The NBA Reportedly Passed New Rules To Prevent Tanking And Players Resting

NBA commissioner Adam Silver has had two major complaints about the league (tanking and player rest) over the past few years and on Thursday the league took major steps towards what they believe are fixes for the problems.

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA’s Board of Governors approved new draft lottery reform measures to take effect in 2019 that lessen the odds for the worst teams to 14 percent for the three worst teams in the league, while also lessening the gap between teams as you go from the spots 1 through 14 in the lottery order. The Board of Governors also passed new rules to prevent players resting, something that has bugged fans and television broadcast partners as it has been popularized in recent years.

With regards to the lottery reform rules, we’ve known the basic structure of the plan for nearly a month now after the competition committee drafted the plan to send to the Board of Governors for approval. The top teams see their odds shrink significantly (the worst team used to get 25 percent odds at the top pick) and it also made it possible for the league’s worst team to drop as far as No. 5 overall.

As for what the new odds look like, Woj tweeted out a handy chart with all the new odds for the top pick, top-3, and top-5.

The player resting rules were also rumored last month and the details from Wojnarowski raise questions about how successful they will be. Unsurprisingly, the resting rules target those that sit during national TV games — something the TV partners that are paying billions to the league have been very unhappy with — as well as ensuring star players play in road games.

In the new resting legislation, Silver will have the discretionary ability to fine teams for resting players in several instances, including sitting multiple players outside of unusual circumstances in a single game, and healthy players in nationally televised ESPN, ABC and TNT games.

When teams decide to rest players in games, they’ll be encouraged to do so for home instead of away games. Star players sitting out are expected to be on the bench during games and encouraged to be accessible to fans for interaction before the game.

Both reasons can qualify as fan service, but really it protects the money. Most teams hike up ticket prices for premier games and offer premier game ticket packages for games in which a big team or big stars are coming to town. When that happens and the player marketed sits out, fans get upset. On national TV games, the broadcasters don’t appreciate when top players rest because it causes lower ratings as people tune out.

However, having it at the commissioner’s discretion certainly lends itself to teams crying foul when they get fined when another team doesn’t, and it also seems like an easy work around for teams to claim a star has a sore muscle or some other minor ailment that holds them out of a game.