Adam Silver is not happy with the way teams at the bottom of the NBA are trying to tank. Currently, the race for the most ping pong balls in the 2018 NBA Draft Lottery is kind of amazing, as there are seven teams within two games of having the worst record in the league.
With Draft Lottery reforms kicking in next year and a number of talented prospects at the top of this year’s draft, it makes sense that there are a bunch of teams striving for a top-5 pick. Silver, meanwhile, is trying to do what he can to keep this from happening this year.
According to Sam Amick of USA TODAY Sports, Silver sent out a strongly-worded memo to all 30 teams in the wake of Mavericks owner Mark Cuban‘s comments about tanking. In it, Silver addressed how the league has tried to address tanking, acknowledging that “we have been careful to distinguish between efforts teams may make to rebuild their rosters, including through personnel changes over the course of several seasons, and circumstances in which players or coaches on the floor take steps to lose games.”
But in Silver’s eyes, teams that do the latter are doing something that puts the league in a position where it has to step in and do something. Should that happen, Silver explains, the NBA would bring the hammer down.
“The former can be a legitimate strategy to construct a successful team within the confines of league rules; the latter — which we have not found and hope never to see in the NBA — has no place in our game,” Silver wrote. “If we ever received evidence that players or coaches were attempting to lose or otherwise taking steps to cause any game to result otherwise than on its competitive merits, that conduct would be met with the swiftest and harshest response possible from the league office.”
Cuban was fined $600,000 for his comments, which it stands to reason is what Silver means by “the swiftest and harshest response possible” when it comes to tanking. Unless, of course, Silver believes there is a distinction between talking about tanking and actively tanking, one that would require a more harsh response from the NBA.
