Jonathan Kamens 86 47
I just listened to this Planet Money episode about NBA teams taking to get better draft picks: https://www.npr.org/2026/03/06/nx-s1-5739178/nba-draft-tanking
Here's my plan for solving the problem. Tell me what's wrong with it!
Rank the teams based on their whole-season performance, BUT rather than considering all the games for the entire season, use a random subsample of games (like, say, ΒΌ), with the random selection algorithm weighted to choose more games near the start of the season.
#PlanetMoney #NBA #NBADraft (1/3)
Mar 9 at 9:33pmWeb
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47Mar 9
The teams won't know which of their games will be considered when determining their place in the draft, and they're exceedingly unlikely to tank games near the beginning of the season when they're trying to draw fans to games and get into the playoffs. They won't be able to sway their draft position significantly if they start tanking at the end of the season, since the majority of the sampled games will be before that. (2/3)
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47Mar 9
A team whose performance changes dramatically part-way through the season may end up ranked "incorrectly" by this method, but not hugely so and in any case this will produce a lot better results than a lottery.
This method seems sufficiently obvious to me that _I_ must be missing some obvious reason why it won't work or will produce its own perverse incentives that are worse than what the league has now. So, what am I missing? (3/3)
Show threadFinitumMar 9
@jik would that preclude a team from dogging it from the outset or built to fail? A team like the Wizards started the season 4-28 & the Pacers start 6-27 for instance, there's not very much incentive for them to turn the effort up after that point. The 76ers had like a multi-year commitment to losing, that shouldn't happen.
The proposals I saw before the all star break looked good to me at least, some along the lines of your suggestion https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2026/02/silver-tells-gms-nba-intends-to-enact-anti-tanking-rules.html
Silver Tells GMs NBA Intends To Enact Anti-Tanking Rules

NBA commissioner Adam Silver told the league's general managers that anti-tanking rules will be enacted next season.

Hoops Rumors
Show threadJonathan Kamens 86 47Mar 9
@Finitum It seems to be that if you have a team committed to tanking the entire season you have a much bigger problem and I think you're going to need rules specifically designed to address that.