Is the NBA’s tanking ‘problem’ really a problem?
The NBA continues the fight against tanking teams despite its strong rebuild factor
Over the years, the NBA has fined teams, revoked draft picks and heavily disincentivized tanking. However, it remains one of the best ways to rebuild a team.
Tanking in North American sports is the practice of losing as many games as possible by dismantling a team. The goal is to trade away the team’s most valuable assets for draft picks, young players and a higher draft day position, to eventually rebuild the team. The process can carry into the season as well, as teams bench their best players to intentionally lower their chances and improve their draft odds.
With the draft picks and young players, rebuilding teams can restart from scratch, building around a new core that can bring the franchise back to winning ways and eventually a championship.
In the NBA, the commissioner and the league strongly oppose tanking, as the losing leads to unmarketable basketball. Bad teams typically get blown out (intentionally), which can lead to a drop in viewership, ticket sales and revenue.
Despite the poor optics of tanking, it is a proven method that allows both once-great teams at the end of their glory days and mediocre, downtrodden squads to turn things around over the course of a few seasons.
After a Western Conference Finals loss in 2016, followed by four straight first-round exits, the Oklahoma City Thunder decided to blow everything up and begin a rebuild. They began by trading All-Star forward Paul George for an astounding five first-round picks and young guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
During the 2020-21 season, Oklahoma City fired its head coach of five years and made more trades, which saw the likes of Chris Paul, Dennis Schröder and Al Horford leave the team, among others. The Thunder posted a sub-.500 record for three straight seasons.
With all the picks they managed to acquire since 2019, the Thunder built a roster that brought them back to the Western Conference Finals in 2024 and won them their first championship in franchise history in 2025. Even with all this recent success and young talent, the Thunder still has a mind-boggling 13 first-round picks to its name over the next seven years.
The Thunder’s success represents one of the clearest modern examples of tanking paying off. But they are far from the only team to benefit from a patient rebuild.
The Milwaukee Bucks drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo in 2013, eventually leading them to their first championship in 2021. The San Antonio Spurs are now second in the Western Conference this season after tanking for superstar prospect Victor Wembanyama and later using a top pick on guard Stephon Castle.
Going back a little further to 2009, after one playoff appearance in its last 15 years, the Golden State Warriors drafted Stephen Curry, and the rest is history.
One common theme with all these examples is the importance of the draft for small-market teams. Giants such as the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics and Miami Heat all have the benefit of being a desirable destination for the free agent superstars of the league who are looking for big contracts, big cities and an established history.
For smaller-market teams, the draft is often the only reliable way to develop talent and build a competitive core, as they lack the luxury of consistently attracting the league’s biggest superstars.
And, in the modern NBA, it has been homegrown talent teams that have seen the most success. The most recent championship winners—the Thunder, the Nuggets, the Celtics and the Warriors—are all teams that built around their homegrown talent and went on to find success.
Then there are the teams stuck in the middle, not bad enough to tank but not good enough to contend. The Miami Heat, Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks have spent the past few years hovering around the play-in tournament without a clear path forward. Compared to that kind of stagnation, tanking can look like the more strategic option.
This all together continues to beg the question: why try to get rid of something that works? Even if the sole issue was optics, tanking teams that draft amazing talents are watchable. In the past couple of years, the Spurs haven’t been a good team, but they have been amazing to watch thanks to Wembanyama.
Sometimes, the best thing the league can do is let a team struggle for a while so fans can watch it rise.
