Steph Curry on Tanking Talk: “Let’s Focus on the Positives” as NBA Competition Stays Fierce
Steph Curry isn’t buying into the idea that tanking is casting a shadow over the NBA. Speaking at All-Star Media Day, the Warriors’ superstar was asked what the league should do to curb the practice of teams intentionally losing games to improve draft position.
His response? A calm, confident reminder that the league is thriving-and that the competitive fire is still burning bright across the board.
“Is it really that big of a problem? I’m asking,” Curry said, flipping the conversation on its head with a thoughtful counter.
“We feel like there’s obviously a lot of competition. It’s something I’m sure every year the NBA wants to address: why the Play-In Tournament exists.
Things evolve, problems arise, and everybody wants to shine a spotlight on all the negatives of the league. But let’s focus on the positives of how great the competition is at the top.”
Curry’s point hits home when you look at the current landscape of the league. The Play-In Tournament has added juice to the regular season, keeping more teams in the playoff hunt longer and making every game count just a little bit more. And while the conversation around tanking isn’t new, Curry’s perspective is a reminder that the league’s overall health-on the court and globally-is in a pretty strong place.
“There still is relevancy regular season-wise of the seeding and playoff chase,” he added. “I know there’s a conversation around how many games we’re playing.
That’s probably where I would focus more the attention. Let’s not forget the league is in a great place overall in terms of the attention, the skill level, the global reach, all of that stuff.
Every year you’ll address the issues. I don’t have those answers though.”
Curry’s comments came just days after the NBA handed out fines to the Utah Jazz and Indiana Pacers-$500,000 and $100,000, respectively-for what the league called “overt” tanking behavior. Commissioner Adam Silver didn’t mince words when asked about the issue, acknowledging that the current system may need a fresh approach.
“We got to look at some fresh thinking here,” Silver said. “What we’re seeing right now is not working. There’s no question about it.”
Silver pointed to the core idea behind the draft-helping struggling teams rebuild-as something that’s being undermined when teams manipulate their performance to gain better lottery odds.
“The issue is if teams are manipulating their performance in order to get higher draft picks, even in a lottery, then the question becomes, even if teams were rewarded for draft picks purely according to predicted odds of the lottery, are they really the worst-performing teams?”
It’s a tough balance. On one hand, the league wants parity and a system that allows bottom-tier teams to reload.
On the other, it doesn’t want to incentivize losing. And as Silver noted, the current model might not be striking that balance effectively.
Still, there’s no clear-cut fix on the table. Curry doesn’t claim to have all the answers, and the league office is still working through the long-term vision.
What is clear, though, is that players like Curry and teams like the Warriors are locked in on winning. With the playoff race heating up, there’s no time-or tolerance-for anything less than full effort.
So while the tanking debate simmers in the background, the focus for most of the league remains simple: rack up wins, climb the standings, and make a run when it matters most.