Predicting Most Shameless Tankers Down the Stretch
Think the NBA's recent fines for the Utah Jazz ($500,000) and Indiana Pacers ($100,000) are going to curtail tanking coming out of the All-Star break?
Think again.
Despite Jazz owner Ryan Smith pushing back on that idea on X, fines are unlikely to dissuade teams from continuing their deliberate tumbles down the standings.
Sure, the league can probably get to a high enough number that causes billionaires to flinch. We aren't there yet. And given NBA commissioner Adam Silver's preference to rule with an inflatable fist, we're not getting there this season.
The stakes are simply too high for too many teams. Higher draft picks don't just represent bites at the star-player apple. They are franchise lifelines. Entire windows are carved out on the draft-lottery dais. Fortunes shift. Courses alter. Forever.
So long as the NBA's lottery system gives the worst teams better odds at a top pick, there will be a strong incentive to sink toward the bottom of the standings.
The task is less about identifying who's simply bad and more about spotting which struggling teams might behave like they're prioritizing the future over short‑term results.
Brooklyn Nets
1 of 5
Without control over their 2027 first‑round pick, the Brooklyn Nets are heavily incentivized to care about where they finish in the standings. That urgency only grows after last year's late‑season slide still left them with just the No. 8 pick in the lottery.
Brooklyn hasn't messed around since the start of the New Year. After spending much of December defending way too well, it has the league's worst point differential since Dec. 29.
Michael Porter Jr. also hasn't played since Feb. 7 because of a knee issue. How Brooklyn manages his minutes—and those of helpful contributors such as Day'Ron Sharpe, Noah Clowney, Terance Mann and Nicolas Claxton—will reveal how aggressively the NBA intends to police overt tanking after its recent fines.
None of Brooklyn's players qualify as a "star" under the league's participation policy. Dinging teams like the Jazz, Indiana Pacers and even Washington Wizards is easier according to the letter of the law.
Perhaps the NBA office is content to let the Nets go untouched. Maybe waiving Cam Thomas is a decidedly anti-tanking enough move to buy some grace. One way or the other, Brooklyn should be pushing the bill far enough for us to find out.
Dallas Mavericks
2 of 5
The Dallas Mavericks' tanking situation is at once more dire and less pivotal than the typical rebuilding squad.
On the one hand, they have Cooper Flagg, a true franchise tent pole. They don't rank highly on the "Needs A Best Player" scale.
On the other hand, after this year, they won't control their own first-round pick again until 2031. This is their last chance to add a potential star on a cost-controlled contract for a while.
Flagg's post-All-Star-break availability will be a good barometer for the Mavs' tanking efforts. A left midfoot sprain sidelined him just prior to the NBA adjourning for Los Angeles and through the Rising Stars Game. Conventional tanking wisdom suggests they bubble-wrap the 19-year-old for the rest of the season—particularly when Rookie of the Year is among the exceptions to the 65-game rule.
Still, this presumes that Flagg's victory is fait accompli. It's not. Some would put Kon Knueppel on the ballot over him right now. Does Dallas really want to be known, even if just anecdotally, as the franchise who cost Flagg ROY hardware? When they're already the franchise known for trading You-Know-Who?
Most definitely not. Then again, with a jumble of teams in their win-loss range, the Mavs may have no choice but to at the very least limit Flagg's court time the rest of the way—you know, for the good of his long-term health.
Indiana Pacers
3 of 5
Including the Indiana Pacers requires a pair of assumptions, the first of which is: They want to keep this year's pick.
This is only mildly debatable. They will be sending their first-rounder to the Los Angeles Clippers as compensation for Ivica Zubac if it lands in the sixth, seventh, eighth or ninth spot. Should it fall in the top four or to 10th or lower, it stays put and they instead convey their 2031 first-rounder to the Clips.
Galaxy-brain this hard enough, and you could talk yourself into the Pacers preferring the flexibility of having distant first-round picks to deal once Tyrese Haliburton is ready to rock. I can't get there. A top-four pick in this year's draft holds more value than a selection in 2031.
Not that Indiana would actually move such a selection; the franchise is notoriously cost‑conscious and risk‑averse. The Zubac trade is an anomaly. Getting a potentially high-end contributor on a cost-controlled deal is right up its alley.
Which brings us to our second assumption: The Pacers will not be deterred by the specter of fat fines from the league office.
This one's harder to guarantee. I'm not sure how many six-figure checks owner Herb Simon is willing to cut in order to cover fines, but the team's past spending habits suggest it's not many. There is also this aura of ethical team-building practices around how the Pacers were assembled. They're not drowning in top-of-the-lottery selections. They got here, for the most part, hitting on trades and marginal transactions.
Ultimately, the opportunity at hand will prove too enticing to pass up. They'll fight like hell to remain inside one of the top-four lottery spots.
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Milwaukee Bucks
4 of 5
There is not much value to the Milwaukee Bucks tanking at first glance. They do not control the rights to their own first-round pick. But they will get the less favorable of their own and the New Orleans Pelicans' selections. With the latter circling the drain, Milwaukee will be assured a lottery prospect if it avoids the Eastern Conference playoffs.
Giannis Antetokounmpo will be the first to tell you he won't sign off on any approach that doesn't entail him playing with the dials all turned to 11. That is admirable. And currently counterintuitive.
Antetokounmpo has already missed enough games that he won't qualify for year-end awards. And carrying the Bucks into the playoffs via the play-in is commendable only if this team has a prayer of making it to the NBA Finals. It doesn't.
The Bucks, and by extension Giannis, are better off optimizing the value of this year's draft selection. A higher-than-expected pick increases the ceiling on who they select, which either helps the team's depth or its best-possible offers over the offseason.
Shutting down Giannis is the only way to ensure Milwaukee doesn't flub this opportunity. It has a net rating that ranks in the 76th percentile with him on the court. It plunges to the 16th percentile when he's off. Informing him of a tanking pivot won't be fun. But an awkward conversation beats unnecessarily risking the team's ability to make the biggest-possible splash over the summer.
Utah Jazz
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The Utah Jazz arguably have more at stake than any other team in the tanking race. Their pick goes to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it falls lower than eighth, and after trading for Jaren Jackson Jr. at the deadline, they're clearly hoping this will be their year partaking in the sprint toward the bottom.
Utah has not shied away from flagrant tanking maneuvers in the past. Or this season.
Jackson and Lauri Markkanen were both pulled from fourth quarters in the games that led to Utah's recent fine, which the league classified as conduct detrimental to the NBA. Jackson is now out for the season after the team and his representatives opted to address a localized PVNS growth in his left knee with surgery over the All‑Star break, a procedure the Jazz say was scheduled after it was detected on a post‑trade MRI.
At any rate, Jazz fans better hope the half-million-dollar fine doesn't deter the C-Suite from its egregious measures. Utah needs to finish no higher than 27th in the standings to guarantee its pick stays put. Two losses currently separate it from falling that far.
Losing Jackson for the season will help that cause, but the Jazz are sixth overall in crunch-time point differential. This is not a team that can take its eye off the, ahem, ping pong ball.
Dan Favale is a National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
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