What is tanking in the NBA? Explaining controversial strategy for teams trying to land No. 1 pick in draft

What is tanking in the NBA? Explaining controversial strategy for teams trying to land No. 1 pick in draft originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Professional sports leagues are often designed in a way that includes a built-in competitive cycle. It doesn't benefit a league much to have franchises that are annual losers, unable to make the playoffs. So ideally, using the draft as a funnel for top young talent allows bad teams to become good ones over time; some big spenders or elite developing squads are the exception, but generally, teams will fade in and out of contention.

Among the major American sports leagues, that system is well-familiar to the average fan. When their favorite team isn't winning or contending for the playoffs, that fan is often hoping their team lands a good draft pick — but in the NBA, teams seeking draft picks has seemingly gotten out of control.

"Tanking" is no new concept. For years, NBA teams have drawn allegations of trying to land the best draft pick possible, and for good reason in a star-driven league. But the 2025-26 season has brought such a high a level of anti-competitiveness that NBA commissioner Adam Silver has said the league will soon be implementing more severe anti-tanking consequences.

What exactly is tanking? How is the NBA currently fighting it? Here's a full breakdown of why teams "tank" and how it's become a hot-button topic in the NBA.

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What is tanking in the NBA?

"Tanking," whether in the NBA or any other professional sports league, refers to a roster-building strategy where teams aren't blatantly throwing games or causing a conflict of interest, but also aren't sending out their best available talent to win as many games as possible. The strategy aims to manipulate the league's rules that benefit losing teams, often looking to secure the best pick possible in the following year's draft, which brings the chance to land a young star.

No team will come out publicly and blatantly say they are tanking — it's more of a hushed process that involves trading away good players for picks, reducing payroll, and allowing young players to get a lot of playing time. It's somewhat synonymous with the term "rebuilding," but tanking is more intentional about losing games.

While tanking can happen in other sports leagues, it's most commonly mentioned in the NBA. The idea of losing a lot of games over multiple seasons in order to land as many high-profile prospects as possible was partially revolutionized by Philadelphia 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie in the mid-2010s, when tanking began to earn more chatter across the NBA.

Hinkie's 76ers teams earned the catchphrase "Trust the Process" due to Philadelphia's roster-building approach of a long, multi-year rebuild that aimed to grab as many top lottery picks as possible, rather than spending on big-ticket free agents, the trade market, etc. That led to the 76ers drafting top prospects like Joel Embiid, Jahlil Okafor, Ben Simmons, Markelle Fultz, and more.

However, Hinkie also stepped down from the 76ers in 2016 because of negative public perception and criticism of his team allegedly losing games intentionally.

Those 76ers certainly weren't the first team to notice that losing games results in good draft position, though. The 1983–84 Rockets are well known for going 9-27 after starting out 20-26, giving minutes to their worse players while attempting to land the worst record in the league. That resulted in them taking franchise legend Hakeem Olajuwon in the 1984 draft — and Houston's manipulation of its record led to the NBA implementing its draft lottery rules.

Since then, plenty of teams across every sports league have been accused of tanking for good draft position based on their front-office moves.

One of the key distinctions about tanking is that the strategy does not ask the players on the court to intentionally lose or miss shots — there is no game-fixing or conflict of interest in play — instead, a team aiming to get a good draft pick simply doesn't provide its coach with top talent to work with, usually resulting in losses.

Teams, primarily in the NBA, have also attempted to manipulate injury rules by resting their star players when aiming to tank. In the 2025–26 NBA season, that has been a significant issue, with some of the worst teams in the standings not putting their best players on the court every night as they eye the next draft lottery.

MORE:Updated look at the 2026 NBA playoff picture

Is tanking illegal in the NBA?

Blatant tanking is not a criminal offense, but it also isn't allowed in the NBA — teams are expected to give themselves the best chances to win, which is why you'll never hear an executive, owner or coach say that their team is more focused on next year's draft than the games in front of them. In just about any fashion, it's not beneficial for the NBA to have teams that want to lose games.

This is where the distinction between tanking and rebuilding can be jaded. Teams will say they are just retooling their rosters by trading away or resting star players, but behind the scenes, they want to lose games for a good draft pick. "Rebuilding" teams are losing despite wanting to win; tanking teams make it less clear that they're interested in winning games.

There are current systems in place in the NBA to prevent tanking and incentivize winning, from the draft lottery to fines and player participation policies.

MORE:Updated 2026 NBA mock draft

Are there rules on tanking in the NBA?

In the NBA and other sports leagues, commissioners have responded to tanking efforts by implementing a draft lottery; instead of the team with t he worst record in the league automatically getting the No. 1 pick in the following year's draft, there is a draft lottery, where the teams with the worst records only get better chances of getting the top picks.

The NBA implemented its draft lottery for the first time in 1985, shortly after the Rockets' allegedly tanked and landed Olajuwon in the draft. Under the system, the worst teams (or the ones who hold the rights to that team's pick) have the top odds at the No. 1 pick or a high-lottery pick, but the better non-playoff teams also have a lower shot at the pick.

Here's how the NBA's draft lottery odds have changed over time:

• 1985-87: Random non-playoff team drawing of an envelope, first team drawn received No. 1 pick. Each non-playoff team had equal odds at the No. 1 pick.
• 1987-89: First three picks determined by the lottery, with the rest of the non-playoff teams being selected in reverse order of their win–loss record.
• 1990-93: Implementation of the weighted lottery system, with the team with the worst record getting best chance of landing the No. 1 pick at 16.67% odds, the second-worst team had 15.15% odds, and so on. The lottery system was only used to determine the first three picks.
• 1994-18: The weighted lottery system was tweaked, with the worst-record team being given a better 25% chance to get the No. 1 pick, while the best non-playoff team's chances at the pick were dropped to 0.5%. Fourteen numbered table tennis balls were used, and a four-number combination from the 14 balls were drawn to determine the lottery winner.
• 2019-present: The lottery system expanded to the top-4 picks, with the worst three teams all getting equal odds at the No. 1 pick. By flattening the odds, the NBA was aiming to disincentivize tanking efforts.

The lottery system isn't the only way the NBA has targeted franchises for tanking. The commissioner is also allowed to fine teams for "conduct detrimental to the league," which would include intentionally putting out teams that aren't competitive, if there is proof of them doing so.

Resting star players has often been the NBA's most tangible proof of a team tanking, and it has taken measures against teams that sit their top talent. For example, during the 2025-26 season, the Indiana Pacers and Utah Jazz were both fined — the Jazz were hit with a $500,000 bill for removed two of the team’s best players, Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson, Jr., before the fourth quarter of two games, while the Pacers received a $100,000 penalty for violating the Player Participation Policy by sitting All-Star Pascal Siakam, who was medically cleared toi play.

“Overt behavior like this that prioritizes draft position over winning undermines the foundation of NBA competition and we will respond accordingly to any further actions that compromise the integrity of our games,” commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement.  “Additionally, we are working with our Competition Committee and Board of Governors to implement further measures to root out this type of conduct.”

That "Player Participation Policy" was implemented in 2023, and per NBA.com, states that "unless a team demonstrates an approved reason for a star player not to participate in a game," then the team must:

• Manage its roster to ensure that no more than one star player is unavailable for the same game.
• Ensure that star players are available for all national television and NBA In-Season Tournament games.
• Maintain a balance between the number of one-game absences for a star player in home and road games.
• Refrain from any long-term “shutdowns” in which a star player stops playing games.
• If resting a healthy player, ensure that the player is present at the games and visible to fans.

Injuries, personal reasons and "pre-approved back-to-back restrictions based on a player’s age, career workload or serious injury history" were listed as valid reasons for a player to sit in a game.

Additionally, aiming to get top players to play more often to increase competition and anti-tanking efforts, the NBA added a 65-game rule for all major awards in 2023. In order to win MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, Rookie of the Year, Most Improved Player, or be named to an All-NBA or All-Defensive team, a player must play in at least 65 total games, with at least 63 of them including at least 20 minutes on the floor.

Ending "load management" with star players has been one part of the NBA's anti-tanking efforts in recent years.

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Does tanking work in the NBA?

The biggest problem that the NBA has faced in its anti-tanking efforts: for years, the strategy does usually work in some fashion.

Plenty of bad teams have been rewarded for their losing seasons with a generational prospect in the draft — and until it's proven that temporary losing won't result in young, cheap star players, quiet tanking efforts may continue.

Because basketball is such a star-driven sport, with one high-level player (i.e. LeBron James, Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, etc.) elevating a team's championship chances drastically, teams have found themselves willing to endure losing seasons to have the chance at a young star coming out of college or international play.

Not all of the below teams were obviously "tanking," but here are a few examples from the past few years of how a bad record led to a team getting a young star:

NBA anti-tanking rules

Right now, the NBA's anti-tanking methods only include the draft lottery and fines. But that will change soon, as Silver has said over the past year.

With star player participation struggling, anti-competitiveness at a new high and eight teams tracking to win under 30 games in 2025-26, the NBA released its first new anti-tanking proposals in March 2026.

Of the three proposals suggested to the Board of Governors, which haven't yet been voted upon, each would take aim at tweaking the draft lottery rules, whether changing the odds or even making them based on two-year record results.

MORE:Breaking down the NBA's three proposed anti-tanking rules