Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver Believes Some Progress Has Been Made for Teams That Still Try To Tank

Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images

It is tough to win in the NBA and even the players on the NBA’s Mount Rushmore will tell you the same. Whether it’s MJ, Lebron, Kobe, Wilt, Hakeem, they all had to learn how to win at the highest of levels, before holding multiple titles. Every season in the NBA, we see teams that dominate the regular season, and sometimes the post-season, but we also see teams at the bottom of the standings who have no hope of making the playoffs this year, next year, or even in the foreseeable future.

Just take a look at the Washington Wizards and the Charlotte Hornets. It seems like they get decent draft picks almost every season and still have not found a way to win. After all if some teams are at the top, there need to be teams at the bottom too. That’s just natural.

If a franchise starts losing more than they win, they tend to tank for the remainder of the season. If you’re unfamiliar with “tanking,” it’s simply when a team starts losing intentionally to get better draft picks in the NBA draft. Tanking is not a new trend in the NBA, and has been around for decades. The best example for this is when teams wanted to acquire Victor Wembanyama. Wemby was drafted by the Spurs in 2023, but prior to the draft, almost every team in the NBA wanted Wemby to play for their team. So 2022-2023 season was all about tanking for some of the teams, in hopes of drafting Wemby.

Also Read: Stephen A. Smith Responds to LeBron’s ‘Taylor Swift Tour Run’ Taunt and Later Issues Apology for Spreading Misinformation

Adam Silver Says That the League Has Made “Progress” on Tanking

Adam Silver has been trying to make some changes regarding some teams trying to tank their way through the season and here is what he’s done so far;

Silver has made the lottery odds flatter which simply means that just because a team has the worst record in the league, they don’t automatically get an advantage to acquire the highest draft picks. We’ve seen this get implemented in the recent years but despite the efforts, some teams still try to hold out and tank their way through the season.

They’ve also added the Play-In Tournament to give the bottom half teams, of both the conferences, better chance of making the playoffs. While this has worked extremely well for the league, there are teams that are still unable to utilize the newly added benefits, and continue their losing ways.

While these changes have helped a bit, Silver admits that when the season is almost over, some teams still might want to lose if they know that there are really talented players coming in the next NBA draft. The chances of drafting a star player can tempt teams to tank, despite the new rules in place.

Silver: “We don’t have a new plan at the moment.” Says the competition committee is meeting tomorrow and will discuss it, but that there’s no answer as to what the league is going to, or could, do. https://t.co/LPsuprgBcr
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) March 27, 2025

Adam Silver’s Initiatives Haven’t Found Much Success Yet

Adam Silver is a great commissioner. He tries his best to address and rectify all of the problems that are within the NBA. However, just because he takes the initiative, doesn’t mean it always proves to be fruitful. This season, we saw a change in the All-Star format from the traditional East vs West single game format to a four-team mini tournament style. Three teams were made up of the 24 selected All-Stars drafted by TNT Analysts Chuck, Shaq, and Kenny, while the fourth team was the winner of the Risings Stars game. Each game was played to target score of 40 points.

The change was made to particularly boost the competitiveness of the All-Star game, which fans and analysts have complained about how the All-Star game has gotten too casual in the recent years. However, Commissioner Silver later called the new format a “miss,” and said the league would rethink the format for future years.

Adam Silver says the changes for the All-Star game "was a miss"

(h/t @ohnohedidnt24 )

pic.twitter.com/ofNtvUkwAt
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) March 27, 2025

The game overall was boring to watch and when the target score was just 40 points, that helped the game end quickly but for what exactly? It is the NBA players we’re talking about, who have the best basketball players in the world. Not all comes down on Silver, and part of the blame goes to the players too. Because if they showed a little more toughness and competitiveness, Adam Silver would not have to make all these changes.

Also Read: LeBron James Sparks Conspiracy Theories by Hinting at Rigging of 2003 NBA Draft Lottery

There is a lot of things wrong with the way NBA is currently functioning and if you want to point fingers, it’s the entire league. The teams, players, some coaches, referees, executives, and the league themselves, need to take action to improve the current state of the NBA. While most of the players want to blame the media for the way the NBA is covered, they need to hold themselves accountable too because they are the products and we just report what we see.

Adam Silver

NBA

Eric Divakaran

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nfl

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I cover the National Football League and things cannot get better than that. I always dreamed to play football or basketball professionally since I’m built like a Running Back. But now that I can’t, since I’m technically in the “Unc” age, I thought why not pick a career in sports industry? So here I am, doing what I love, and hoping that the Commanders win the Super Bowl. I give love to players when it’s due, but can be critical about their performances at the same time. Enough about me, now let my articles do all the talking.