What NBA players, coaches, and executives are discussing regarding tanking

IN EARLY MARCH, the Utah Jazz entered into a 10-day contract with Andersson Garcia. Garcia, who served as a backup in college, was an undrafted player who had flown under the radar and was known for his defensive skills while playing for the Mexico City Capitanes this season. The Jazz utilized Garcia for 25, 29, 43, 24, and 48 minutes across five games, subsequently releasing him back into free agency just a day after he played the entire game without being substituted.

“I’m incredibly thankful, but honestly, I was quite taken aback,” Garcia expressed to reporters during his short stint. “I didn’t anticipate being here at this moment.”

The Jazz, aiming to safeguard a top-eight protected pick owed to the Oklahoma City Thunder, were outscored by 69 points during Garcia’s 169 minutes on the court. On March 13, they signed Bez Mbeng, who is currently averaging more minutes per game for Utah than he did with the Sioux Falls Skyforce. The team has a minus-146 rating with him on the court this month.

The Memphis Grizzlies, having suffered 15 losses in 17 games, have set an NBA record by starting 25 different players this season. Recently, they have employed a similar strategy by signing Lucas Williamson, Adama Bal, and Lawson Lovering.

This approach—adding, activating, and overusing mid-tier G League players—has reportedly originated from Oklahoma City a few years ago, according to NBA sources.

“It’s a copycat league,” an executive from a currently tanking team told ESPN. “All the models and concepts evolve over time. That’s what happens when something proves effective.”

During the final week of a swift two-year rebuild, the Thunder added Georgios Kalaitzakis, Melvin Frazier, and Zavier Simpson to their roster to conclude the 2021-22 season.

All three, viewed as talents not at the NBA level, were assigned 40-minute roles for the last four games. The Thunder were outscored by 85 points during Kalaitzakis’ time on the court, 92 during Frazier’s, and 95 during Simpson’s.

Kalaitzakis and Frazier have not returned to the league since. Simpson had a similarly brief stint on a struggling Grizzlies team two Aprils later.

Those final three blowouts left the Thunder with 24 wins, just behind the Indiana Pacers, securing the league’s fourth-worst record. On lottery night, the Thunder moved up to second while the Pacers fell to sixth. Oklahoma City selected Chet Holmgren, while Indiana chose Bennedict Mathurin.

Holmgren later started at power forward for a championship team three years afterward.

In recent years, the issue of tanking in the NBA has escalated from a subtle, often overlooked concern to a widespread epidemic affecting the lower third of the league, culminating this season in a competition among at least eight teams to lose as much as possible to enhance their lottery chances for a highly regarded draft.

In discussions with numerous players, coaches, and front office executives, a recurring sentiment emerged: There is widespread discontent regarding this practice—”I hate it,” stated Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr—but few deny that it often represents the most sensible strategy for team-building when situated near the bottom. Different seasons and drafts yield various forms of this strategy, but consensus exists that it will persist until the NBA establishes appropriate regulations or penalties to mitigate it.

“These teams are employing a full range of tactics: resting players in the fourth quarter, utilizing analytically unfavorable lineups, and designing plays for poor shot selections,” remarked a general manager from the Western Conference. “The ingenuity is notable, and I don’t fault them. It’s the optimal strategy for improvement. Look at the most promising teams in the league: Thunder, Spurs, Pistons, Rockets, Hornets. Years of subpar performance have led to high draft picks. It’s a painful process, but ultimately beneficial.”

The tactics are becoming bolder and more frequently employed. Management directives are being issued earlier in the season, resulting in months of compromised and often unwatchable basketball. The average victory margin in NBA games this season stands at 13.1 points, the largest in history, with a record 89 games decided by 30 or more points.

“There is a component of team-building referred to as a genuine rebuild—one conducted with integrity,” commissioner Adam Silver stated at a late March press conference. “The challenge we face today is that it has become nearly impossible to differentiate between a tank and a rebuild. … This is a matter we take very seriously, and we are committed to addressing it. Full stop. I want to communicate that directly to our fans.”

play2:57Adam Silver acknowledges need to combat tanking

NBA commissioner discusses the league’s necessity to address tanking, while admitting the difficulty in distinguishing between tanking and rebuilding.

ON THE NIGHT of March 27, seven out of the 10 NBA games featured a team engaged in tanking. This included a late matchup between the Washington Wizards and Warriors.

The Wizards were missing Trae Young and Anthony Davis, while the Warriors were without Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler III, resulting in undermanned rosters and a contest that remained competitive deep into the fourth quarter.

However, their motivations were contrasting. Golden State, still holding onto faint playoff aspirations, was incentivized to win. Washington, focused on preserving the top-eight protected draft pick owed to the New York Knicks, was incentivized to lose. The teams acted in accordance with their objectives.

Alex Sarr, the second-year center central to Washington’s rebuild, had two fouls by halftime. He committed his third, fourth, and fifth fouls within the first four minutes of the third quarter. Wizards coach Brian Keefe did not remove him from the game.

Consequently, Sarr, the projected No. 2 pick in 2024, continued to foul and picked up his sixth with 5:31 remaining in the third, disqualifying him after 22 minutes of play with over 17 minutes still left in the game.

This exemplifies the casual play that many around the league warn is a byproduct of tanking, fostering poor and sometimes unbreakable habits for players immersed in months of inconsequential games.

“Losing seeps into your DNA,” a former NBA general manager remarked. “It can genuinely disrupt young players.”

Keefe was questioned about allowing Sarr to remain in the game until he fouled out and explained that the 20-year-old had a minutes restriction and would have missed the fourth quarter regardless. This was also the rationale, Keefe noted, for not returning to two other young players: Bilal Coulibaly, who played 19 minutes, and Bub Carrington, who played 26.

Both players watched the entirety of the fourth quarter from the bench as a five-man lineup consisting of undrafted Leaky Black and four bench players played all 12 minutes together, resulting in a five-point lead turning into a five-point loss.

“It’s a peculiar phenomenon,” Kerr remarked postgame when asked about the opponent’s decision to bench their best players in the fourth quarter. “I think it’s quite unique to this season. I haven’t really witnessed this before. This is different.”

The Warriors have encountered plenty of this over the past month: Their depleted roster has kept them competitive in fourth-quarter games against the league’s weakest teams, compelling them to innovate with their lineups. The Wizards, Grizzlies, Jazz, Brooklyn Nets, and Chicago Bulls have all opted to bench their better players in the second half.

The NBA imposed a $500,000 fine on the Jazz in February for this practice after they rested Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the fourth quarter of close road games in Orlando and Miami.

“Overt actions like this that prioritize draft positioning over winning undermine the foundation of NBA competition, and we will respond appropriately to any further occurrences,” Silver stated in a press release.

In the two months since, there have been no fines for the midgame benching strategy despite its frequent and increasing application. Similar to the Wizards, Utah coach Will Hardy cited the minutes restriction as justification.

“I get fined when I do wrong,” Warriors’ Draymond Green stated on Tuesday. “Just impose hefty fines on teams. They are quick to take money from players. Keep fining teams. I’ve seen two fines. As players, they seize that money in an instant. Why isn’t it the same for teams? Everyone loves money.”

Numerous coaching staff members across the league recount instances of tanking teams pulling even their mid-rotation players the moment one of them begins to perform well, essentially seeking the least favorable combination for the situation. Others have observed that the introduction of three two-way roster spots has facilitated the creation of these G League-level lineups in recent seasons.

Almost every franchise has engaged in tanking at some point over the past few decades. Former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was fined $600,000 in 2018 after admitting on a podcast with Julius Erving that he was in the process of executing a strategy that would later assist them in acquiring Luka Doncic.

The Mavericks faced another fine in 2023 for tanking to maintain a top-10 protected pick, which would aid them in securing Dereck Lively II. The Warriors had a front office executive later acknowledge a deliberate tank during the 2011-12 season to retain their top-seven protected pick, which became Harrison Barnes.

“This has been ongoing for so long, but people have largely overlooked it because only one or two teams were doing it at a time—not ten,” an Eastern executive stated. “If it were ineffective, ten teams wouldn’t be engaging in it.”

THE INDIANA PACERS were also fined by the NBA in February for what the league classified as a breach of the player participation policy. They determined that Pascal Siakam and two starters “could have played under the medical standard” but did not.

Pacers coach Rick Carlisle, who has held a two-decade position as the president of the coaches association, reacted strongly to the league’s unilateral medical decision, emphasizing the franchise’s commitment to a cautious approach regarding injuries in a season without Tyrese Haliburton, their top player.

“[The NBA] inquired if we considered medicating [Aaron Nesmith] to participate in a game when we were 30 games under .500,” he shared with a local radio station. “So I was quite taken aback.”

This isn’t the first season that Haliburton’s absence has influenced the Pacers’ objectives. Haliburton missed 13 of the last 15 games in the 2022-23 season due to ankle and knee injuries, and as has been customary for decades, the Pacers leaned into losing late in the season when realistic playoff hopes diminished.

However, there are always ripple effects.

Buddy Hield was part of that Pacers team. He believed he had a long-term future in the NBA and mentioned that Carlisle, whom he regarded as “a mentor,” visited his home multiple times and assured him that the franchise would support him that summer, despite a plan in the final weeks to reduce Hield’s minutes and move him to the bench for the organization’s benefit.

“It was an extension year,” Hield stated. “Then when it came to extension discussions, it was like, ‘Oh, the numbers, X, Y, Z.’

Hield felt that his value had been manipulated and, three years later, questions whether that brief late-season tanking strategy altered his trajectory in the latter part of his career.

“It messed up the money,” Hield remarked. “Me and Rick are still close, but that really left a bad taste in my mouth. Tanking just ruined everything for everyone.”

The Pacers gained from the brief shift. They secured a higher-value draft pick to assist in reshaping their roster and reached the conference finals in the following two seasons, ultimately making the NBA Finals in 2025.

However, the fallout from tanking has caused collateral damage throughout the league. This is a frequent grievance voiced by numerous veterans in private. Several mid-career NBA players expressed their frustrations to ESPN, noting that the issue would typically only arise in the last week or two of the season earlier in their careers. Increasingly, the losing strategies are pushing them out of contention as early as March, February, or even January.

“It’s more palatable if it’s a young player they’ve just drafted with a future in the franchise,” one Western Conference player noted. “But when they’re simply bringing in players off the street and prioritizing them over you in a contract year? That will irritate anyone.”

Knicks forward Josh Hart was traded to a tanking Portland Trail Blazers team at the 2022 deadline. He remarked that such an environment has varying impacts depending on the individual.

“Some players are just content to be on the court and take poor shots and do whatever,” Hart stated. “But for so-called ‘winning’ players, it is incredibly frustrating.”

There are success stories related to tanking at the player level. The notorious process-era Philadelphia 76ers, for instance, cycled through waves of young players, providing opportunities and igniting the careers of respected professionals like Robert Covington and T.J. McConnell.

Josh Giddey’s career has been intertwined with tanking from the outset. He was the initial reward—the sixth draft pick in 2021—for the first of two challenging Thunder seasons.

In his rookie year, he was sidelined in March due to hip soreness as the Thunder aimed for the Holmgren draft selection. In Giddey’s second season, the rebuild culminated in a remarkable success story.

Prior to the Thunder’s first championship run last season, he was traded to the Chicago Bulls for Alex Caruso, providing OKC with a final championship-caliber rotation player while placing Giddey back into a tanking scenario. After years of mediocrity, the Bulls finally embraced the tank at the recent trade deadline.

“I don’t support tanking, but I also recognize that being in the middle is likely not the desired position,” Giddey stated. “You either want to be at the top of the lottery or competing for championships.”

Former Knicks head coach David Fizdale recently recounted a story on FanDuel TV regarding his brief time in New York.

The front office, as he described, was fixated on securing a top pick in the Zion Williamson and Ja Morant draft and were also convinced they would sign Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in the summer of 2019.

Fizdale was left with a limited, losing roster. They finished 17-65 in his first season and received the third pick in the lottery, missing out on Williamson and Morant. Durant and Irving chose the Nets that summer. The Knicks began Fizdale’s second season with a 4-18 record, leading to his dismissal.

“All of us coaches enter this profession with our eyes wide open,” Kerr remarked. “Circumstances are everything. The average coach lasts probably less than three years. It could be due to a lack of talent, poor performance, or injuries. This is simply the nature of the coaching profession. Now you add another [challenge] with this tanking dynamic.”

Kerr and Carlisle highlighted Utah’s Hardy and Brooklyn’s Jordi Fernandez as highly regarded young coaches collaborating with their front offices during the rebuild, believing that alignment can foster a culture and help a coach endure through the losses.

“Well, it hasn’t hindered Mark Daigneault,” Carlisle noted. “We all have very distinct roles. Our responsibility is to manage our circumstances, and each team’s situation is highly variable from year to year. … Daigneault is a prime example. He was a G League coach, but he cultivated a relationship within that organization and formed a partnership. If you establish those connections and become a true partner, the wins and losses aspect won’t be as significant.”

play1:40Windhorst: Jazz tanking more ‘egregious,’ but still within the rules

Brian Windhorst comments on allegations that the Utah Jazz have been “tanking” late in games and states they are not the only franchise engaging in such practices.

THE SACRAMENTO KINGS have encountered a challenging season.

They did not enter October with the intention of bottoming out, but injuries and underperformance caused them to spiral downward. Three of their highest-paid players, Domantas Sabonis, Zach LaVine, and De’Andre Hunter, underwent season-ending surgeries in February. They appeared destined for the league’s worst record.

However, they did not fully commit to tanking. The Kings—under new general manager Scott Perry, who emphasized the importance of establishing a winning culture—kept DeMar DeRozan and Russell Westbrook primarily active in high-minute, high-usage roles.

DeRozan, in particular, has had an impressive late-season surge in his 17th NBA season, achieving career scoring milestones while guiding the Kings to seven victories in their last 15 games—a positive stretch that should be acknowledged.

Nonetheless, there has been local dissatisfaction. The inconsequential 7-8 stretch has caused the Kings to drop from the top position in the lottery and a guaranteed top-five pick to the fifth-worst record, diminishing their chances at a top-four pick in a deep draft and creating a genuine risk of falling to seventh or eighth.

“Tanking is the last thing [I’d do],” Kings coach Doug Christie stated following a recent victory over the Jazz. “I have too much respect for the game. These young men, in my view, when you engage in such actions, it harms them. Because when you ask them to give it [their all] for you, you just jeopardized it.”

As one coach recently articulated, it cannot be “healthy” for a third of the fan bases across the country to be actively rooting against their teams for two months, embracing some of the more audacious strategies to influence losing.

“I believe 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.”

Integrity is a significant term from Silver. The NBA—and the sports world in general—has increasingly embraced gambling, and part of the league’s need to address tanking stems from the negative optics of manipulating outcomes when substantial public money is at