Phx-Suns.Net

You’re right that there is some incentive to lose..but not the game to game losing we saw this year.

Teams that have capped out and want to rebuild will still trade away their veteran talent to get worse and fall into the 4-10 sweet spot range. But there’s no incentive for the 8th worst team to lose games or the 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.

On the contrary, they are incentivized to win to keep the bottom 3 teams from catching them.

There are slight incentives for the 11-14 teams to lose, but they also have negative impacts for losing(namely losing their chance at the playoffs).

I don’t think we will see playoff teams lose on purpose, but that is the one tricky spot that I think they could tinker with.

So yes, the math is still there and they didn’t 100% kill the incentive to tank, but they 90% killed it. I don’t think their goal was to completely kill it. They are fine if every now and then a team tanks(and does it a more natural way) than we saw this last season.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m all for killing it completely. I want The Wheel.

Split T wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 30, 2026 3:20 pm

You’re right that there is some incentive to lose..but not the game to game losing we saw this year.

Teams that have capped out and want to rebuild will still trade away their veteran talent to get worse and fall into the 4-10 sweet spot range. But there’s no incentive for the 8th worst team to lose games or the 4th, 5th, 6th, etc.

On the contrary, they are incentivized to win to keep the bottom 3 teams from catching them.

There are slight incentives for the 11-14 teams to lose, but they also have negative impacts for losing(namely losing their chance at the playoffs).

I don’t think we will see playoff teams lose on purpose, but that is the one tricky spot that I think they could tinker with.

So yes, the math is still there and they didn’t 100% kill the incentive to tank, but they 90% killed it. I don’t think their goal was to completely kill it. They are fine if every now and then a team tanks(and does it a more natural way) than we saw this last season.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m all for killing it completely. I want The Wheel.

Hosting a couple first rounds playoff games is serious money, so that’s another incentive to keep competing once you get in the play-in

It’s also important to note that once you get your lotto balls, you don’t lose them by winning. The only play in team that doesn’t get any lotto balls is the team that wins the 7/8 matchup and secures the 7 seed. The 7/8 loser and the 9/10 seeds get their lotto balls and keep them even if they win in the play in and even if they win a playoff series or 4

Why are we so tied the idea that the top picks have to go to the teams that have been losing? The league has been wrestling since Sampson with the question of how to reward losing without incentivizing losing. You don’t. Just take losing out of the equation, we’ve seen enough by now to know it doesn’t belong there.

Cap wrote: ↑

Fri May 01, 2026 8:22 pm

Why are we so tied the idea that the top picks have to go to the teams that have been losing? The league has been wrestling since Sampson with the question of how to reward losing without incentivizing losing. You don’t. Just take losing out of the equation, we’ve seen enough by now to know it doesn’t belong there.

Sure. Just give the best players to the best teams. Easy peasy. Everybody is happy.

Superbone wrote: ↑

Fri May 01, 2026 11:10 pm

Cap wrote: ↑

Fri May 01, 2026 8:22 pm

Why are we so tied the idea that the top picks have to go to the teams that have been losing? The league has been wrestling since Sampson with the question of how to reward losing without incentivizing losing. You don’t. Just take losing out of the equation, we’ve seen enough by now to know it doesn’t belong there.

Sure. Just give the best players to the best teams. Easy peasy. Everybody is happy.

Correct... Then every other team that perpetually suck turns into the Flint Tropics. A product everyone wanted to see.

IMO it depends on what you view as a worse outcome. I -do- want worse teams to get more draft help. And to me the interesting debate space is in which teams should be most helped, ones at/near the bottom or ones closer to breaking into the playoffs? For many years now the system has been tilted toward the very worst teams. The odds were flattened a bit, but they still greatly favored the worst teams. I think that's a bad idea; encouraging teams to lose is dangerous. I realize that any record-weighted lottery system encourages SOMEBODY to lose. But I think it's less harmful to the game if it is done on the teams that are at/near the playoffs and play-in boundary. Teams want to make the playoffs. There isn't going to be an outbreak of teams tanking out of the playoffs if they have a chance to get in. Look at how well teams like Orlando, Philly, Minnesota, etc. are doing; you can make an impressive playoff run even if you are a low seed and don't have home-court.

I love the idea that the new system will be less punitive toward teams at/near the middle of the pack; those are the teams that currently have a horrible choice between staying stuck in the middling mud, or trading away all their talent and bottoming out. It shouldn't have to be that way! If you are a .500 team or thereabouts, you should be able to keep your team together and work to build up and hopefully break through to get better. All these teams shouldn't have to eventually trade away their homegrown talent. If you still give medium teams a decent chance at a good draft pick, they will try harder and keep teams together.

What about the truly bad teams? Will they be stuck at the bottom? Not if they have competent ownership. They might get the 5th pick instead of the 1st pick, or whatever, but they'll still get a great pick and have a chance to improve. They'll be fine. I don't thnk the current system screws the teams at the very bottom. Besides, the bar to get to 4th or 5th worst in the league is not so tough.

It just seems like no matter what we do, the NBA keeps losing 50% of its games.