Sources: NBA eyes new ways to combat tanking

The NBA has begun to gather input from its owners and general managers on new ways to combat tanking in the aftermath of the gambling scandal that rocked the league at the start of the season, sources told ESPN.

At a board of governors meeting Friday, the league presented several ideas around potential modifications to rules regarding draft pick protections, the draft lottery and other possible approaches, according to multiple sources.

The league rolled out new policies Friday to combat insider information and performance manipulation in the wake of federal indictments of Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and former player Damon Jones. But the league is also increasing its focus on tanking, due to its tie to the injury reporting rules and how those were exploited by gamblers seeking inside information, according to the government indictments.

In recent years, multiple teams have either shut down players early or sat players for games to try to improve their draft positioning, often tied to a protected pick. Sources said multiple ideas were proposed as a brainstorming measure to combat tanking, including:

• Limiting pick protections to either top four or 14 and higher, which would eliminate the problematic mid-lottery protections.

• No longer allowing a team to draft in the top four two years in a row.

• Locking lottery positions after March 1.

These ideas, which came from the league and its high-ranking officials, would theoretically dissuade non-playoff teams from sitting their starters for games throughout the season and provide reason to continue to try to win games, particularly down the stretch of a campaign.

As multiple sources described, the attempts to find solutions to tanking are not intended to deter rebuilding teams who use their players as normal but rather teams that deliberately manipulate their rosters down the stretch of a season to land a higher pick or a protection range.

The NBA last changed the lottery rules in 2019, giving the three worst teams in the regular season the same 14% odds to land the No. 1 pick and a 52.1% chance of landing in the top four. Since then, three teams have jumped from outside the top five best odds to land the top pick, including the Atlanta Hawks (10th) and Dallas Mavericks (11th) each of the past two seasons.

In addition to the ideas for combating tanking, the league office presented to the board of governors several examples of protected picks potentially impacting the finish of recent seasons.

One of the most blatant incidents occurred in April 2023, when the Mavericks were still mathematically alive for a play-in spot but owed a top-10-protected 2023 first-round pick to the New York Knicks. Dallas elected to rest Kyrie Irving and Luka Doncic against the San Antonio Spurs in its last game. In the previous game against the Chicago Bulls, Irving did not play and Doncic played 12 minutes. The Mavericks lost both games.

The Mavericks ultimately were fined $750,000 for conduct detrimental to the league, but they kept their pick and eventually traded down two spots with the Oklahoma City Thunder to select Dereck Lively II at No. 12.

Last season, the Philadelphia 76ers, who entered the year with title aspirations, were able to preserve the top-six-protected pick they owed the Thunder. They lost 29 of their last 37 games, finishing with the fifth-worst record entering the lottery. They moved up two slots in May and selected guard VJ Edgecombe at No. 3. That pick is now top-four protected in the 2026 draft; it’s currently slotted 21st, as Philadelphia is 16-11 and Edgecombe is averaging 16 points per game.

The Utah Jazz were fined $100,000 last March for holding star big man Lauri Markkanen out of multiple games, part of a stretch in which the Jazz lost 21 of their final 23 games to end last season. At an introductory news conference in June, Utah’s new president of basketball operations, Austin Ainge, said, “You won’t see that this year” when asked about tanking via manipulating minutes and player performance.

However, the Jazz owe a top-eight-protected pick to the Thunder as a result of the salary dump of Derrick Favors in 2021 — and personnel across the league are paying attention to how they handle the rest of this season. The pick had top-10 protection each of the past two seasons, and Utah kept the pick both times. The Jazz currently have the eighth-worst record in the league. If they were to stay there, they’d be at risk of losing the pick if a team jumped them in the lottery.

In the sports betting indictment of Rozier and Jones, the government cited an unnamed co-conspirator, matching the description of Billups, who allegedly told a bettor that a number of Trail Blazers players would miss a March 2023 game as the team began to tank. The Blazers were 32-40 at that point, but they lost nine of their final 10 games of the season to finish with the fifth-worst record in the league.

The NBA saw immediate results Monday from its new injury reporting policies that require teams to submit listings on game day between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time and then update public injury reports on NBA.com every 15 minutes, rather than hourly.

The Jazz upgraded Markkanen from questionable to available midday before playing the Denver Nuggets on Monday night; the Mavericks upgraded Klay Thompson from questionable to probable against the New Orleans Pelicans; and the Charlotte Hornets upgraded LaMelo Ball from probable to available in Cleveland while also downgrading two other players to out.

In the Mavs’ previous game against the 76ers on Saturday, before the injury reporting changes, they upgraded Thompson from questionable to probable to available at 5:15 p.m. and 5:31 p.m. on game day.

ESPN’s Bobby Marks and David Purdum contributed to this report.