It's not only that we live in a society where more and more people can't distinguish from real and fake (AI, conspiracies, blatant lies), it's that a large segment of the population Does Not Care if it's fake (WWE, reality TV, celebrity endorsements). Giannis is "all in" alrighty. On himself. And always was.
The world doesn’t need more tanking solution ideas from anonymous internet commentators, but why not a completely randomized lottery, 1-14? Ok, this does strongly incentivize ducking the playoffs, so we could just include teams that got eliminated in the first round. All 14 non-playoff teams + 8 teams eliminated in the first round are thrown into a completely randomized lottery, no weighted odds for anyone. This does strongly incentivize throwing the first round series, but I thinking tanking a playoff series is basically unthinkable. Even if you disagree, the idea is probably still directionally correct, just tweak it. (Of course I’m probably missing some massive obvious flaw)
I don't know that there's a massive flaw with this plan, and I'm increasingly sympathetic to the arguments that maybe the bad teams with bad ownership and bad management DON'T deserve better odds at yet another potential superstar to screw up.
But fans can't choose their owners, and as long as the NBA remains a financial rocketship, owners won't choose to sell just because their team stinks even worse. I worry that reducing the chances of bad teams to meaningfully improve could alienate certain unlucky fan bases even further.
Overall, I'm just not all that worried about tanking, to be honest. We will almost certainly see less of it in the next two years, even if nothing changes, and I think it's totally fine for a few bad teams to be tanking in a given year. If this year becomes the norm rather than the exception, and a half-dozen teams stay purposefully tanking for 3+ years, I'd certainly feel more urgency to make changes.
But there isn't a lot of evidence that tanking is actually hurting the league overall, besides the fact that it's distasteful and that the endless chatter about it has become numbing. Any potential changes have unintended consequences that will need to be thought through really, really hard.
You wondered why contenders didn't take significant swings for game changing players at the deadline. I guess I'd ask - how often do teams do this and how often does it actually work? My guess is that it's pretty rare for teams to make massive trade deadline acquisitions, and that usually those acquisition don't pan out that season. Might be worth doing some digging?
That is a very fair point! My lying memory makes it feel like there's usually SOMEONE making a move, but I should probably fact-check myself first. Let me get back to you on this in a bit
Howard Beck had a story on this earlier this year.
In some ways, the contenders not ponying up for stars who might be overpaid (AD - overpaid, JJJ - tbd), is the mirror of image of teams tanking for the stars who will be affordable and give them flexibility to build around. Even Giannis, who is considered “number three in the league with a bullet” in the words of Zach Lowe is going to need a 35% max on his extension and I don’t know how thrilled I would be as a team to pay that. I think in some ways this is a market correction from just paying your star whatever they are asking, even if the contract will be underwater in the out years (although I think De’Aaron Fox’s contract is proof that this still exists). It makes team building so hard because there is little flexibility with those massive contracts. That’s not to say that contenders couldn’t have made smaller moves around the margins, just that trading for some of the big stars that moved might have scared them off with their contracts or extensions.
@boredtrevor @yaakovmosheshmidman Yeah, I don't mean swings for superstars really, for the reasons you mention. But multiple teams have traditionally made moves for roughly starter-level players in the past. I did a little surface-level digging from the last few seasons, and it looks like this year WAS an outlier in terms of medium-sized moves or bigger from contending or pseudo-contending teams:
2025: Cavs go for De'Andre Hunter (who, let's not forget, played awesome for them until a playoff swoon and injury), Warriors added Jimmy Butler, and earlier, the Knicks and Wolves (two conference finalists!) swapped Julius Randle and KAT. TO say nothing of Lakers trading for Luka, Mark Williams (rescineded!), and Dorian Finney-Smith, who was a key part of their success.
2024: Mavs add PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford, Knicks add OG Anunoby, Pacers add Siakam, Suns added Royce O'Neale, Heat add Terry Rozier (which did NOT pan out, but was a medium-sized move I shamefully liked at the time)
2023: Suns get Kevin Durant, Mavericks get Kyrie Irving, Lakers add D'Angelo Russell
2022: 76ers get James Harden, Nets get Ben Simmons (hard to remember, but some people thought he'd be a better fit for them if healthy!), Kings get Sabonis (pushing "contender", but they were third in the West for a while after that!), Cavs get Caris LeVert, Clippers add Norm Powell
I regret to say you are not being stupid at all; the gambling and WWE-ification of the sport has indeed taken its toll on all us true believers that just want to enjoy ethical, non-GMO, unadulterated basketball.
My personal red line for when I would cut the NBA out of my life hinges on the outcome of the Aspiration scandal. From everything that's come out, it's near-certain Kawhi and Ballmer are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, so if the hammer isn't dropped with enough force, then the sport is dead to me because the commissioner/owners will have collectively decided their own rules don't matter anymore, and we're in WWE territory. I'm a little optimistic though, given how many owners & GMs have had to retool and sometimes weaken their rosters to just get under the second apron, I don't think they would stand for it.
My punishment wishlist is for Kawhi to be banned for the duration of his remaining contract, plus maybe another 25 game suspension give or take, have his contract remain on the books and count against the Clippers' cap sheet - with the Aspiration payments added on as additional cap penalty - and perhaps getting docked about 5 first round draft picks. I don't think this is too excessive - no punishment should be too harsh when it comes to threats to league integrity. But it's a wishlist, I'd accept just most of the above, even Kawhi being allowed to play if they lose at least 5 FRPs. Lowkey disgusted Scott Foster is still a ref but hey what can you do when there's probably blackmail involved?
But if the punishment is lighter even than the Minnesota Joe Smith situation (I think they were docked 5 FRPs and eventually reduced to 3) which was a comparatively milder attempt at breaking the rules, then I'm going to boycott the NBA and tell all my friends to do the same. Maybe I'd tune in for the playoffs by sailing the high seas and ensuring no dime is spent in the process since I'm currently paying for League Pass..
I heard Nate Duncan say that 3 FRPs is what he would consider the minimum acceptable punishment, too. I'm not super optimistic, but I worry there are plenty of people like you who would lose faith in the league if there isn't major exculpatory evidence or a severe punishment.
I can't see a world where it's five, but this is largely unprecedented territory (at least for this millennium), so we'll see! And I do feel terribly for Clippers fans, who had nothing to do with this and might see their team rendered importent for a half-decade or more.
But as you say, there are certain rules that simply can't be broken. This is one of them.
Bingo -- and this whole Aspiration scandal (and the Giannis/Kalshi thing) are just glaring examples to me of why Adam Silver is a weak commissioner. David Stern would've already banned Kawhi for life by now.
It's not only that we live in a society where more and more people can't distinguish from real and fake (AI, conspiracies, blatant lies), it's that a large segment of the population Does Not Care if it's fake (WWE, reality TV, celebrity endorsements). Giannis is "all in" alrighty. On himself. And always was.
The world doesn’t need more tanking solution ideas from anonymous internet commentators, but why not a completely randomized lottery, 1-14? Ok, this does strongly incentivize ducking the playoffs, so we could just include teams that got eliminated in the first round. All 14 non-playoff teams + 8 teams eliminated in the first round are thrown into a completely randomized lottery, no weighted odds for anyone. This does strongly incentivize throwing the first round series, but I thinking tanking a playoff series is basically unthinkable. Even if you disagree, the idea is probably still directionally correct, just tweak it. (Of course I’m probably missing some massive obvious flaw)
I don't know that there's a massive flaw with this plan, and I'm increasingly sympathetic to the arguments that maybe the bad teams with bad ownership and bad management DON'T deserve better odds at yet another potential superstar to screw up.
But fans can't choose their owners, and as long as the NBA remains a financial rocketship, owners won't choose to sell just because their team stinks even worse. I worry that reducing the chances of bad teams to meaningfully improve could alienate certain unlucky fan bases even further.
Overall, I'm just not all that worried about tanking, to be honest. We will almost certainly see less of it in the next two years, even if nothing changes, and I think it's totally fine for a few bad teams to be tanking in a given year. If this year becomes the norm rather than the exception, and a half-dozen teams stay purposefully tanking for 3+ years, I'd certainly feel more urgency to make changes.
But there isn't a lot of evidence that tanking is actually hurting the league overall, besides the fact that it's distasteful and that the endless chatter about it has become numbing. Any potential changes have unintended consequences that will need to be thought through really, really hard.
You wondered why contenders didn't take significant swings for game changing players at the deadline. I guess I'd ask - how often do teams do this and how often does it actually work? My guess is that it's pretty rare for teams to make massive trade deadline acquisitions, and that usually those acquisition don't pan out that season. Might be worth doing some digging?
That is a very fair point! My lying memory makes it feel like there's usually SOMEONE making a move, but I should probably fact-check myself first. Let me get back to you on this in a bit
https://www.theringer.com/2025/12/09/nba/giannis-antetokounmpo-nba-trade-rumors-all-in-history
Howard Beck had a story on this earlier this year.
In some ways, the contenders not ponying up for stars who might be overpaid (AD - overpaid, JJJ - tbd), is the mirror of image of teams tanking for the stars who will be affordable and give them flexibility to build around. Even Giannis, who is considered “number three in the league with a bullet” in the words of Zach Lowe is going to need a 35% max on his extension and I don’t know how thrilled I would be as a team to pay that. I think in some ways this is a market correction from just paying your star whatever they are asking, even if the contract will be underwater in the out years (although I think De’Aaron Fox’s contract is proof that this still exists). It makes team building so hard because there is little flexibility with those massive contracts. That’s not to say that contenders couldn’t have made smaller moves around the margins, just that trading for some of the big stars that moved might have scared them off with their contracts or extensions.
@boredtrevor @yaakovmosheshmidman Yeah, I don't mean swings for superstars really, for the reasons you mention. But multiple teams have traditionally made moves for roughly starter-level players in the past. I did a little surface-level digging from the last few seasons, and it looks like this year WAS an outlier in terms of medium-sized moves or bigger from contending or pseudo-contending teams:
2025: Cavs go for De'Andre Hunter (who, let's not forget, played awesome for them until a playoff swoon and injury), Warriors added Jimmy Butler, and earlier, the Knicks and Wolves (two conference finalists!) swapped Julius Randle and KAT. TO say nothing of Lakers trading for Luka, Mark Williams (rescineded!), and Dorian Finney-Smith, who was a key part of their success.
2024: Mavs add PJ Washington and Daniel Gafford, Knicks add OG Anunoby, Pacers add Siakam, Suns added Royce O'Neale, Heat add Terry Rozier (which did NOT pan out, but was a medium-sized move I shamefully liked at the time)
2023: Suns get Kevin Durant, Mavericks get Kyrie Irving, Lakers add D'Angelo Russell
2022: 76ers get James Harden, Nets get Ben Simmons (hard to remember, but some people thought he'd be a better fit for them if healthy!), Kings get Sabonis (pushing "contender", but they were third in the West for a while after that!), Cavs get Caris LeVert, Clippers add Norm Powell
Hello Mike!
I regret to say you are not being stupid at all; the gambling and WWE-ification of the sport has indeed taken its toll on all us true believers that just want to enjoy ethical, non-GMO, unadulterated basketball.
My personal red line for when I would cut the NBA out of my life hinges on the outcome of the Aspiration scandal. From everything that's come out, it's near-certain Kawhi and Ballmer are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, so if the hammer isn't dropped with enough force, then the sport is dead to me because the commissioner/owners will have collectively decided their own rules don't matter anymore, and we're in WWE territory. I'm a little optimistic though, given how many owners & GMs have had to retool and sometimes weaken their rosters to just get under the second apron, I don't think they would stand for it.
My punishment wishlist is for Kawhi to be banned for the duration of his remaining contract, plus maybe another 25 game suspension give or take, have his contract remain on the books and count against the Clippers' cap sheet - with the Aspiration payments added on as additional cap penalty - and perhaps getting docked about 5 first round draft picks. I don't think this is too excessive - no punishment should be too harsh when it comes to threats to league integrity. But it's a wishlist, I'd accept just most of the above, even Kawhi being allowed to play if they lose at least 5 FRPs. Lowkey disgusted Scott Foster is still a ref but hey what can you do when there's probably blackmail involved?
But if the punishment is lighter even than the Minnesota Joe Smith situation (I think they were docked 5 FRPs and eventually reduced to 3) which was a comparatively milder attempt at breaking the rules, then I'm going to boycott the NBA and tell all my friends to do the same. Maybe I'd tune in for the playoffs by sailing the high seas and ensuring no dime is spent in the process since I'm currently paying for League Pass..
I heard Nate Duncan say that 3 FRPs is what he would consider the minimum acceptable punishment, too. I'm not super optimistic, but I worry there are plenty of people like you who would lose faith in the league if there isn't major exculpatory evidence or a severe punishment.
I can't see a world where it's five, but this is largely unprecedented territory (at least for this millennium), so we'll see! And I do feel terribly for Clippers fans, who had nothing to do with this and might see their team rendered importent for a half-decade or more.
But as you say, there are certain rules that simply can't be broken. This is one of them.
Bingo -- and this whole Aspiration scandal (and the Giannis/Kalshi thing) are just glaring examples to me of why Adam Silver is a weak commissioner. David Stern would've already banned Kawhi for life by now.