The Sixers' Tanking Still Lives Rent-Free in the NBA's Mind

On Friday, the NBA issued a memo to teams warning them that it was "considering modifying its rules regarding draft-pick protection and the draft lottery," according to ESPN's David Purdum. As an early Christmas present to basketball fans, the details of those changes leaked Tuesday.

As is tradition with anything tanking-related in recent years, the Sixers were front and center.

According to ESPN's Shams Charania, the league presented "several ideas" to its board of governors on Friday, including:

"Limiting pick protections to either top four or 14 and higher, which would eliminate the problematic mid-lottery protections."

Prohibiting teams from drafting in the top four two years in a row.

Finalizing the lottery standings after March 1.

Charnia added that the league office "presented to the board of governors several examples of protected picks potentially impacting the finish of recent seasons." One such example was the 2024-25 Sixers, who owed their 2025 first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it landed outside of the top six.

The Sixers finished with the league's fifth-worst record last season, which gave them a roughly 64 percent chance to keep the pick and a 36 percent chance to convey it to OKC. The Dallas Mavericks and San Antonio Spurs both jumped them in the lottery, which put them in grave danger of falling to No. 7—the worst-case scenario for them. Instead, the ping-pong balls bounced their way next, giving them the No. 3 overall pick, which they used on VJ Edgecombe. Crisis averted.

The league office also cited the 2022-23 Dallas Mavericks, who owed a top-10-protected pick to the New York Knicks that season. Rather than compete for a spot in the play-in tournament, they effectively punted on the final two games of the season. They landed the No. 10 pick, which they spent on Dereck Lively II, and they went to the NBA Finals the following year. (They proceeded to trade away Luka Dončić in one of the biggest own-goal trades in NBA history eight months later, so there's that.)

There's no denying the shamelessness of what the 2022-23 Mavericks did down the stretch. However, citing last year's Sixers is missing the forest through the trees.

The NBA isn't enforcing its tanking rules

Once it became obvious that the Sixers weren't making the playoffs last season, they undeniably did pull the ripcord. However, they were hardly the most egregious tankers. Quentin Grimes averaged more than 35 minutes per game in April when they were ostensibly trying to lose!

Meanwhile, the Toronto Raptors began liberally resting the likes of RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Jakob Poeltl once March rolled around. If they were still somehow competitive on a given night, they also began benching their healthy starters in crunch time to instead close out with their younger players and two-way guys.

The Raptors weren't the only ones playing that card, either. The Washington Wizards began trimming the minutes of Khris Middleton, Jordan Poole and Marcus Smart down the final stretch of the season or sat them entirely. The Utah Jazz did incur a $100,000 fine for violating the league's player participation policy with Lauri Markkanen, but the Jazz didn't stop there. Third-year center Walker Kessler began bombing away from deep late in the year despite shooting less than 20 percent from downtown. (That was a feature, not a bug.)

The NBA's player participation policy prohibits teams from "any long-term shutdown (or near shutdown) whereby a star player ceases participating in games or begins to play a materially reduced role in circumstances affecting the integrity of the game." By the NBA's definition of star—anyone who made an All-Star or All-NBA team in the previous three seasons—Middleton, Markkanen and Scottie Barnes all would have qualified. The NBA did not punish the Wizards or Raptors at all for their late-season handling of Middleton or Barnes.

The league office can't impose rotation patterns on teams, nor can it force them to give players a certain number of minutes. It attempted to thwart star shutdowns by requiring players to appear in at least 65 games to be eligible for All-NBA teams—which could have financial considerations for certain players as well—but that only impacts players who are in consideration for those honors.

If the NBA is serious about combating tanking, it should enforce the player participation policy that's currently in place. It could also expand it to apply to non-star players, particularly when it's obvious that a team is trying to throw a game down the stretch by resting its healthy starters.

But if the NBA won't enforce its own rules, there's little it can do to prevent teams from tanking.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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