The Ringer: Tank Analysis.

https://www.theringer.com/2026/02/10/nba/nba-teams-tanking-2026-draft-lottery-odds

Here is hoping for pacers to hand over pick number 5.

I don't know if I've mentioned it on this site or not but I guess I'm one of the few people who isn't all bent out of shape about tanking. My thinking is that if the only thing that pro sports can market is winning then pro sports is a failed business being that roughly half or even more of it's teams lose more than they win depending on if the league is top heavy or bottom heavy in any given year

But if fans are perfectly fine with losing, knowing that there are rewards down the line, then the league has stumbled on to something. They can market winning to the good teams and the hope of a bright future to the losing teams with only the very few teams stuck in the middle as a marketing failure. If a fan decides that he is happier seeing 5 up and coming youngsters from his favorite team play OKC tough in OKC down to the end but only to come up short at the end as opposed to watching 5 older players passing through in hopes of latching on with a winner in the offseason, barely beat a crappy team at home, then I say that fan is smart and sees the big picture

BUT, I still feel there are ways to fix tanking. I have always said that the teams with the 4 worst records in the league should automatically be slotted 5 through 8 in the lottery so that if you want a shot at the top pick, you have to be better than the 4 worst teams

And I'll piggyback off the other ideas starting with no team can get a top 4 pick in back to back years. If you're in the top 4 in 2026 and get your number called for the #1 pick in 2027, you automatically get slotted at 5. Slightly different from my idea in the previous paragraph but you get the idea

And the idea of eliminating pick protection outside of the top 4 is a good one as well. Teams like Utah are losing left and right just so that they can avoid giving their pick to the Thunder this year. Get rid of non top 4 pick protection on top of one or both of the aforementioned and you have something

In the case of Utah ,they had a 17 point lead over Orlando with 1:49 left. They then benched their young guys for different young guys, and lost. I am not sure if tanking is worse than before. It's happened for a while. Remember the game where Mark Madsen kept shooting 3's? https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200604190MIN.html I do also think the NBA has tried. They created the play-in, to incentive winning. They reduced the odds for the worst teams. I too have thought worst records 5 - 8 should have the best odds. But, what about fans that would rather see 5 up and comers beat OKC? It's also a bit of a generalization to say that the older players would win more games. In Sacramento's case, their older players are sometimes worse than their younger players. I think the bigger issue I have, is that you don't get to see continuity. I don't know if some of Utah's young players are good together, because they don't play together. Not enough minutes together. Or even if they do one game, someone will get a DNP the next game. The clock is ticking on some of those guys because they'll be eligible for extensions soon. But I don't know how much money to give some of them, because I don't know if they are good. Also, it's about finding the strengths and weaknesses of a group. How do you know what they are, if they don't play regular minutes together? Only by playing a large sample size together, can you realize those things. And you can also start to figure out which players want to get better, vs. which players are satisfied with who they are. I don't have a problem with playing young guys, but I do have a problem when they are played....

Just to clarify the young players vs. older players thing, what I'm saying is that more often than not, the young players have a future with the team whereas the older players are usually just passing through if it's some team that's rebuilding. Yes, if the young players can BEAT OKC then I'm absolutely all for it but just saying that if they barely lost that hypothetical game, it's a bright spot for the team's future whereas regardless of what the old guys do, it most likely has no baring on the team's future being that the old guys are most likely gonna be traded or sign with another team in the off season

Oh, ok. Yeah, agree.

How about throwing FEW balls in the lottery for all the teams - including the playoff bound teams as well. This might be antithesis to what the nba tries to help so no team dominates but it got to weed out this problem.

But with the salary cap rules in place, this might work with few tweaks to help with this unethical tanking.

This has become a routine annual ritual among the bottom teams and impacts the legitimacy of the competitiveness of the NBA as a whole.

Allowing playoff teams into the mix would be going too far IMO. Keep in mind that the league wants competitive balance

But having equal odds for all teams in the lottery could work but the caveat would be what people have been talking about recently and that's that no team can be in the top 4 in back to back years. I like that

And I stick with assertion that the four worst teams in the league get slotted 5-8 automatically. That at least makes it so that teams have to win enough to stay out of the bottom 4 in order to have a shot at the top pick

So to summarize. Equal odds for all lottery teams but bottom 4 are automatically 5-8 and nobody can have a top 4 pick in back to back seasons

Take away combinations if caught tanking.

It would be pretty funny.

Oh, you started with 140 combinations? -12 for tanking in X game. Oh, did it again? -6 more.

They wouldn't even have to increase anyone else's odds.

Just make those lost combinations, ineligible.

For example, the way it currently works, the combination 11-12-13-14 is already an invalid combination in the real draft lottery.

Then, after each team wins one of the first 3 draft slots, all of their combinations become invalid.

That's why when you watch any of the actual drawing videos, you see a few redos because a team ends up "winning" a draft lottery slot multiple times. Which is not allowed, so when one of the teams that already won a slot's combination comes up, they have to do a redraw.

This would just add to that naturally increasing invalid combinations list.

In 2007, Portland won a draft lottery slot multiple times. Which they had to redraw, when that happened.

They already have a giant board with all 1001 total combinations in the actual ball drawing room. Which everyone stares at, as those balls are drawn, so people can figure out if they are on track for their team, as each ball is drawn.

I see where you're coming from but even then, some tanking team could beat the odds and get the number 1 pick. By slotting the four worst teams in the league at 5-8, you force teams to compete to get out of the bottom 4 or else you don't get a number one pick. You would literally have a ZERO % shot at the number 1 pick if you're one of the 4 worst teams in the league

Just stop rewarding losing. It's that simple.

It's just a fine line though. Some teams are trying to win but are just not good while other teams are sitting out players that are perfectly healthy. The ones that are sitting out players aka tanking, are the ones who need to be fined. The other teams are losing but are actually making an effort to win. I don't want to penalize them

My idea would be in conjunction with yours.

There's still teams that would try tanking from playoffs to 5 - 8.

Or play in to that range.

Remember a few years ago when Dallas went from 31 - 26, to 7 - 18 the rest of the way?

Or, I could see teams do the same thing, starting in mid December.

So keep having odds taken away, as a deterrent. Because some teams would tank from 16 to 8, if they start early enough.

I heard a funny suggestion today.

Randomize the lottery day. Don't announce it until the night before.

You don't know if it could be in November or March.

It would be funny to have all of the team reps book last minute flights.

You know how that would wind up. Teams would just tank until lottery day was announced

Lastly, I would also vote that the stronger conference should not get the #1 pick. My reasoning is that the WC is almost always better than the EC but the WC wound up with generational talents like AD, Zion, Wemby and Flagg. Although Wemby was legit because the EC was actually better the year that lottery was held

In summation: 4 worst teams get stacked 5-8

Can't have a top 4 pick in back to back years

Better conference can't have the top pick

Agree. But it was still a funny idea.

I had also omitted that they had the idea that during a NBC game (since NBC will televise the draft lottery), you suddenly hear an alarm that goes off.

Then they switch to the draft lottery.

Another idea I heard was that if you're caught tanking, then the team ends up having the same restrictions that 2nd apron teams do.

Here are some ideas that will actually be thrown around

First-round picks can be protected only top-4 or top-14+

•Lottery odds freeze at the trade deadline or a later date

•No longer allowing a team to pick top 4 in consecutive years and/or after consecutive bottom-3 finishes

•Teams can’t pick top-4 the year after making conference finals

•Lottery odds allocated based on two-year records

•Lottery extended to include all play-in teams

•Flatten odds for all lottery teams

I like top 4 or top 14 protection. That does away with Utah's tanking style

Lottery odds freezing at the trade deadline? I guess but it still gives teams 50 games to tank

I love the 3rd bullet point. Can't be in top 4 in back to back seasons. Immediately eliminates 4 teams from tanking in the following season who would otherwise tank. Same with consecutive bottom 3 finishes. If you get away with tanking for two seasons, you automatically don't get a top 4 pick in year two assuming you got in the top 4 the first year then you have zero shot at it in the 3rd year

Not sure about the 4th bullet. If you make the conference finals, why would you tank the next year. Is this a Pacer rule? They'd be competing if Hali was playing

Don't like this one. Let's just go one year at a time

No need for this either. If you make the playoffs, it doesn't matter if it's through the play in or not, you don't get to go to the lottery

I like flattening the odds if you did my original idea of slotting the 4 worst teams 5-8 but if not then I think the above suggestions are good enough to not have to do this as well

In the mid 2000s, I had a list of teams that made the conference finals one year, and missed the playoffs the next year.

Now I don't think those teams were tanking. They just couldn't sustain the success. So it does happen.

In a more recent example, we can look at Dallas. Made the conference finals in 2022. Started off 31 - 26 the next year, before finishing 8 -17. Now they didn't get a top 4 pick, but they could have.

Can you give some real world example of teams that have picks protected 5-14, and how those teams are doing in terms of winning, etc.?

Whether it's from this year, or a recent year.

Utah this year is the reason why this is coming up. They owe it to OKC. I think it's top 8 protected so they want to lose as much as possible to be in the bottom 5 or 6 just to give a little bit of flexibility in case they move down 2 or more spots

By making something top 4 protected, you are basically saying that I want to keep my pick if I have lottery luck and top 14 if I miss the playoffs altogether. It's the ones in the middle that get teams to do what Utah is doing

Even if it was top 4 protected, wouldn't they still do the same thing? Lose as much as possible, and hope they don't get pushed out of the top 4? They might, like if they have the 2nd worst record, they could still get 6th and have to give up the pick.

But having the pick is better than not having the pick.

This is true but this is put in place mostly for teams that don't expect to be in the lottery but are wary of the possibility of injuries and then having a horrible season. Think Warriors in 2019-2020. In the finals in 2019 then had the worst record in the league the following year thanks to injuries to Steph and Klay. Not so much an excuse to tank but insurance against injuries happening to a good team

Bump.

@Trueblood, you were asking why protect against teams that were in the conference finals the year before, then lottery the next year?

As I mentioned before, it happened to several teams in the 2000s. They might not have planned to be in the lottery after the conference finals, but it did happen.

Then you also mentioned the Golden State team from a few years ago.

Whether it's planned or not, I'd be ok with such a rule. Especially because if a team is only bad for a year because of a major injury, it would protect the league against them getting a top pick, and adding to their core.

What if the Clippers are in the lottery, and then give Oklahoma City a top pick? I wonder if the rule would say Clippers keep their pick and Oklahoma City lost their chance at a pick. It's not rolled over to another year.

Good point. I was actually thinking about that the other day. While they may not be tanking on purpose, the chances of another dynasty being built due to injuries then lottery luck are something that the league could do away with now so that we don't have to see it happen