Adam Silver Says NBA Tanking Is Worse Than It’s Been in Years

LOS ANGELES — Adam Silver is not sugarcoating the state of tanking in the NBA. 

Addressing the media ahead of the All-Star Game, Silver said the extreme measures teams are taking to secure a top pick in June’s draft are bad for the game. 

“Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we’ve seen in recent memory?” Silver said. “Yes, is my view.” 

Silver’s comments come two days after he fined the Jazz $500,000 for sitting Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the fourth quarter against the Magic in a game in which they led at the end of the third quarter. The Jazz have a top-eight protected pick in June’s draft that would go to the Thunder if it falls to ninth or lower.

Silver also fined the Pacers $100,000 for sitting Pascal Siakam after an independent physician determined he could have played in a Feb. 3 game against the Jazz in which the team ruled him out due to injury. 

In the announcement of the fines, Silver condemned the teams’ behavior and said the league is looking to “implement further measures to root out this type of conduct.”

The Jazz have been rebuilding since 2022 when the team traded away Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert, while the Pacers are struggling one year after making the NBA Finals due to star point guard Tyrese Haliburton tearing his Achilles in Game 7 of the Finals against the Thunder. 

Less than an hour before Silver spoke, Warriors guard Stephen Curry downplayed tanking as an issue across the NBA. Asked if he has a solution for tanking, Curry asked a reporter how many teams actually fit the definition. When being told “roughly a third of the league,” Curry pushed back. 

“Even the teams in the Play-In?” Curry said. “Is it really that big of a problem? I’m asking. We feel like there’s obviously a lot of competition. It’s something I’m sure every year the NBA wants to address, why the Play-in Tournament exists.”

Executives in the NBA aren’t surprised by teams’ current attempts to climb to the top of the draft. June’s draft is considered extremely deep, headlined by Duke’s Cam Boozer, BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, and Kansas’s Darryn Peterson. 

“This is the year to have a lottery pick,” an Eastern Conference executive told Front Office Sports in December. “The whole lottery is stacked.”  

Silver is aware. 

“The perception is you have a very deep draft class this year, a perception—who knows whether this will be the reality—that the next two years’ draft classes aren’t as good,” Silver said Saturday. “There’s no doubt that’s affecting the behavior of our teams. But at the end of the day I think all the teams need to step back, the ownership of those teams and just as a reminder that we’re all in the together … and to keep an eye on the fans.”

The NBA has altered the draft lottery over the years, flattening the odds of the bottom three in 2019 from a 25% chance at the No. 1 pick to 14% in an attempt to curb tanking. In December, ESPN reported that the league is looking into new ways to further prevent it, including teams not being allowed to have a top-four pick in consecutive years, locking lottery positions after March 1, and altering pick protections to top-four and 14 and higher. 

When asked about the methods the NBA is currently exploring, Silver said, “There is talk about every possible remedy now to stop this behavior. We got to look at some fresh thinking here. What we’re doing, what we’re seeing right now is not working. There’s no question about it.”