Adam Silver is making one thing clear, the NBA draft system is about to change. Following a two-day Board of Governors meeting, the league’s commissioner addressed growing concerns around tanking and confirmed that significant adjustments are on the way.
“I do think ultimately this is a decision that needs to be made at the ownership level,” Silver said. “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.”
The urgency comes amid increasing frustration around teams manipulating their position in the draft lottery, particularly with a highly anticipated 2026 draft class on the horizon. Silver acknowledged that the current system is creating incentives that don’t align with competitive integrity.
“There is an aspect of team building that is called a genuine rebuild, a rebuild with integrity,” Silver said. “The problem we’re having these days is it’s become almost impossible to distinguish between the tank and rebuild.”
To address the issue, the NBA is planning a special meeting in May, with the goal of implementing changes before next season begins.
“Certainly going into next season, the incentives will be completely different than they are now,” Silver said.
Silver emphasised that the league is in a strong place competitively, with a large number of teams still in contention heading into the postseason.
“I will say, I really like where the league is right now because I’m sorry to have to talk about tanking because it takes away from the incredible competition we’re seeing from roughly 20 teams in the league right now going into a wide-open playoffs … It’s really exciting basketball,” Silver said. And what’s so incredible about live sports at this level — and I think it’s wide, not just the NBA, but we’re seeing a rising tide among all premium sports — is that people have this hunger for this live, unscripted drama. Of course, the opposite of that is when there’s a sense that both teams aren’t out there trying to kill themselves to win a game. And so as I said, we have to fix that problem.”
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