Original Post: https://fanspo.com/nba/s/nba_articles/p/inbnhpFhR_YYIP/my-cure-for-tanking

The best way to put an end to tanking would be to penalize the teams that finish at the bottom of the standings instead of rewarding them with the best odds to land a top pick in the draft.

• Teams with the 4 worst records in the league would not be eligible for a Top 4 pick.

• Those bottom 4 teams would pick 5th-8th with a random draw or lottery between the 4 teams used to determine their exact draft position.

• The 10 other non playoff teams (those with the 5th-14th worst record) would be entered into the draft lottery for the top 4 picks.

• Each of these 10 teams will have an equal chance (10%) at the #1 pick & an equal chance for a top 4 pick

• The 6 teams that did not move up into the top 4 will be placed in draft slots 9-14 based on their season record (worst record gets the higher pick)

I believe this would help cure tanking in 2 ways.

• The non-playoff teams would likely do everything in their power to avoid finishing in the bottom 4 and miss out on the chance of securing a top 4 pick.

• Teams would likely not tank to purposely avoid making the play-in tourney, since making it in would not hurt their lottery odds.

• One negative thing I could see happening is a team or teams tanking the play in games (which already happens) to get into the lottery if they know they don't have a legit chance in the playoffs or are still building and want the chance to add one more young piece before trying to make a playoff run.

Just want to remind everyone that believes not allowing the bottom 4 teams to be eligible for a top 4 pick is too harsh

• Last season the bottom 4 teams picked 4/5/6/7

• in 2024 the bottom 4 teams picked 2/5/6/7

• Even with the current system the bottom 4 teams often do not get Top 4 picks.