NBA commissioner Adam Silver has his hands full with several developments across the league, though the hottest topic is tanking.
The upcoming 2026 NBA Draft is littered with potential franchise players, so teams have been openly tanked this season in effort to improve their lottery odds. Along with discussing — and voting on — possible expansion, team governors also touched on change being needed in order to curb tanking.
“I would say virtually everything we covered at the board meeting was very positive. One topic not so positive, and that’s ongoing, tanking issues in the league. We had a lengthy conversation about the issue. I will say, as I’ve said this before, this is not a new issue in this league,” Silver said after the Board of Governors meeting in New York City on Wednesday.
“You can go back to the ‘60s, when coin tosses were used to determined who got the first pick. And to the ‘80s, when a draft lottery was created. That lottery has been modified four times since then. Obviously, it does not seem to be operating optimally where we are now.”
Adam Silver speaks to fans
As part of his press conference in which tanking was brought up, Silver took a firm stand and essentially made a promise to fans.
“We are going to fix it. Full stop. I want to say that directly to our fans,” he said. “And I recognize too it puts fans in many cases in an odd position, because it’s become lore that in many corners of the league that the worst place to be is a middle-of-the-road team.
“I don’t necessarily agree with that, but I think even teams that are trying hard to compete with the rosters that they have, in many cases are being told by their fans that they’re better off being bad or manipulating the system to be worse than they really are. That puts enormous pressure on our teams. As I said, incentives need to be fixed, and we will fix them. I’m looking forward to that.”
Silver previously revealed he and the NBA were discussing anti-tanking rules, so the latest declaration indicates there is internal belief the measures they’ve come up with will work.
NBA commissioner praises Luka Doncic
Luka Doncic has come on strong toward the end of the 2025-26 season, putting the Los Angeles Lakers in position to make noise in the playoffs. Before the regular season began, Silver praised Doncic for how he handled his trade from the Dallas Mavericks.
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