By Josh Robbins | The Athletic, 2026-03-04 10:30:17
要理解这个奇特的NBA赛季——一个日益被“摆烂”话题所笼罩的赛季——你应该通过奥利弗 (Oliver) 一家的视角来看看周六华盛顿奇才队对阵多伦多猛龙队的比赛，他们是来自弗吉尼亚州利斯堡的奇才队死忠粉丝。
马克·奥利弗 (Mark Oliver) 带着他7到14岁的儿子们：怀亚特 (Wyatt)、杰克 (Jack) 和欧文 (Owen)，来到第一资本竞技场度过周末夜晚。他们穿着奇才队球衣，在奏国歌前一小时就到达了球场。怀亚特和杰克带来了篮球卡让球员签名，当前锋比拉尔·库利巴利 (Bilal Coulibaly) 用橙色记号笔在一张卡片上签名时，他们露出了灿烂的笑容。
奥利弗一家希望看到奇才队成长为一支常胜军。只是不在这个赛季。
这一年，甚至NBA总裁亚当·萧华 (Adam Silver) 都承认联盟正经历着比近期记忆中任何时候都更严重的摆烂行为。奥利弗一家希望奇才队能积累足够的败场以保住他们的首轮选秀权，在5月的选秀抽签中撞大运，然后选中一位未来的超级巨星。
华盛顿在进入周六的比赛前，战绩为16胜43负，位列联盟倒数第四。这个赛季是该球队连续第八个胜率低于五成的赛季。
马克·奥利弗是一家健康科技企业的首席执行官，他赞扬了球队的高层：Monumental篮球总裁迈克尔·温格 (Michael Winger) 和奇才总经理威尔·道金斯 (Will Dawkins)，因为他们没有组建一支最终只能排在积分榜中游的球队。
“当你试图建立任何一种良好、可持续发展的业务时，你必须做出良好、可持续的战略选择，”马克说道，“这就是我们对现在的奇才队感到欣慰的地方。道金斯和温格，他们正在做出旨在实现长期战略成功的选择。所以，我想我们对此相当满意。”
7岁的怀亚特穿着印有库利巴利名字的球衣，戴着奇才队的帽子，他直截了当地说：“我很高兴他们正在输球。”
这就是如今NBA的现状。摆烂已经存在了几十年，但这个赛季，摆烂无疑开始得比往常更早，也更加普遍。全联盟至少有几家管理层会为现在的输球感到高兴，如果这些输球能让他们在选秀中处于更有利的位置来选中未来的球星。
“现在输球，未来赢球”的心态已不再局限于管理层。许多球迷群体中的一部分——甚至是很大一部分——都支持将摆烂作为一种短期策略。奥利弗一家并不是唯一持有这种观点的人。
那么，NBA是如何走到这一步的？球迷们竟然渴望他们最喜欢的球队输球，而这些球队的高管也觉得这条路是建队的合理选择。
这个赛季具备了引发大规模摆烂潮的所有要素。
以堪萨斯大学后卫达林·彼得森 (Darryn Peterson)、杨百翰大学前锋AJ·迪班萨 (AJ Dybantsa) 和杜克大学大前锋凯梅隆·布泽尔 (Cameron Boozer) 为首，2026届新秀被认为在顶端具有异常深厚的天赋，NBA管理层认为其中可能有多达六或七名球员具有成为未来巨星的潜力。
篮球运动本身的特性——每支球队在场上只有五名球员，且攻防两端都要参与——使其成为一项顶级球星能产生巨大影响力的运动。在北美其他三大职业体育联盟中，或许只有像汤姆·布雷迪 (Tom Brady) 或帕特里克·马霍姆斯 (Patrick Mahomes) 这样真正伟大的四分卫，才能像迈克尔·乔丹 (Michael Jordan)、蒂姆·邓肯 (Tim Duncan) 和勒布朗·詹姆斯 (LeBron James) 在巅峰时期那样影响比赛。例如在棒球比赛中，即使是统治级的先发投手，在常规赛中也只是每五场比赛才投一次；而统治级的击球手只是阵容中九人之一。
自1989-90赛季开始以来，每一支NBA冠军球队都至少拥有过一名在该赛季入选联盟三套最佳阵容 (All-NBA teams) 之一的球员。在过去37年的NBA总决赛亚军中，只有四支球队在该赛季没有至少一名最佳阵容第一、第二或第三阵容的球员。
这对NBA球队高管和球迷来说都是一个教训：一支球队想要赢得大奖，必须拥有至少一名伟大的球员。
对于许多球队，尤其是那些不被视为豪门的球队来说，选秀是获取能改变球队命运球员的最直接方式。
许多球队承受不起失去这些选秀权的代价，但本赛季这种情况可能会发生。一位联盟消息人士称，NBA官员认为，源于此前交易的保护选秀权加剧了本赛季的摆烂流行病，各队都在努力确保自己不会失去这些选秀权。
印第安纳步行者队只有在其选秀权落在第1顺位至第4顺位，或第10顺位至第30顺位时，才能保留其首轮签；否则，洛杉矶快船队将获得该选秀权。犹他爵士队只有在其选秀权落在前八顺位时才能保留；如果选秀权落在第9至第30顺位，它将归俄克拉荷马城雷霆队所有。而奇才队只有在其选秀权落在前八顺位时才能保住；如果落在第9至第30顺位，该选秀权将交给纽约尼克斯队。
总经理威尔·道金斯和奇才队已将目光投向5月的选秀抽签，并力求保住那个前八顺位保护的首轮选秀权。(Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
2月中旬，NBA对爵士队罚款50万美元。2月7日，爵士队在对阵奥兰多魔术队的比赛中，在第三节结束时以94-87领先，但却让顶级球员劳里·马尔卡宁 (Lauri Markkanen) 和小贾伦·杰克逊 (Jaren Jackson Jr.)（以及首发中锋尤素夫·努尔基奇 (Jusef Nurkić)）在整个第四节枯坐板凳。犹他最终以117-120输掉了那场比赛。两天后，爵士队在对阵迈阿密热火队的比赛中，第三节结束时以85-82领先，并再次让马尔卡宁、杰克逊和努尔基奇缺席了整个第四节。这次犹他以115-111获胜。
与此同时，NBA因步行者队在2月3日对阵爵士队的比赛中违反联盟球员参赛政策，对其罚款10万美元。联盟的一项调查（包括一名独立医生的审查）认定，在该政策下被视为明星球员的帕斯卡尔·西亚卡姆 (Pascal Siakam) 以及另外两名同样未上场的首发球员，在医疗标准下是可以上场比赛的。联盟官员表示，步行者队本可以让西亚卡姆和其他两名首发球员减少出场时间，或者让这些球员在其他比赛中轮休，这样会“更好地促进对政策的遵守”。
“这种将选秀顺位凌驾于胜利之上的明显行为破坏了NBA竞争的基础，我们将对任何进一步损害比赛公正性的行为做出相应回应，”亚当·萧华在联盟宣布罚款时发表的一份声明中表示。萧华补充说，联盟的竞赛委员会和理事会正在努力制定额外的法规来防止摆烂。
联盟此前也曾做过调整，因为摆烂并不是一个新现象。它至少从20世纪80年代初就已出现。
从1966年到1984年，联盟在东部战绩最差的球队和西部战绩最差的球队之间进行投硬币。赢得投硬币的一方获得状元签，输的一方获得榜眼签。其他球队的选秀顺位则按战绩的倒序排列。
1982年，联盟对圣地亚哥快船队处以1万美元罚款，此前当时的快船老板唐纳德·斯特林 (Donald Sterling) 在一次午餐会上表示，如果这意味着有机会选中拉尔夫·桑普森 (Ralph Sampson)，球队将接受倒数第一的成绩。桑普森这位身高7英尺4英寸的弗吉尼亚大学中锋被誉为大学篮球史上最伟大的新秀之一。
“我们必须咬紧牙关，”斯特林被引述道，“我们必须拿到最后一名，才能抽到第一顺位，得到像拉尔夫·桑普森这样能改变球队命运的球员。”
休斯顿火箭队最终在1983年选中了桑普森。在1983-84赛季，火箭队被认为为了选中休斯顿大学中锋哈基姆·奥拉朱旺 (Hakeem Olajuwon) 而故意摆烂；在与快船队争夺西部最差战绩的过程中，火箭队在1984年4月13日赛季倒数第二场比赛的加时赛中，让未来的名人堂前锋埃尔文·海耶斯 (Elvin Hayes) 打满了全部53分钟。海耶斯当时38岁，并在该赛季后退役。休斯顿最终以29胜53负结束赛季，而快船队战绩为30胜52负，火箭队赢得了投硬币并用状元签选中了奥拉朱旺。
NBA对此做出了回应，改变了决定状元签的机制。它创立了选秀抽签制度，并于1985年正式生效，决定了非季后赛球队的选秀顺位。
“这在当时显然是为了避免摆烂，”前NBA副总裁罗斯·格拉尼克 (Russ Granik) 告诉《The Athletic》，他在1984年担任NBA执行副总裁。
“很长一段时间，我们像许多联盟一样，只有投硬币这一招。所以，如果你能垫底，你就能保证获得前两顺位之一。我们经历过几次事件，尤其是在那个时候，某些球队这样做的意图表现得相当明显。”
从1985年到1989年，乐透区球队赢得状元签的概率相等。1990年选秀抽签是联盟首次采用加权系统，常规赛战绩最差的球队在66次机会中拥有11次抽中状元签的机会，第二差的球队有10次机会，而战绩最好的非季后赛球队只有1次机会。
其他变革紧随其后。从1994年选秀抽签开始，常规赛最差的球队获得状元签的几率为25.0%。
但格拉尼克表示，联盟一直面临着一种他称之为“截然对立”的优先级平衡：既要努力确保最差的球队有最好的机会改善阵容，又要努力不鼓励输球。
“我只是觉得它们也许完全无法相容，”格拉尼克说道，他自2006年以来一直担任Galatioto Sports Partners的副主席。
“你必须决定你是想消除所有的摆烂诱因，并偶尔忍受一支你并不真正希望它中奖的球队赢得状元签；还是接受你存在强大的摆烂诱因，尽管看起来你可能不会为了仅仅14.0%的中奖概率而去摆烂。事实似乎并非如此。事实似乎是，有些球队认为当年的季后赛没有前途，就准备好争取任何微弱的概率优势。这足以成为他们尝试输球的动力。”
2010年代初期到中期带来了另一个临界点。费城76人队在当时的总经理萨姆·辛基 (Sam Hinkie) 领导下，拆解了阵容，为了在连续几个赛季获得高位选秀权而尽可能表现糟糕。一支在2012-13赛季取得34胜48负战绩的球队在辛基治下跌入谷底，接下来三年的战绩分别为19胜63负、18胜64负和10胜72负。
一位联盟消息人士称，76人队所谓的“过程 (The Process)”为2017年批准并在2019年实施的另一项选秀抽签格式改革提供了主要动力。“过程”虽然没有带来总冠军，但它帮助76人队选中了未来的最佳阵容中锋乔尔·恩比德 (Joel Embiid)，他成为了球队的基石。如果球队的其他高位选秀权表现得更好，辛基的策略本可以更成功。贾利尔·奥卡福 (Jahlil Okafor)（2015年探花）、本·西蒙斯 (Ben Simmons)（2016年状元）和马克尔·富尔茨 (Markelle Fultz)（2017年状元）之后的NBA职业生涯大体上令人失望。
在之前的几年里，战绩最差的两支球队赢得抽签的概率分别为25.0%和19.9%。从2019年开始，为了减少球队跌至榜首的诱因，战绩最差的三支球队获得了相等的14.0%的中奖概率，此后概率逐级递减。抽签决定选秀顺位的前四名，其余顺位按战绩倒序确定。
诚然，当今一些最具统治力的球员并不是在选秀的前三或前四顺位被选中的。密尔沃基雄鹿队在2013年第15顺位选中了两届NBA最有价值球员扬尼斯·阿德托昆博 (Giannis Antetokounmpo)。丹佛掘金队在2014年第41顺位选中了未来的三届MVP尼古拉·约基奇 (Nikola Jokić)。现任MVP、卫冕冠军俄克拉荷马城雷霆队的关键球员谢伊·吉尔杰斯-亚历山大 (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) 在2018年第11顺位被选中，其选秀权被交易到了快船队。
但目前的NBA排名显示了选状元的价值。底特律活塞队以45胜15负高居东部榜首，由2021年状元秀后卫凯德·坎宁安 (Cade Cunningham) 领衔。圣地亚哥马刺队战绩排名全联盟第三，围绕着中锋维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 展开，他是2023年的状元秀，当时被广泛誉为自2003年勒布朗·詹姆斯以来最伟大的选秀新秀。
两周前，达拉斯独行侠队的前大股东马克·库班 (Mark Cuban) 在X上写道，“NBA应该拥抱摆烂。”
“球迷知道他们的球队不可能赢下每一场比赛，”库班写道，“他们知道只有一支球队能夺冠。关心球队战绩的球迷想要的是希望。希望能变得更好，有机会争夺季后赛，然后也许是总冠军。
“接近这一目标的唯一途径就是通过选秀。还有交易和工资空间。当你摆烂时，你通过这三种方式改进的机会都更大。”
直到最近，华盛顿NBA球队的球迷一直缺乏希望。
奇才队在1978年以华盛顿子弹队的身份夺得了他们唯一的NBA总冠军。1978-79赛季的子弹队取得了54胜28负的战绩，作为卫冕冠军重返总决赛，但在总决赛系列赛中输给了西雅图超音速队。
自1979年以来，华盛顿从未在单赛季赢得至少50场比赛，也从未打入过东部决赛。在随后的许多赛季里，正如吉姆·摩尔 (Jim Moore) 这样的老球迷所熟知的那样，这支球队一直处于平庸状态。
摩尔现年57岁，与妻子和三个女儿住在伦敦，在那里从事私募股权工作。他在华盛顿地区长大，还记得子弹队夺冠的那支队伍。儿时和青少年时期的摩尔经常去马里兰州兰多弗的首都中心体育馆看子弹队的比赛。
他和两位老朋友有一个名为“子弹热 (Bullets Fever)”的聊天群，这是向尼尔斯·洛夫格伦 (Nils Lofgren) 1978年发布的一首同名歌曲致敬。洛夫格伦后来成为了布鲁斯·斯普林斯汀 (Bruce Springsteen) 的E大道乐队的一员，他在华盛顿郊区的马里兰州贝塞斯达长大。
摩尔和群里的两位朋友对温格和道金斯做出的大多数举动感到满意，包括决定在2024年用榜眼签选中亚历克斯·萨尔 (Alex Sarr)，获得24顺位新秀凯肖恩·乔治 (Kyshawn George) 的选秀权，以及最近交易得到特雷·杨 (Trae Young) 和安东尼·戴维斯 (Anthony Davis)。
摩尔和他的朋友们支持奇才队为了今年的选秀而跌入谷底的策略。该球队上一次在选秀抽签中获得状元签是在2010年，当时他们选中了约翰·沃尔 (John Wall)，后者成长为五届全明星。
“每天早上醒来，为一场失利感到超级兴奋，而为你（喜欢的球队）从新奥尔良或其他你在排名中追踪的球队那里得到的胜利或失败感到沮丧，这是一种奇怪的感觉，”摩尔说，“但归根结底，我认为在这个特定的赛季，我对输球感到非常舒适，因为这感觉是我们努力争取高位选秀权的最后一年。这已经等了很久了，在过去的几年里，表现糟糕一直令人沮丧。
“但今年，我从现有的年轻球员身上看到了很多非常积极的迹象，如果你能将其与败场数结合起来，那么从我的角度来看，这是一个不错的位置。”
亚当·萧华最近通知球队高管，联盟计划在下个赛季前修改反摆烂规则。(Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images)
下个赛季联盟的竞争可能会更加激烈。正如萧华在全明星周末期间承认的那样，2027年和2028年的新秀被认为不如今年这一届有天赋。与此同时，萧华已承诺将制定解决方案，并从下赛季开始实施。
“我认为亚当正在做正确的事，”格拉尼克说道，“我始终认为，如果我们有问题，你必须承认它，然后去解决它。他似乎肯定在继续朝着这个方向努力。我认为这是正确的，因为我认为这对比赛很重要，对球迷也很重要……
“我不知道在这里是否能有一个完美的世界，因为他们试图平衡的两方面都存在问题。但我假设他们会做一些改进。他们那里有很多聪明人。”
然而，在此期间，摆烂问题掩盖了本赛季NBA一些最好的励志故事，比如由坎宁安领衔的活塞队的崛起、马刺队作为潜在竞争者的出现、波士顿凯尔特人队在核心杰森·塔图姆 (Jayson Tatum) 缺阵的情况下取得的出人意料的成功，以及由新秀康·克努佩尔 (Kon Knueppel) 领衔的夏洛特黄蜂队最近的崭露头角。
奇才队的球迷同意他们的球队是联盟中最差的球队之一，但如果这意味着未来几年能像活塞或马刺那样崛起，他们愿意接受现在的痛苦。
周六，在《哦，加拿大》和《星条旗之歌》奏响前约一小时，马克·奥利弗和14岁的欧文坐着，而10岁的杰克和7岁的怀亚特站在围栏旁，那是奇才球员从球场走向更衣室的通道。
“我从不为输球欢呼，”马克说道，“我总是想看到球员们努力打球，享受比赛。士气对文化非常重要。但如果我们输了，也没什么大不了的。从长远来看，我们对输球感到高兴。所以，看到他们努力打球，保持悬念，让比赛变得精彩，那就太好了。”
欧文说：“只要我们一直在进步，变得更好，那么明年当我们拥有AD和特雷时，我们就准备好了。我们将一切就绪，开始赢得一些比赛。”
几个月来，奥利弗家里一直存在着争论。男孩们的妈妈金·奥利弗 (Kim Oliver) 是凯尔特人队的球迷，她告诉丈夫和孩子们凯尔特人队从不摆烂。马克和男孩们本赛季几乎在电视上观看了奇才队的每一场比赛，这让她感到很无奈。
男孩们仍然是球迷，即使这涉及到本赛季剩余时间的摆烂。
“我知道不应该这样做，”杰克·奥利弗在谈到摆烂时说道，“但你可能会得到凯梅隆·布泽尔或AJ·迪班萨。”
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：Embracing the tank isn't just for NBA GMs and owners. Fans are buying in, too
Embracing the tank isn’t just for NBA GMs and owners. Fans are buying in, too
To understand this peculiar NBA season, a season increasingly overshadowed by the topic of tanking, you should have seen Saturday’s game between the Washington Wizards and Toronto Raptors through the perspective of the Oliver family, die-hard Wizards fans from Leesburg, Va.
Mark Oliver took his sons Wyatt, Jack and Owen, ages 7 to 14, to Capital One Arena for a weekend night out. They wore Wizards jerseys, and they arrived about one hour before the national anthems. Wyatt and Jack brought basketball cards for players to sign, and they grinned when forward Bilal Coulibaly signed a card in orange marker.
The Olivers want to see the Wizards grow into a consistent winner. Just not this season.
In a year when even NBA commissioner Adam Silver acknowledges that the league is seeing worse tanking behavior than at any other time in recent memory, the Olivers hope that the Wizards will accumulate enough losses to retain their first-round draft pick, luck out in May’s draft lottery and then select a future superstar.
Washington entered Saturday’s game with the league’s fourth-worst record, 16-43. This season is the franchise’s eighth consecutive losing season.
Mark Oliver, the CEO of a health technology business, credits the team’s top executives, Monumental Basketball president Michael Winger and Wizards general manager Will Dawkins, for not fielding a team that will finish in the middle of the standings.
“When you’re trying to build any kind of good, sustainable business, you’ve got to make good, sustainable strategic choices,” Oliver said. “That’s what we’re finally happy about here with the Wizards. Dawkins and Winger, they’re making the choices that are setting us up for strategic success long term. So, I think we’re pretty happy about it.”
Wyatt Oliver, 7, who wore a jersey with Coulibaly’s name on it and a Wizards cap, said it bluntly: “I’m happy that they’re losing.”
This is the state of the NBA these days. Tanking has occurred for decades, but this season, it arguably started earlier than usual and has been more prevalent. At least several front offices across the league would be happy to lose now if those losses put them in better position to draft a future star.
The lose-now, win-later mentality is no longer confined to front offices. Segments of many fan bases — perhaps even large segments — endorse tanking as a short-term strategy. The Oliver family is not alone in their point of view.
So, how did the NBA reach this point, where fans root for their favorite teams to lose and those teams’ executives feel this path offers an acceptable option to build?
All the ingredients exist this season for a blizzard of tanking.
Led by Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, BYU wing AJ Dybantsa and Duke power forward Cameron Boozer, the 2026 draft class is said to be unusually deep at the top, with perhaps up to six or seven prospects regarded by NBA front offices as potential future stars.
The nature of basketball itself, with only five players on the court for each team at any one time, playing on both offense and defense, makes it a sport in which transcendent stars make outsized impacts. Among the three other major North American team sports, perhaps only a truly great quarterback — such as Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes — can impact a game as much as Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan and LeBron James did during their primes. Even a dominant starting pitcher in baseball, for example, pitches only once every fifth game during a regular season; a dominant hitter is only one of nine people in a lineup.
Since the beginning of the 1989-90 season, every single NBA champion has included at least one player who earned a spot that regular season on one of the league’s three All-NBA teams. Only four of the last 37 NBA Finals runners-up did not have at least one first-, second- or third-team All-NBA player that season.
The lesson, to both NBA team executives and to NBA fans, is that for a team to win big, it must have at least one great player.
For many teams, particularly those not considered glamour franchises, the draft is the most direct method of acquiring franchise difference-makers.
Many of those teams cannot afford to lose those picks, but that could happen this season. NBA officials believe that conditional picks stemming from prior trades have contributed to this season’s tanking epidemic, a league source said, with teams trying to guarantee that they won’t lose those picks.
The Indiana Pacers will keep their first-round pick only if it falls from No. 1 to No. 4 or from No. 10 to No. 30; otherwise, the LA Clippers will receive that pick. The Utah Jazz will retain their first-round pick only if it falls within the top eight choices; if the pick falls from No. 9 to No. 30, it will go to the Oklahoma City Thunder. And the Wizards will hold on to their first-round pick only if it falls in the top eight of the draft order; if it ranges from No. 9 to No. 30, the pick will go to the New York Knicks.
GM Will Dawkins and the Wizards have their sights set on May’s draft lottery and holding on to a top-eight-protected first-round selection. (Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
In mid-February, the NBA fined the Jazz $500,000. On Feb. 7, the Jazz led the Orlando Magic 94-87 at the end of the third quarter and sat top players Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. (as well as starting center Jusef Nurkić) for the entire fourth quarter. Utah lost that game 120-117. Two nights later, the Jazz led the Miami Heat 85-82 at the end of the third quarter and once again held out Markkanen, Jackson and Nurkić for the entire fourth quarter. Utah won 115-111.
At the same time, the NBA fined the Pacers $100,000 for violating the league’s player participation policy on Feb. 3 in a game against the Jazz. A league investigation, which included a review by an independent doctor, determined that Pascal Siakam, considered a star player under the policy, and two other starters who also did not play could have played under the policy’s medical standard. League officials said the Pacers could have played Siakam and the two other starters reduced minutes or kept the players out of other games that would have “better promoted compliance” with the policy.
“Overt behavior like this that prioritizes draft position over winning undermines the foundation of NBA competition, and we will respond accordingly to any further actions that compromise the integrity of our games,” Silver said in a statement issued when the league announced the fines. Silver added that the league’s competition committee and board of governors are working to enact additional regulations to prevent tanking.
The league has made adjustments before, because tanking is not a new phenomenon. It has occurred at least since the early 1980s.
From 1966 through 1984, the league held a coin flip between the team with the worst regular-season record in the East and the team with the worst regular-season record in the West. The team that won the coin flip received the top pick, and the loser received the second pick. The other teams were slotted in the draft by the inverse order of their records.
In 1982, the league fined the San Diego Clippers $10,000 after then-Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, said at a luncheon that the franchise would embrace a last-place finish if it provided a chance to draft Ralph Sampson, the 7-foot-4 University of Virginia center who was hailed as one of the greatest prospects in college basketball history.
“We have to bite the bullet,” Sterling was quoted as saying. “We must end up last in order to draw first and get a franchise-maker, like Ralph Sampson.”
The Houston Rockets wound up drafting Sampson in 1983. During the 1983-84 season, the Rockets were thought to have tanked to draft University of Houston center Hakeem Olajuwon; competing against the Clippers for the worst record in the Western Conference, the Rockets played future Hall of Fame forward Elvin Hayes all 53 minutes on April 13, 1984, in an overtime loss in the Rockets’ next-to-last game of the season. Hayes was 38 years old at the time and retired after the season. Houston finished the season 29-53, while the Clippers finished 30-52, and the Rockets won the coin flip and drafted Olajuwon first.
The NBA responded by changing the mechanism for determining the top pick. It created the draft lottery, which went into effect in 1985 and determined the selection order for non-playoff teams.
“It was quite clearly an effort to avoid tanking at the time,” former NBA Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik, who in 1984 was the NBA’s executive vice president, told The Athletic.
“All we had was a coin flip, like a lot of leagues had, for a long time. So, if you could get to the bottom, you were guaranteed one of the first two picks. We had a couple of incidents, especially right around that time, where it seemed pretty obvious that that’s what some teams were intent on doing.”
From 1985 through 1989, lottery teams had an equal chance of winning the No. 1 pick. The 1990 lottery was the first time the league employed a weighted system, with the team with the worst regular-season record holding 11 chances out of 66 for the top pick, the second-worst team having 10 chances and the non-playoff team with the best record having only one chance.
Other changes have followed. Beginning with the 1994 lottery, the worst regular-season team received a 25.0 percent chance of winning the top pick.
But all along, Granik said, the league faced a difficult balance of what he calls “diametrically opposed” priorities: trying to ensure that the worst teams had the best opportunities to improve their rosters while, at the same time, trying not to incentivize losing.
“I just think that they’re perhaps totally incompatible,” said Granik, who has been the vice chairman of Galatioto Sports Partners since 2006.
“You’ve got to decide whether you want to take away every incentive to tank and occasionally suffer a team you really didn’t want to win the lottery and get the first pick to get it. Or you have to accept that you have a strong incentive to tank, even though it might seem that you wouldn’t tank for only a 14.0 percent chance to win or something like that. That doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems to be the case of some teams that see no future in that year’s playoffs are ready for any small advantage in the odds. That’s enough incentive for them to try and lose.”
The early-to-mid-2010s brought another tipping point. The Philadelphia 76ers, under then-general manager Sam Hinkie, tore down their roster to make themselves as bad as possible to secure early draft picks in consecutive seasons. A team that had gone 34-48 during the 2012-13 season bottomed out under Hinkie, going 19-63, 18-64 and 10-72 the next three years.
The Sixers’ so-called “Process,” as it was called, provided the primary impetus for another change to the lottery format, approved in 2017 and put into effect for the 2019 lottery, the league source said. The Process has not led to a championship, but it helped the Sixers draft future All-NBA center Joel Embiid, who became the franchise’s cornerstone. Hinkie’s strategy would have been more successful if more of the franchise’s top draft picks had performed better. Jahlil Okafor (drafted third in 2015), Ben Simmons (the first overall pick in 2016) and Markelle Fultz (the first overall pick in 2017) went on to largely disappointing NBA careers.
In the preceding years, the teams with the two worst records had odds of 25.0 percent and 19.9 percent to win the lottery, respectively. From 2019 onward, in an attempt to reduce the incentives for teams to plunge to the bottom of the standings, the teams with the three worst records have received equal 14.0 percent chances of winning, and the odds descend gradually after that. The lottery determines the top four spots in the draft order, and the remaining spots are decided by the inverse order of record.
To be sure, some of the game’s most dominant current players were not selected in the top three or top four of the draft. The Milwaukee Bucks chose Giannis Antetokounmpo, a two-time NBA Most Valuable Player, 15th in 2013. The Denver Nuggets selected future three-time league MVP Nikola Jokić 41st in 2014. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the reigning MVP and key player on the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, was drafted 11th in 2018 and had his draft rights sent to the Clippers.
But the current NBA standings show the value of drafting first. The Pistons, who hold the Eastern Conference’s best record at 45-15, are led by point guard Cade Cunningham, the top pick in 2021. The San Antonio Spurs, with the league’s third-best record, revolve around center Victor Wembanyama, the No. 1 pick in 2023, when he was widely hailed as the best draft prospect since LeBron James in 2003.
Two weeks ago, Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks’ former majority owner, wrote on X that “the NBA should embrace tanking.”
“Fans know their team can’t win every game,” Cuban wrote. “They know only one team can win a ring. What fan(s) that care about their team’s record want is hope. Hope they will get better and have a chance to compete for the playoffs and then maybe a ring.
“The one way to get closer to that is via the draft. And trades. And cap room. You have a better chance of improving via all 3 when you tank.”
Until recently, hope has been in short supply for fans of Washington’s NBA team.
The Wizards won their only NBA title in 1978 when they were known as the Washington Bullets. The 1978-79 Bullets posted a 54-28 record, returned to the NBA Finals as defending champions but lost the championship series to the Seattle SuperSonics.
Washington has not won at least 50 games in a season or reached the Eastern Conference finals since 1979. The franchise has endured mediocrity for many of the intervening seasons, as longtime fans such as Jim Moore know all too well.
Moore, now 57 and living with his wife and three daughters in London, where he works in private equity, grew up in the Washington area and remembers that Bullets championship team. Moore would attend Bullets games at Capital Centre in Landover, Md., as a child and as a teenager.
He and two longtime friends have a text chain that they call “Bullets Fever,” an homage to a song of the same name released in 1978 by Nils Lofgren, a future member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band who grew up in the Washington suburb of Bethesda, Md.
Moore and his two friends on the text chain are pleased with most of the moves that Winger and Dawkins have made, including the decision to draft Alex Sarr second in 2024, acquire the draft rights to 24th pick Kyshawn George in 2024 and, lately, the trades for Trae Young and Anthony Davis.
Moore and his friends support the Wizards’ strategy of bottoming out for this year’s draft. The franchise last landed the No. 1 pick in the lottery in 2010, when it drafted John Wall, who developed into a five-time All-Star.
“It’s a weird feeling to wake up every morning and be super excited about a loss and be frustrated about either your (favorite team’s) wins or losses coming from New Orleans or whoever you’re trying to track in the standings,” Moore said. “But, at the end of the day, I think that in this particular season, I feel very comfortable with losing because it feels like the last year that we’re trying to position ourselves for a good draft pick, and it’s been a long time coming, and in the last few years, it’s been frustrating to be bad.
“But this year, I see a lot of really positive (signs) with the young players we have, and if you can combine that with some losses in the loss column, then that’s a good place to be from my perspective.”
Adam Silver recently informed team executives that the league plans to make anti-tanking rule changes ahead of next season. (Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu via Getty Images)
Next season is likely to be a more competitive season for the league. The 2027 and 2028 draft classes, as even Silver acknowledged during All-Star weekend, are not thought to be as talented as this year’s class. Meanwhile, Silver has pledged to enact solutions that will begin next season.
“I think what Adam’s doing is the right thing,” Granik said. “I always took the view that if we had a problem, you’ve got to acknowledge it and then go after it. He certainly seems to be continuing in that vein. I think that’s the right thing, because I think this is important for the sport, and it’s important, also, to the fans. …
“I don’t know that you can have a perfect world here because of the issues on both sides of what they’re trying to do. But I assume they’ll make some improvements. They’ve got a lot of smart people there.”
In the meantime, however, the tanking issue has obscured some of the NBA’s best feel-good stories this season, such as the rise of the Cunningham-led Pistons, the emergence of the Spurs as a potential contender, the Boston Celtics’ unexpected success despite the absence of injured star Jayson Tatum and the recent emergence of the Charlotte Hornets, led by rookie Kon Knueppel.
Wizards fans agree that their team is among the league’s worst, but they’re willing to accept pain now if it means a Pistons- or Spurs-like rise in the years to come.
On Saturday, about one hour before “O Canada” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Mark Oliver and 14-year-old Owen sat as 10-year-old Jack and 7-year-old Wyatt stood near the railing where Wizards players walked from the court to their locker room.
“I never cheer for a loss,” Mark said. “I always want to see the players playing hard, having a good time. Morale is huge and important for the culture. But if we lose, it’s no big deal. We’re happy about the loss long-term. So, (if) see them play hard, keep it close, make it a game, it’ll be great.”
Owen said: “As long as we’re developing and then we’re just getting better, and then next year, when we’ve got AD and Trae, we’re going to be good to go. We’re going to be all set, and we’ll start winning some games.”
For months now, there has been an argument within the Oliver household. The boys’ mom, Kim Oliver, is a Celtics fan, and she tells her husband and their children that the Celtics don’t tank. Mark and the boys have watched almost every Wizards game on TV this season, much to her frustration.
The boys remain fans, even if it involves tanking for the remainder of this season.
“I know you’re not supposed to do it,” Jack Oliver said, referring to tanking. “But you could get Cameron Boozer or AJ Dybantsa.”
By Josh Robbins, via The Athletic