The NBA’s handling of tanking has become a mess of mixed signals, and the latest example keeps pointing back to the same question: why do some teams get hit and others skate by?
Back in the middle of February, the league announced fines for both the Utah Jazz and the Indiana Pacers for violating the Player Participation Policy and for “conduct detrimental to the league”. Utah was fined $500,000, while Indiana was hit for $100,000. The Pacers were accused of holding out Aaron Nesmith for participating in a game, and the Jazz were criticized for sitting their best players in fourth quarters to improve their chances of losing.
Those penalties raised eyebrows then, and they still do now. Tanking is a bad look and losing on purpose is bad business, but the frustration has always been about consistency. Why were those two teams singled out when they were hardly the only ones operating with a clear eye toward draft position?
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst recently added another layer to that debate while discussing why the Washington Wizards agreed to sign Trae Young to a new four-year contract worth $212M with a 7.5% trade kicker. The bigger issue, though, is what happened after Young was traded to Washington. The league never investigated why he sat for the rest of the season, even though the Wizards had obvious reasons to keep losing games.
Washington’s nightly lineups looked like the kind of roster construction that screams tanking, yet the league office never moved to fine them. That stands out even more when compared with how quickly Indiana and Utah were punished for their own decisions.
The inconsistency doesn’t stop there. The league also let the Toronto Raptors acquire Kawhi Leonard while he and the Los Angeles Clippers were under investigation for circumventing the salary cap.
That deal was allowed to get to the point where both sides had agreed in principle, only for the league to say nine days later that the trade was on pause because of an issue that had already been under investigation for nearly a year. The league then said the Raptors would be responsible for any punishments handed to Leonard if the trade went through, which could have left the Clippers off the hook.
That kind of handling is exactly what fuels the criticism. The Pacers’ fine in February felt like the league was targeting them, especially since they were one of the few teams at the time still playing their best players unless injuries forced otherwise.
The lottery itself is now in a new place, with 29 of 30 owners voting for revised odds. That should help cut down on the tanking race, at least in theory. But the bigger issue remains unchanged: the NBA has to clean up the way it applies its own rules.
It’s a basketball league, yes, but it’s also part of the entertainment business. If the NBA wants to protect the product, it can’t keep choosing when to enforce the rules and when to look the other way. All 30 franchises need to be treated the same.
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