The NBA is once again tightening its focus on one of the league’s most persistent issues: tanking. And this time, the push comes with a very specific backdrop - the fallout from a gambling scandal that exposed just how vulnerable the system is when injury reports and late-season lineup decisions can be exploited.
Now, league officials are looking to close the loopholes that allow teams to subtly - or not so subtly - prioritize draft positioning over competitive integrity. The emphasis isn’t on penalizing rebuilding teams across the board, but rather on cleaning up the gray areas that tend to surface as the season winds down and the math of draft odds begins to outweigh the pursuit of wins.
At a recent Board of Governors meeting, according to reporting from Shams Charania, the NBA gathered feedback from team owners and general managers on a handful of early-stage concepts. These ideas are all aimed at reducing the incentive to lose games on purpose, especially when protected draft picks hang in the balance.
Nothing has been finalized yet, but the direction is clear: the league wants to make it harder - and less appealing - for teams to manipulate outcomes once the postseason is out of reach.
And if you’re the Brooklyn Nets, that’s a conversation worth paying attention to.
Brooklyn is in the middle of a rebuild, but not the kind that raises eyebrows. The Nets haven’t been resting healthy veterans just to goose their lottery odds.
They haven’t been sitting players under the vague umbrella of “development” or “load management.” Instead, they’ve leaned into the grind - playing their vets, giving young guys meaningful minutes, and letting the chips fall where they may.
Their losses haven’t been engineered; they’ve been the natural growing pains of a team still learning how to win.
That’s exactly the kind of rebuild the league says it wants to protect - one rooted in accountability, effort, and progress, not in backdoor tanking tactics.
Among the ideas floated at the Board of Governors meeting were some significant shifts in how the draft lottery could work. One concept involves limiting pick protections to just the top four or removing them entirely from the lottery.
Another would prevent teams from landing in the top four of the draft in back-to-back seasons. There’s even been discussion about locking in the lottery order as early as March 1, effectively cutting off any late-season maneuvering for better odds.
Each of these proposals is designed to eliminate that murky middle ground - where teams aren’t quite tanking outright, but are making lineup decisions that quietly nudge them closer to a protected pick or a higher draft slot. It’s a space that’s long been hard to police, but increasingly problematic in an era where transparency and integrity are under the microscope.
For the Nets, these changes could actually work in their favor. If the reward for tanking gets smaller - or disappears altogether - then teams like Brooklyn, who continue to compete down the stretch, won’t be penalized for winning games they’re “not supposed” to win. A March 1 lottery lock, for instance, would give the Nets a green light to focus fully on development in the final weeks of the season without worrying that a few wins might cost them valuable draft position.
It would also validate the culture Brooklyn has been trying to build: one that prioritizes availability, effort, and live game reps for its young players. In a league where some teams hit the brakes early, the Nets' approach has looked like the exception. Under these proposed changes, it might start to look like the standard.
Of course, we’re still in the early stages here. No rules have changed yet, and the league is still gathering input. But the message is loud and clear: the NBA wants to draw a sharper line between rebuilding and manipulation, between player development and draft-driven decisions.
And for a team like Brooklyn - one that’s already walking that line the right way - the league’s evolving stance isn’t just welcome. It’s familiar.