experimenting with All-Star Game formats to protect competitive balance.
Read at ESPN.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]