Adam Silver says that more changes may be necessary to league rules to prevent NBA teams from tanking. The commissioner spoke on Friday before the start of the NBA postseason and made it clear the league is serious about preventing teams from tanking by giving them less incentive to do so.
Though the league cracked down on teams resting healthy players this year, several teams at the bottom of the standings put forth less than impressive rosters in the dying days of the regular season. Silver made it clear that the league noticed, and is working through ways to make that less likely in the future.
Draft lottery reform is coming to give tanking teams less incentive to finish last. Still, according to ESPN, Silver admitted it’s a tricky problem to solve.
Silver said that tanking is an “incredibly difficult issue” to deal with properly.
“I recognize that the incentives are not aligned right now, that there’s a huge incentive to increase your chances in the draft lottery, especially under the old system,” Silver said.
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“There can only be so much cajoling out of the league office,” Silver said. “It’s one of those things that the last place I want to go as the commissioner of the league office is to start dictating minutes and which particular players should be playing at what points in the game.”
Earlier in the year, Silver had harsh words for anyone that could be found tanking. But outside of Mark Cuban’s fine for saying losing games was the team’s best option this year, little has happened outside of those initial threats.
Silver said the league will see how draft changes impact what teams do and reevaluate it in the future.
“We’ll see how much of an impact that has, but my sense is we’re still going to have some work to do.”
That means an even closer eye on tanking next season, despite the league’s desire to make it go away altogether.
