The NBA is once again taking a hard look at tanking, and the timing is no coincidence.
As the league continues to deal with the fallout from a gambling scandal that exposed how injury information and late-season lineup decisions can be exploited, officials have begun exploring new ways to remove the incentive to lose on purpose.
The focus isn’t on rebuilding teams as a whole, but on the gray areas that allow competitive integrity to erode late in the season, particularly when draft positioning and protected picks come into play.
According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, the league recently gathered input from owners and general managers at a Board of Governors meeting, presenting several early-stage ideas tied to the draft lottery, traded pick protections and late-season incentives. No proposals have been formally adopted, but the goal, per Charania, is to discourage teams from manipulating availability or outcomes once draft math starts to outweigh on-court priorities.
That context matters for a team like the Nets.
Brooklyn is rebuilding, but it hasn’t done so by shutting players down or openly chasing losses. Healthy veterans have played. Young players have earned minutes. The Nets have competed nightly and lived with the consequences of a roster still learning how to close games and sustain success. Losses have come organically, not strategically. That’s the version of rebuilding the league has said it wants to protect.
Among the concepts discussed, per Charania, were limiting pick protections to either the top four or outside the lottery entirely, preventing teams from drafting in the top four in consecutive years and potentially locking lottery order after March 1. Each idea is designed to eliminate the middle ground where teams feel incentivized to sit contributors late in a season to preserve a protected pick or subtly slide down the standings.
For Brooklyn, stricter anti-tanking measures could actually be beneficial. If the payoff for late-season tanking shrinks, teams that continue to compete aren’t punished for winning games they’re “not supposed” to win. A March 1 lottery lock, for example, would remove the connection between April results and draft odds altogether, allowing young teams to focus purely on development without worrying about harming long-term positioning.
It would also reinforce habits the Nets have already emphasized: accountability, availability and real-game reps for young players. Instead of navigating a league where some teams pull the plug early, Brooklyn’s approach would look less like an outlier and more like the standard.
None of this is imminent, and Charania said conversations are still in the early stages. Still, the direction is clear. The league wants fewer incentives to game the standings, stronger injury transparency and a cleaner line between rebuilding and manipulation.
For the Nets, that approach already feels familiar and increasingly aligned with where the league appears to be headed.
