The NBA has made several changes in recent years to curb tanking. But several NBA teams have continued to build rosters designed to lose, leading to historic levels of futility in the early stages of the 2025–26 season.

There are four teams with two wins or fewer through the first 13 games of the season:

• Pacers (1–13)
• Wizards (1–12)
• Pelicans (2–12)
• Nets (2–11)

This is just the third time that’s happened in NBA history, per data from Sportradar. The two other instances occurred in the 1997–98 and 2004–05 seasons. In the 22 seasons from 2004–05 to this year, only one other time did multiple teams hold a record of 2–11 or worse through 13 games (2007–08). 

Before Brooklyn defeated Washington on Sunday, they shared an identical 1–11 record with Indiana. It was just the second time in NBA history that at least three teams started a season 1–11 or worse. 

Washington and Brooklyn were tanking candidates from the beginning of the season. The two teams are deploying the youngest teams in the NBA, normally a sign that a team is looking to develop young talent rather than shoot for a postseason spot. (Note: The Thunder won the 2024–25 NBA title with the league’s second-youngest roster.)

Neither team’s roster has a “star,” which, according to the league’s definition, is a player who has made the All-Star Game or All-NBA team in at least one of the last three seasons. Khris Middleton is the only player on either team who has ever made the All-Star Game, and the 34-year-old last made it in 2022.

The Wizards’ offseason moves suggested they were ready for another season in the NBA’s doldrums. Their notable move was to add CJ McCollum, a respected NBA veteran, though he’s expected to be traded to a competitive team before the February trade deadline, given he’s 34 and on an expiring contract.

Washington is on pace to finish with its third consecutive season with fewer than 20 wins, which would be the first time that’s happened since “The Process” Sixers from the 2013–14 to 2015–16 seasons. 

Brooklyn hasn’t experienced the same level of incompetence in recent years—and it blew out the Wizards by 23 points when the two met Sunday—but it isn’t necessarily in a better position due to a lack of building blocks.

The Nets surprised the league by selecting five first-round picks in the 2025 draft, but only one, Egor Dёmin, who many deemed was a reach at No. 8, has been in the team’s regular rotation all season. 

Indiana, which made the Finals last year, lost star guard Tyrese Haliburton for this season with an Achilles tendon tear. It wasn’t a tanking candidate to begin the season, but it has been hammered with multiple injuries to other key role players, which could easily turn the season into a gap year.

This would be a similar model to the 2019–20 Warriors, who won just 15 games while dealing with injuries to Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, then won the No. 2 pick in the 2020 NBA draft, which they used to select James Wiseman.

New Orleans is the outlier among the four teams, given that it doesn’t own its 2026 first-round pick after an infamous 2025 draft-night trade with the Hawks. The team fired head coach Willie Green on Saturday after just 12 games. 

Discouraging Strategic Losing

The NBA’s attempts to curb tanking include changing the draft lottery odds. In 2019, the league flattened the odds among all qualified teams and gave the three teams with the lowest odds an equal 14% chance of securing the No. 1 pick. The previous system awarded a 25% chance to the team with the worst record, and the three teams with the worst record had better than a 14% chance at the top selection.

The previous format used the lottery only to select the top three picks, while the remaining teams fell based on record. The new system selects four picks through the lottery, adding more opportunities for teams to jump the line, ostensibly disincentivizing tanking.

The NBA also added a play-in tournament, which meant teams that finished Nos. 9 and 10 in their conference could still qualify for the playoffs. The idea was to motivate teams on the cusp of the play-in tournament to continue competing late in the season rather than tanking for better odds.

The changes have somewhat worked. The Mavericks won the 2025 NBA lottery with a 1.8% chance. Late-season NBA games have had more stakes as teams battled to qualify for the top six—an automatic playoff berth—to avoid the play-in.

But certain organizations continue to believe tanking is the quickest way to the top, especially when they see the performance of teams like the Spurs, who have been selected in the top four in the last three drafts. The 2026 draft is also projected to be one of the best, led by three top prospects: Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa, and Cameron Boozer.

As the 2025 professional golf calendar winds down, multiple former LIV Golf members have found their way onto the PGA Tour and DP World Tour for the 2026 season, but plenty of challenges still remain around the fractured state of the men’s game. 

Laurie Canter, who made $4.41 million in individual prize money on LIV from 2022 to 2024, earned a 2026 PGA Tour card Sunday after finishing seventh in the DP World Tour’s season-ending standings. For the past three seasons, the circuit formerly known as the European Tour awarded dual PGA Tour membership to the top 10 players not otherwise exempt at the end of the year.

For golfers like Canter, who was never previously a PGA Tour member, there is a one-year ban from events sanctioned solely by the PGA Tour following the most recent LIV Golf tournament they played in. For Canter, 36, that was LIV’s Las Vegas event in 2024. After that, he focused on the DP World Tour, and this past March became the first former LIV golfer to compete in the Players Championship, which is the PGA Tour’s flagship event.

Back in Action

Henrik Stenson, who was stripped of his 2023 European Ryder Cup team captaincy after joining LIV in 2022, is rejoining the DP World Tour next year.

Stenson, 49, received a signing bonus from LIV reported to be worth between $40 million and $50 million, giving the tour notoriety as the 2016 Open Championship winner. He was co-captain of LIV’s Majesticks Golf Club for the past four seasons. But he was relegated from the league after finishing 49th in the final 2025 standings, one spot out of potential safety.

To rejoin the DP World Tour, Stenson paid more than $1 million in fines that he owed for competing in LIV events.

The Divide Continues

Potential reunions on the PGA Tour and DP World Tour for some of LIV Golf’s bigger stars remain more complicated, though.

Brooks Koepka and Bryson DeChambeau are entering the final year of their LIV contracts in 2026. But even if they wanted to rejoin the PGA Tour in 2027, the PGA Tour has not stated what penalty former members who left would face in order to return.

Meanwhile, European stars like Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton face fines from the DP World Tour similar to what Stenson had to pay. However, Rahm has said he does not plan to pay those fines after LIV stopped paying them for its players earlier this year. Without a resolution, the outstanding fines could eventually make Rahm ineligible for DP World Tour events and even impact his status for the 2027 Ryder Cup.

On June 1, 2021, eight months after Topgolf and Callaway agreed to merge, the combined company’s stock hit an all-time peak of $37.29 per share. It has since plunged 71%, closing at $10.58 last Thursday—the day before The Wall Street Journal reported private-equity firm Leonard Green & Partners was in talks to buy Topgolf. 

On Tuesday, that deal was announced. Leonard Green is taking control of Topgolf and Toptracer, the ball-tracking technology used in Topgolf venues, in a deal that values the business at $1.1 billion and unwinds the 2020 merger of Topgolf and Callaway.

Funds managed by Leonard Green will acquire a 60% stake in Topgolf. The PE firm—whose portfolio also includes Crunch Fitness and Authentic Brands Group, a holding company that owns Reebok and Champion—already held roughly 4.9% of Topgolf Callaway Brands. That entity will cease to exist; Callaway Golf Company will be the new name for Callaway, which will stand alone as a golf equipment and apparel manufacturer and remain publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

The transaction is expected to generate about $770 million in net proceeds for Callaway.

Topgolf will continue focusing on its entertainment venues that combine driving ranges with socialization, much like bowling alleys. As of the end of last year, Topgolf owned and operated 100 venues, with 96 of them in the U.S. and four in the U.K.

The $1.1 billion valuation reflects Topgolf’s struggles since the October 2020 merger, which valued Topgolf at about $2 billion. ​​Topgolf’s post-merger momentum was buoyed by the pandemic-era golf boom, but that surge has since faded, and in September 2024, Topgolf Callaway announced plans to separate into two independent companies. While a spin-off was considered the most likely path, other options were also being explored. Tuesday’s deal represents the culmination of that process.

Topgolf Callaway president and CEO Chip Brewer said in Tuesday’s press release that after undergoing a “thorough evaluation of a range of alternatives, we believe this sale is the best outcome for our shareholders, as well as our employees and other stakeholders.”

Brewer will continue to lead Callaway Golf Company once the deal closes—it’s expected to be completed in the first quarter of next year. Topgolf’s former CEO, Artie Starrs, resigned in July to join Harley-Davidson. A replacement for Starrs has not yet been appointed. 

Analysts are mixed on the transaction. Jefferies called it a “win,” saying it simplifies both businesses and delivers “meaningful benefits” to Callaway while preserving “upside” through its remaining 40% stake. “In our view, this transaction is a decisive step toward simplification and value creation,” Jefferies wrote. 

B. Riley Securities echoed the simplification point, billing the separation of Topgolf and Callaway as a “fundamental positive,” but highlighted the steep drop in implied enterprise value since 2020. (Topgolf was valued at roughly $2 billion in the 2020 merger, while its implied enterprise value in Tuesday’s deal is $1.1 billion.)

Analysts at Trust Securities raised questions, including why Callaway is retaining a 40% stake, what changes might be implemented at Topgolf under Leonard Green, and whether any capital will be returned to shareholders.