Breaking news! Adam Silver informs NBA's 30 general managers: Anti-tanking rules will be revamped next season.

On February 20th Beijing time, as reported by Shams and ESPN insiders, NBA commissioner Adam Silver informed the 30 general managers that the league intends to adjust the anti-tanking rules for next season. Relevant parties have held more extensive talks on fighting tanking.

Multiple sources familiar with the general managers’ meeting and the late January competition committee meeting told ESPN that the current anti-tanking proposals include the following—

First-round draft picks will only allow top-4 protection or top-14+ protection.

Lottery odds will be frozen at the trade deadline or a later point in time.

Teams are prohibited from picking in the top 4 for two consecutive years, and/or from picking top 4 after finishing in the bottom three for three straight seasons.

Teams reaching the conference semifinals are barred from receiving a top-4 pick the following year.

Lottery odds will be allocated based on team performance over two seasons.

The lottery pool will expand to include all play-in tournament teams.

Lottery odds for all lottery teams will be flattened (reducing disparity so worse records no longer guarantee higher odds).

The NBA’s concern over tanking has grown, leading to an in-depth discussion at the competition committee’s January meeting. Three days later, the league fined the Jazz and Pacers $500,000 and $100,000 respectively for prioritizing draft position over winning. Two days after that, commissioner Adam Silver told reporters at the All-Star press conference that the NBA is considering “all possible remedies” to curb tanking.

As Forbes reporter Zagoria noted, Silver acknowledged that tanking may be more severe this season since the 2026 draft class is widely regarded as stronger than those of 2027 and 2028. However, the league appears unwilling to stand by passively over the coming years.

According to The Athletic’s Joe Varden, league officials discussed about ten potential solutions during All-Star weekend. Varden said outright eliminating the draft was not among the options, but Sam Amick of The Athletic reported that the “draft wheel” concept, first proposed over a decade ago by Celtics executive Mike Zarren, has resurfaced on the discussion list. Varden pointed out that any major changes require approval from NBA owners and likely the players’ union as well.

Mavericks minority owner Mark Cuban, in two lengthy tweets, explained why tanking has worsened in recent years and argued that the NBA should accept or at least tolerate tanking as a legitimate team-building strategy.

In contrast, Suns owner Mat Ishbia strongly opposes the idea that tanking is a valid strategy, tweeting that tanking “is far worse than any betting scandal” and urging Silver and the NBA to be willing to implement “major reforms” to address the issue.

ESPN reporter Bobby Marks supports changing the lottery rules: after a certain point in the season, such as the trade deadline, All-Star weekend, or a fixed number of games, wins would count as losses and losses as wins for lottery eligibility calculations. For example, if the cutoff is 50 games, and a team goes 22-28 in the first 50 games but then deliberately tanks with a 4-28 record, their lottery record would be adjusted to 50-32, counting the latter losses as wins. Marks explained this approach is intended to punish, not reward, teams that try to lose deliberately in the final two months.