With the NBA Playoffs underway, Commissioner Adam Silver recently acknowledged that the league has reportedly developed a solution to combat the NBA’s growing tanking problem.

The interesting part? The details remain under wraps.

According to reports, the league appears to be intentionally waiting until after the postseason to reveal exactly what those changes might look like — likely to avoid dragging conversations about losing basketball and lottery odds into the middle of the NBA’s biggest games.

But as we wait to see what Adam Silver and the league office ultimately decide, I wanted to revisit an idea I proposed months ago over on the Empire Sports Talk YouTube Channel after teams like the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers were fined for what the NBA deemed overt tanking.

And honestly? I still think the NBA may need to get aggressive if it truly wants to stop the problem.

The NBA’s Tanking Problem Has Become Impossible To Ignore

This past season, the league fined the Utah Jazz and the Indiana Pacers for actions the NBA believed compromised the integrity of competition.

The Jazz situation especially drew attention after Utah rested healthy players late in games they were actively winning — only to lose those games and improve lottery positioning.

And here’s the reality: fines don’t work. Owners write checks. General managers move on. Teams still get the lottery odds they wanted in the first place. The punishment doesn’t outweigh the reward.

That’s where my proposal came from.

My Proposed Solution: If You Tank, You Lose The Pick

Back in February, on our YouTube channel, I proposed what I admitted at the time was a controversial idea: If a team is found guilty of tanking for draft position, they LOSE the first-round pick they were trying to lose for.

COMPLETELY. No lottery odds, no top-5 selection, no “trust the process.” Nothing.

The entire point of tanking is to improve draft position, so if the NBA truly wants to stop teams from intentionally losing games, the punishment has to directly attack the incentive structure itself.

Otherwise? Nothing changes.

How It Would Work

In my proposal:

• the NBA would first issue a warning
• the league office would monitor the team closely
• if tanking behavior continued, the first-round pick would be forfeited

That’s where the concept gets really interesting.

Instead of simply erasing the pick entirely, the forfeited selection would go into a secondary lottery system involving the rest of the NBA. Meaning the other 29 teams would have a chance to receive the forfeited pick.

Yes — that means a contender could potentially benefit. Honestly, that’s kind of the point.

Why The Punishment Needs To Hurt

One of the biggest issues in the NBA right now is that tanking often feels strategically correct. Teams openly embrace losing seasons because elite draft talent changes franchises, the lottery rewards poor records and fans are told to “wait for the future”.

But the NBA is still an entertainment product.

Fans pay premium ticket prices, pay for streaming subscriptions, pay for overpriced parking and concessions and expect to watch competitive basketball, not G-League lineups in March.

Not healthy stars sitting fourth quarters or their beloved teams actively trying to lose.

If the punishment for tanking doesn’t actually hurt, teams will continue to do it.

Would My System Be Perfect? Absolutely Not.

There are obvious criticisms. The biggest one is undoubtedly: ‘what happens if a powerhouse team lands the forfeited pick?’

Imagine a contender like Oklahoma City or Boston suddenly receiving a top-5 pick because another organization got caught tanking. That could widen the gap between contenders and rebuilding teams even further.

And yes — that’s a legitimate concern. But my counterargument is simply that the team that tanked created the problem in the first place. If you intentionally compromise the integrity of the league to chase draft positioning, there should be real consequences attached to that decision.

The Hardest Part: Proving Tanking

Of course, the biggest challenge is defining tanking itself. What’s the difference between tanking, injury prevention, or simply being bad?

That’s why I suggested things like league investigations, warning notices, review committees and even an appeals process

Because yes — it’s complicated.

But I also think it’s becoming increasingly obvious when teams cross the line.

Especially now that the NBA has reduced back-to-backs, player rest policies are under more scrutiny, and healthy players are still mysteriously sitting late-season games

The league clearly knows it has a problem.

Adam Silver’s “Or Else” Moment

When Adam Silver addressed tanking publicly this season, his statement essentially boiled down to:

“Knock it off…or else.”

Now we wait to see what “or else” actually means. Maybe the NBA has developed something cleaner than my proposal. Maybe it’s less aggressive. Maybe it’s more realistic politically.

But personally? I still believe the only way to stop tanking is to directly attack the reward structure that makes it appealing in the first place.

Because until losing stops being beneficial…teams will keep trying to lose.

You can view my full tanking solution HERE: