🔥 HOT TAKE · NBA · March 21, 2026
By HooperClass · March 21, 2026 · 6 min read · NBA
Let’s stop pretending. The NBA has a tanking crisis — and everybody knows it. The coaches know it. The players know it. Adam Silver knows it. And most importantly, the fans know it. The league is being held hostage by its own draft system, and right now, nearly a third of the entire NBA is actively trying to lose games on purpose. Not quietly. Not subtly. Shamelessly.
And nobody is doing anything about it.
The Numbers Are Embarrassing
The NBA’s bottom 10 teams recently put together a combined 44-game losing streak. Forty-four games. In a row. Collectively. That’s not bad basketball — that’s organized failure. That’s boardrooms full of executives actively instructing their franchises to lose, and coaching staffs pulling star players in the fourth quarter when things get too competitive.
The Utah Jazz were fined $500,000 for “conduct detrimental to the league” after pulling Lauri Markkanen, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Jusuf Nurkic in the fourth quarter of a game they were winning by 17. The Indiana Pacers were fined $100,000 for the same reason. And then? Nothing changed. Because $500,000 to an NBA franchise is a rounding error. It’s a parking ticket. It means absolutely nothing.
Who’s Doing It — And They’re Not Even Hiding It
The 2026 Draft has three generational prospects — BYU’s AJ Dybantsa, Kansas’ Darryn Peterson, and Duke’s Cameron Boozer. That’s why everyone wants to lose. And the list of shameless tankers is long:
- ▸Utah Jazz — Fined $500K for pulling healthy starters. Still doing it.
- ▸Indiana Pacers — Fined $100K. Without Haliburton, tanking is their entire strategy.
- ▸Milwaukee Bucks — With Giannis potentially leaving, they’re racing to the bottom.
- ▸Sacramento Kings — Russell Westbrook and DeMar DeRozan steering the tank with veteran precision.
- ▸Washington Wizards, Brooklyn Nets, Charlotte Hornets — All in the same race. All losing on purpose.
The Hot Take: The NBA Created This Monster
Here’s the truth nobody in the league office wants to say out loud — the NBA built this system and is now shocked it’s being exploited. Teams have been tanking for 40 years. The Houston Rockets played a 38-year-old Elvin Hayes 53 minutes in his second-to-last career game to secure the pick that became Hakeem Olajuwon in 1984. This isn’t new. What’s new is the scale — and the audacity.
The 2019 lottery reform was supposed to fix tanking by flattening the odds. Instead, it made things worse. Now the three worst teams all have the same 14% chance at the #1 pick — which means finishing with the absolute worst record gives you almost no extra advantage. So instead of one team tanking hard, you get eight teams tanking moderately. Brilliant.
What About the Fans Paying for Tickets?
This is the part that makes me genuinely angry. There are real fans — parents, kids, people who saved up money — sitting in arenas watching their team’s coach deliberately pull the best players to lose a game. You paid $200 for those seats. You wore the jersey. You showed up. And the front office is actively working against you having a good time.
That’s not sport. That’s a scam.
The Fix Nobody Wants to Talk About
The solution is simple: eliminate the lottery entirely and go back to reverse order. Worst record gets the best pick. Full stop. Yes, teams will still lose on purpose — but at least it’s honest. At least the worst team is guaranteed the best pick and can rebuild properly. The current system rewards mediocre tanking while punishing truly bad teams if the lottery balls bounce wrong.
Or make the draft lottery odds based on how long it’s been since a team last had the #1 pick. The Knicks haven’t had it in 41 years. The Kings haven’t had it in 37. Give them the odds they deserve. Stop rewarding teams for being bad on purpose.
Bottom Line
The 2026 NBA season will be remembered for two things: Luka Dončić’s MVP campaign and the most shameless tanking race in league history. Eight teams openly, publicly, unapologetically trying to lose — while Adam Silver hands out parking-ticket fines and calls it “conduct detrimental to the league.”
You know what’s really detrimental to the league? Letting this happen in the first place. 🏀
💬 Drop Your Opinion
Is tanking ruining the NBA? Should the lottery be eliminated? Is Adam Silver doing enough? Let us know in the comments below.