Silver considering all remedies for rampant tanking in NBA - ESPN

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Saturday that tanking has been «worse this year than we've seen in recent memory» and he's considering «every possible remedy» — including taking away draft picks — to stop the type of overt behaviors he fined the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers for this week.

«In the old days it was just sort of an understanding among partners in terms of behavior,» Silver said before Saturday's All Star Saturday events. «I think what we're seeing is modern analytics where it's so clear that the incentives are misaligned. ...Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we've seen in recent memory? Yes, is my view. Which was what led to those fines, and not just those fines but to my statement that we're going to be looking more closely at the totality of all the circumstances this season in terms of teams' behavior, and very intentionally wanted teams to be on notice.»

Silver began his news conference by saying he'd recently talked to 97-year old Bob Cousy about the first All Star Game in 1950 and they'd both remarked at how far the game had come since then. That framed Silver's line of thinking that after 75 years it might be time to rethink how the league runs its draft, just as the league continues to experiment with its All-Star Game format.

Silver noted that in conversations with GMs and other members of the league's competition committee, the incentive structure of the lottery has made it unclear that the worst teams are actually the teams with the worst records.

«If teams are manipulating their performance in order to get higher draft picks even in a lottery, then the question becomes… are they really the worst-performing teams?» Silver said. «It's not clear to me, for