The NBA draft anti-tanking plan no one is talking about

The 2026 NBA draft is two months away. BYU star AJ Dybantsa is the likely No. 1 pick. Now that the NBA regular season has ended, we can see which teams ended up at the bottom of the standings, all while Adam Silver and the league wrestle with how to create a better, stronger anti-tanking plan. This is a discussion which is both familiar and frustrating. Let's try to make sense of it, keeping in mind the always-changing realities of college basketball and how the college game shapes each year's draft.

Not all NBA draft situations are equal

NBA analysts say this, and they're right: Not all drafts are equal. Some give Tim Duncan, AJ Dybantsa, Zion Williamson, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, or Derrick Rose as a No. 1 pick. Other drafts produce Michael Olowokandi, Kwame Brown, Andrea Bargnani, Anthony Bennett, or Markelle Fultz as a top pick. The incentives for tanking aren't the same each year. An anti-tanking plan has to make sense in a larger context beyond one year's NBA draft dynamics.

Washington Wizards

The Washington Wizards went 17-65, the worst record in the NBA this season. Should they have the best odds for the No. 1 pick (Dybantsa), in a year when the top of the draft board is viewed as being relatively strong? That's a very important question. Should a team be incentivized to lose more -- 65 times compared to 55 or 50 times -- in pursuit of a top pick?

Don't reward losing too much

Obviously the non-playoff teams should get first dibs on the next year's best college players, but it shouldn't be a race to the bottom -- first to 65 losses wins. That's where the NBA has to think of something creative which improves the league product or, at the very least, is fan-friendly.

Reward fans of losing teams, not the teams themselves

If owners pinch pennies or do things to not make their team fully competitive, that's not a fan-friendly approach. Anti-tanking plans should not view wins and losses as irrelevant, but not as the be-all and end-all.

An anti-tanking plan -- inspired by Charles Barkley's point that sub-.500 teams should not be allowed to raise ticket prices for the following season -- would be to reward teams with lower average ticket prices with a higher draft pick. A non-playoff team with 30 wins gets preference over a team with 20 wins if the 30-win team has a lower average ticket price. Wouldn't that be an incentive for owners to adjust?

Playing players

NBA teams can have 15 players on a roster. The NBA should be even better at limiting the number of back-to-backs teams play, but that point aside, the point of rostering 15 players -- or any number of players -- should be to have all players play and make meaningful contributions to the team. NBA teams which play more players at least 10 minutes a game -- more than just a two-minute garbage-time cameo appearance -- could receive first-in-line NBA draft priority over other teams, even if they win more games.

Change of mindset

The natural inclination has been to let NBA teams with more losses pick first. The change in mindset should be to reward teams which do fan-friendly and player-friendly things during the season. The two ideas above are examples. Other similar ideas could flow from those and govern a new anti-tanking plan.

AJ Dybantsa

AJ Dybantsa of BYU has consistently been viewed as the best player in the 2026 NBA draft. The buzz surrounding him isn't new or recent; it has been there all along. When a draft has a possible top pick who has regularly stood at the forefront of the conversation, the incentive to tank becomes greater. The NBA has to get away from creating situations where teams lose in pursuit of a prospect such as Dybantsa.

International imports in college basketball

We have seen international players become top picks several times this century. We are also seeing college teams such as Arizona and Illinois lean into international recruiting and have success with it. Both Arizona and Illinois made the Final Four this year. If teams really love a specific international star, they should be rewarded with a chance to draft him not because they lost more games, but because they exhibited good internal governance and operational behavior.

Good business practice

This is the solution to the idea that tanking incentives aren't the same every year, due to some drafts having very weak No. 1 picks and other drafts having future Hall of Famers as the top pick. An anti-tanking plan which works every year can't bend to the particularities of each draft class. The focus in the NBA should move to which organizations exhibit the best business practices and treatment of both fans and players. That's where the incentive structure should move to; it isn't there now.

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This article originally appeared on College Sports Wire: NBA draft anti-tanking plan must work for AJ Dybantsa and others