That said, it’s a bit of a leap of faith, we grant you, but the boss has warned that teams practicing “tanking” this year will suffer punishment worthy of the name.
In truth, we don’t really know what the punishment will be for this 2022/2023 exercise, but Adam Silver will be more cautious about this tanking phenomenon. For those who haven’t been following, tanking is an insidious strategy adopted by rebuilding franchises that intentionally loses as many games as possible in order to reclaim the next No. 1 draft pick. With the next generation of talent coming in next season (hello Victor Wenbanyama), you can imagine some teams (hello the SA Spurs) will subscribe to this practice.
A planned downgrade?
From a sporting, technical and financial point of view, the question of relegation to the secondary league (G-League) is impossible, even if imagined many times. On ESPN’s Mics, Adam Silver says: “(Tanking) is something we have to watch. The draft is a good system in principle. But I understand, especially when a generational player comes along like this year. […] Teams are creative – they try things, we try things – so we’re always trying to see if there’s a better system. » Watch out Spurs, Jazz, Thunder and all the other bad guys, the boss has his eye on you.