On Monday night, the Utah Jazz suffered a setback in Miami.
They won.
You read that right. The Jazz won. They didn’t want to win. They tried everything they could not to win. After three quarters, Utah held a three-point lead. At the start of the fourth, three of Utah’s starters—Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Jusuf Nurkić—were on the bench. And never came off it.
Sound familiar? Two nights earlier the Jazz held a seven-point lead entering the fourth against Orlando. Four of Utah’s starters hit the metaphorical showers before the fourth. The Magic rallied to win by three.
On Monday, the Jazz had no such (bad) luck. Kyle Filipowski scored eight points in the final quarter. Brice Sensabaugh had eight of his own. Miami allowed Utah’s B team to shoot 52.4% in the final 12 minutes—and the Jazz to escape with a four-point win.
“It’s a great win for our group,” said Utah coach Will Hardy.
Not sure everyone in Utah would agree.
The NBA has a tanking problem. Nay, a tanking epidemic. For years tanking has been something of a nagging nuisance. A barnacle on the league’s backside. Every year a few teams will shut players down late in the season. Some will even outright boot games away. Occasionally the NBA will react: In 2023 the league fined Dallas $750,000 for intentionally losing a late-season game. Last year, the Jazz were dinged $100,000 for sitting Markkanen out.
Mostly, though, they just grin and bear it.
This season is different. Utah is the NBA’s most obvious tanker, but it is far from alone in the race, er, marathon to the bottom. Washington traded for two ex-All-Stars (Trae Young and Anthony Davis) with no real intention of playing them. Indiana acquired Ivica Zubac and promptly determined that an ankle injury he has played through requires extended rest. Dallas, which dumped Davis, hasn’t won in three weeks.
Need more? Fine. Milwaukee, if it can convince Giannis Antetokounmpo to take the rest of the season off, looks ready to mail it in. Brooklyn, too. Memphis has been offloading stars for draft picks. Sacramento … O.K., the Kings are just bad. But that’s nearly a third of the league with incentive to lose. And we haven’t hit the All-Star break.
The NBA has noticed, of course. League officials are fuming at how brazenly—and how early—teams are tanking. The NBA has done everything it can to incentivize winning. It created the play-in tournament. It flattened the lottery odds. There are more pathways to the postseason than ever before. And more teams than ever trying to avoid them.
This season has been a perfect storm. Utah and Washington have top-eight protected draft picks. Indiana keeps its pick if it falls anywhere but between five and nine. Brooklyn, Dallas and Memphis are desperate for stars. And if you believe the draftniks, this upcoming class is full of them.
These teams are following an old playbook. Oklahoma City had back-to-back sub-25-win seasons this decade. Before winning 44 games last season, Detroit didn’t win more than 23 in its last five. San Antonio has Victor Wembanyama and a fleet of athletic young guards. But it took six seasons of sub-.500 records to get them.
Losing works. And, really, the NBA doesn’t really have a problem with a little late-season standings manipulation. It’s baked in. But this isn’t late season. It’s barely midseason. Most teams have a third of the schedule left. And nearly a third of the league isn’t interested in playing it.
Said one team official, “This is uncharted territory.”
Race to the bottom
Western Conference
Team
Record
Streak
11. Grizzlies
20–32
Lost 10 of last 13
12. Mavericks
19–33
Lost last seven
13. Jazz
17–37
Lost 12 of last 15
14. Pelicans
15–40
Won nine of last 15
15. Kings
12–43
Lost last 13
Eastern Conference
Team
Record
Streak
11. Bulls
24–30
Lost eight of last nine
12. Bucks
21–30
Lost nine of last 13
13. Nets
15–37
Lost 15 of last 19
14. Wizards
14–38
Lost 13 of last 17
15. Pacers
13–40
Lost nine of last 13
Commissioner Adam Silver will be in Los Angeles in a few days for All-Star weekend, where this topic will come up. NBA owners deeply respect Silver. In his decade-plus as commissioner he has made the league piles of money. But do they fear him? David Stern, Silver’s predecessor, was quick to react. Silver is more diplomatic. He isn’t inclined to make decisions based on circumstantial evidence, people who know him say. Even if that evidence appears to be overwhelming.
This is a test for Silver. Tanking isn’t just any disease, it’s a cancer, one that can spread quickly. The NBA claims to care about the integrity of the games. How can it when so many teams are trying to lose them? Home court advantage in the playoffs could be decided by a couple of games. Will it come down to who has more games with the league’s bottom third remaining?
Silver can wield the financial hammer, but this may require something stronger. “Fines don’t matter,” a team executive tells Sports Illustrated. “It’s got to be about the pick.” One option floated by a few team officials: A stiff fine for would-be tankers, with a warning: Keep it up, and whatever lottery odds you enter the drawing room with, we are going to dock you a few combinations.
Current NBA draft lottery odds
via Tankathon
Team
Top Four
No. 1 Overall
1. Kings
52.1%
14%
2. Pacers
52.1%
14%
3. Wizards
52.1%
14%
4. Hawks (via Pelicans)
48.1%
12.5%
5. Nets
42.1%
10.5%
6. Jazz
37.2%
9%
7. Mavericks
32%
7.5%
8. Grizzlies
26.3%
6%
9. Bucks
20.3%
4.5%
10. Bulls
13.9%
3%
11. Hornets
9.4%
2%
12. Spurs (via Hawks)
7.1%
1.5%
13. Thunder (via Clippers)
4.8%
1%
14. Trail Blazers
2.4%
0.5%
Long term, there are bigger challenges. There will be a temptation to put another Band-Aid on the problem; to save the system with a minor change. It won’t work. Locking in lottery positions on March 1? Dumb. Limiting pick protections? Won’t help. Not allowing a team to draft in the top four two years in a row? Whatever. Treating the symptoms won’t cure the disease.
The lottery system needs to be nuked. Trashed. Spiked from the NBA’s hard drives and wiped out of its rule books. League officials and representatives from all 30 teams need to get in a room and create a new system. Patching the problem won’t solve it. Only addressing the root cause will.
Until then, the NBA will get … this. On Monday, a reporter asked Hardy how close he was to putting Markkanen or Jackson back in the game in the fourth quarter. “I wasn’t,” Hardy said. Don’t blame Hardy. These are organizational decisions, not coaching ones. And they will continue. On Wednesday, the Jazz will welcome the Kings to Utah.
Who ya got in that?
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