NBA introduces three detailed proposals to combat tanking

The NBA introduced three detailed anti-tanking proposals to its board of governors on Wednesday during this week’s meetings in New York, with adjustments anticipated before a formal vote in May, according to sources cited by ESPN’s Shams Charania.

Each of the three suggestions represents a significant shift from the existing framework. They share a common element: incorporating playoff teams into the lottery process. Beyond that, they diverge considerably.

In the first suggestion, sources informed Charania that 18 teams — the bottom 10 that do not qualify for the play-in tournament, along with the eight that do — would all participate in the draft lottery.

The bottom 10 teams would each have an equal 8% chance of advancing in the lottery, while the remaining 20% of the odds would be distributed among the eight play-in teams in descending order from 11th to 18th.

All 18 positions would be drawn as part of the lottery in this format.

The second proposal, as reported by sources to Charania, would involve 22 teams — the bottom 10 that miss the play-in tournament, the eight that qualify, and the four playoff teams eliminated in the first round — all included in the lottery, ranked based on their performance over two seasons. This final aspect, which weights teams by their records from the previous two seasons, mirrors the WNBA’s lottery system.

In this model, each team would be required to achieve a minimum win total in each season to reduce the incentive to lose every game. For instance, if the minimum win threshold for a season was set at 20 wins, a team finishing 14-68 would be considered 20-62 for lottery purposes. Similarly, if a team won 40 games one season and 20 the next, it would be counted as having 30 wins for the lottery.

In this framework, the top four positions would be drawn as part of the lottery, as is currently practiced.

The third proposal is a “five-by-five” approach, according to sources. In this scenario, the same 18 teams from the first proposal — the bottom 10 that miss the play-in, plus the eight that qualify — would enter the lottery. The teams with the five worst records would have equal odds, with the odds decreasing from there, and there would be a lottery drawing for each of the top five draft picks.

After the selection of those five picks, another lottery drawing would occur for the remaining 13 teams. If any of the teams with the five worst records did not secure one of the top five spots — similar to last season when the teams with the first (Utah Jazz), second (Washington Wizards), and fourth (New Orleans Pelicans) worst records all dropped to fifth, sixth, and seventh, respectively — the lowest they could fall in the second lottery drawing would be 10th, preventing a poor-performing team from dropping too far down the draft order.

In the coming weeks, team owners are expected to engage in discussions about the detailed proposals with their respective basketball operations leadership groups to better understand the potential effects and unintended outcomes. Governors, presidents, and general managers are anticipated to maintain an open dialogue with the league office regarding the proposals and any modifications prior to the vote in May.

The NBA began exploring changes to address tanking as early as December. The new proposals do not incorporate ideas from that time, such as limiting pick protections in trades and freezing lottery odds at a specific date.

During his news conference at the conclusion of this week’s meetings in Manhattan on Wednesday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver emphasized that changes are forthcoming after the league faced considerable criticism this season regarding teams aggressively pursuing top positions in what is viewed as a particularly deep 2026 NBA draft class, and that the incentive structure for teams would “clearly” be altered for the next season.

“I do think ultimately this is a decision that needs to be made at the ownership level,” Silver stated. “It has business implications, basketball implications, and integrity implications for the league.

“So it’s one that we take very seriously, and we are going to fix it. Full stop.”

In this context, the NBA’s decision to hold a special board of governors meeting in May underscores the league’s belief in the importance of addressing the issue. Standard meetings occur at the end of the regular season in late March or early April, at the beginning of the new season in either September or October, and in July in Las Vegas during the summer league each year. Conducting a separate meeting to resolve this matter is a highly unusual event.

Nonetheless, Silver noted on Wednesday that there is no clear solution to the issue — and even hinted that further changes could arise in future collective bargaining discussions with the National Basketball Players Association, although the current CBA is set to last until the end of the decade.

“There is an aspect of team building that is referred to as a genuine rebuild, a rebuild with integrity,” Silver remarked. “The challenge we face today is that it has become nearly impossible to differentiate between tanking and rebuilding.

“There is such a nuance to this when incentives do not align, especially when we consider coaches’ decisions on lineups and player rotations, injuries, and the communication between doctors regarding players’ pain levels. My sense is that when I say we need to fix this now, yes, we must implement something more drastic than the incremental changes we’ve made in the past four instances.”