NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced Wednesday after two days of Board fo Governors meetings that the board will hold a special session in May to alter the NBA Draft and discuss other options to minimize tanking.
Silver said of tanking, "I do think ultimately this is a decision that needs to be made at the ownership level. It has business implications, has basketball implications, has integrity implications for the league. So, it's one that we take very seriously, and we are going to fix it. Full stop."
"Certainly going into next season, the incentives will be completely different than they are now," Silver said of the pending draft changes, without offering specifics. On tanking specifically he said the challenge "we're having these days is it's become almost impossible to distinguish between the tank and rebuild. ... My sense is when I say fix now, yes, we need to do something more extreme than we did with those incremental changes the last four times along."
My take: As Silver said, the problem has gotten out of control. The steps taken to discourage the practice and improve participation have not worked and have been abused. He gave teams a fair chance to self-police, now they'll be under the thumb. We'll see what the draft changes are, but they would have to be pretty drastic to make a real difference.
THE ASYLUM
Silver: Time to tank tanking
NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced Wednesday after two days of Board fo Governors meetings that the board will hold a special session in May to alter the NBA Draft and discuss other options to minimize tanking.
Silver said of tanking, "I do think ultimately this is a decision that needs to be made at the ownership level. It has business implications, has basketball implications, has integrity implications for the league. So, it's one that we take very seriously, and we are going to fix it. Full stop."
"Certainly going into next season, the incentives will be completely different than they are now," Silver said of the pending draft changes, without offering specifics. On tanking specifically he said the challenge "we're having these days is it's become almost impossible to distinguish between the tank and rebuild. ... My sense is when I say fix now, yes, we need to do something more extreme than we did with those incremental changes the last four times along."
My take: As Silver said, the problem has gotten out of control. The steps taken to discourage the practice and improve participation have not worked and have been abused. He gave teams a fair chance to self-police, now they'll be under the thumb. We'll see what the draft changes are, but they would have to be pretty drastic to make a real difference.
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