Il commissioner NBA Adam Silver would have informed the 30 teams that starting next season, the league will introduce some so-called “anti-tanking” rules to discourage the worst teams from throwing in the oars early in the regular season and playing – in effect – losing as many games as possible to increase their chances of the highest pick in the next draft.
Rules that would at least be as intended useless for the purposes of the possibility of higher choice, lose as much as possible. The NBA’s intention is to link the percentages of highest draft picks to the record over multiple seasons, to limit by regulation the possibility of a team choosing in the draft in “too” high positions for several consecutive years, and to broaden the pool of participants in the draft lottery. The NBA competition committee will propose reforms to the board of governors, i.e. the teams, which, as reported by ESPN, would include:
- Il “freezing” of the ranking for teams that do not participate in the playoffs, for the purposes of the draft lottery, at the trade deadline or at a specific point in the regular season, before the end of the same
- A team will no longer be able to end up with one Top 4 draft pick two years in a row. A team that played in the conference final the year before the current year will be barred from having a top-4 pick
- The percentage chance of a draft pick in the lottery will be linked to record over two consecutive seasons. The same ones percentages they will be even more “compressed” and level among all the teams participating in the draft lottery
- At the lottery all the teams that qualified for the competition will participate play-in
- Teams will be allowed to dictate protections for their future choices at the draft, in case of trade, only between the first and fourth choice or after the 14th choice
Measures which, if confirmed, will radically change the scenario for the losingest teams in the NBA in the medium term, who will have to “do their best” to cope with the lower chances of luck at the draft in several consecutive years. And which risks separating the so-called “small” teams and markets even more clearly from the teams in large cities and markets. But the main will of the NBA in this period is that of break the tanking phenomenon e punish teams that indulge in this practice too long to increase their chances of the highest draft pick. The desired effect is to reduce matches with many players rested to the minimum possible, also taking advantage of the possible fines and sanctions already foreseen by the league’s participation policy in force for two years. Silver himself spoke last weekend at the All-Star Game in Los Angeles about tanking as a problem and an issue that can no longer be postponed, with “the very integrity of the NBA at stake”.
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