NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and the league office are in the process of developing new anti-tanking rules for the 2026-27 season. In addition to contacting all 30 general managers in the league about the issue after the All-Star break in February, Silver talked about the idea of tanking throughout the league and what he plans to do about it on Friday.
"We're going to make substantial changes for next year," Silver said at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston on Friday morning, per Mike Vorkunov and Jared Weiss of The Athletic. "On the one hand, you could completely separate the draft from teams' records... That would be a huge shock to the system. We can't completely predict where we're going to go, but I'm an incrementalist."
In conversations with the Board of Governors, Competition Committee and league general managers, Silver and the NBA have begun discussing several concepts to end tanking.
Some of the changes discussed in talks include modifying the way pick protection works, freezing lottery odds on a specific date in the season, eliminating the possibility of teams receiving the top four picks in consecutive years, allocating lottery odds based on a two-year window, leveling the odds for all teams, etc.
This new concept, proposed and discussed by Silver in Boston on Friday, would certainly be a "substantial change," as first-round draft picks would no longer be determined by where all 30 teams finish in the final standings. Essentially, this will make tanking irrelevant as trying to lose games to get a better draft pick will no longer be relevant.
At this time, it's unclear what exactly the league's anti-tanking rules will change. Silver was simply giving a glimpse of what some of the topics being discussed are and what scrimmages may be on the horizon ahead of the 2026-27 season.
Adam Silver, the NBA is already punishing tanking
While the league continues to evaluate the tanking scenario and changes that need to be made, Silver acknowledged there is a difference between organizations that are rebuilding and those that have already lost a season.
The NBA does not want to punish teams for playing their young players late in the season, but rather wants to prevent teams from signing out too many players with the intention of losing.
The Indiana Pacers and Utah Jazz both received heavy fines for the same reason.
While the Pacers were fined $100,000 for violating the player participation policy by excluding players deemed healthy by an independent physician, the Jazz were fined $500,000 for "conduct detrimental to the league."
Utah removed star talents such as Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. from their games against the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat on February 7 and February 9, respectively, before the fourth quarter, and neither player returned for the final 12 minutes of the game.
Upon review, the NBA stated that both players were able to continue playing, but the Jazz decided not to reinstate them, leading the league to believe that the Jazz were intentionally trying to lose. Ultimately, the Jazz lost to the Magic 120–117 after blowing a seven-point lead in the fourth quarter, but Utah actually defeated the Heat 115–111 without Markkanen and Jackson playing in the fourth.
On Friday, Silver acknowledged that he's more concerned about the moral changes in tanking this year due to what he called the "perfect storm" of a promising draft this June, which will be followed by less-talented draftees over the next few years, according to Weiss.
"There's been a stigma around certain behaviors, and I think that's a broader societal issue. I think in other aspects of society, the guardrails have come down a little bit."
During his annual All-Star Weekend press conference, Silver said that tanking during the 2025–26 NBA season is "worse" than ever in recent memory and that the league will consider "every possible measure" to fix the problems that exist within the current draft and lottery system.
As a result, Silver and the NBA will spend much of the next few months implementing the new changes before the 2026-27 season officially begins in July.
