NBA Pledges to End Tanking

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver insisted Wednesday that the league will change its draft process to address its tanking problem before next season. The NBA's board of governors discussed tanking—teams trying not to win in order to have better odds of landing the best possible draft pick—at its two-day meeting in New York that ended Wednesday. No votes were taken, and no fingers were pointed at any specific teams, Silver said. "We are going to fix it," he said, per the AP. "Full stop." But he said it's complicated. And he said there's no agreement on an answer yet.

"There is an aspect of team building that is called a genuine rebuild, you know—rebuild with integrity," Silver said, per the Athletic. "The problem we're having these days is it's become almost impossible to distinguish between a tank and a rebuild." He said the league has been working on the most recent tanking issues for months, noting that the NBA has addressed the problem countless times over the years and made several changes to the draft and lottery process. The league fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 and Indiana Pacers $100,000 last month for what it called "overt behavior … that prioritizes draft position over winning." The next step, Silver said, will likely be a special board meeting in May to make decisions.