The Solution to Tanking and the Solution to the Season Being Too Long Is the Same Solution

The NBA is neck deep in ... well, controversy isn't the right word, but something akin to controversy. Tanking is rampant in the NBA, and it has been for some time. It hasn't stopped because the league fined the Utah Jazz. All of the teams in the bottom 10 are racing to the bottom for the right to get the best odds of landing the No. 1 pick, and have continued to do so post All-Star break. I don't really want to list examples because they're all so very depressing, but trust me, it's still happening.

Meanwhile, players are dropping like flies. As of Saturday, six of the 15 players who made All-NBA last season have already gone past the cutoff for awards this season, and Nikola Jokić (16 games missed) and Evan Mobley (14) are close to the cutoff (17 games missed is the max) as well. The season is too long. Owners have been resistant to changing the schedule, because dropping games means dropping gate revenue, and they don't like that.

There is a single solution to both problems. What I propose is capping the season at 76 games – so three fewer home games per team. In place of these final two weeks of the regular season, there would be a newly created tournament – the No. 1 tournament, whose prize would be the No. 1 pick. I like the idea of Tombstone Wins. I like the idea of eliminating restricted free agency. I like the idea of removing draft pick protections. But none of those is a silver bullet to fix tanking on its own, and none moves us to a system where the No. 1 pick is anything but random (I also favor abolishing the draft, though that is simply never going to happen).

A tournament for the No. 1 pick would be spectacular. And to build to it, if the bad teams that would play for it would want to win the tourney, they would need to play their guys down the stretch, build a rhythm, build consistency. Because the tournament wouldn't be just to get the No. 1 pick. How you did in the tournament would determine your draft slot. So if you lost right away, you would get a worse pick.

Format

Each season, there are 10 teams that don't make either the playoffs or the Play-In Tournament. Those are the 10 teams that would have the opportunity to get the No. 1 pick. Right there is a big change. If you're going to compete for a playoff spot, you don't get to get the No. 1 pick. No more would we have the Dallas Mavericks lucking into Cooper Flagg after flopping in the Play-In Tournament. That was a patently ridiculous result, and should be legislated out.

We would also make it much harder for the better teams who just miss the Play-In to get the No. 1 pick. Since you need a bracket of eight teams for a tournament, we need to whittle things down first, and would create a bracket like so:

The initial 10/7, 9/8 games would be single elimination, and then we would pair them up in a way such that the worst teams – the 1, 2, 3, and 4 seeds – get the most favorable matchups. And the three rounds of the tournament would be structured to favor these four teams as well. There would be a possibility of two games played in each round, but the lower seeds would only need to win once to advance, while the higher seed (aka the better team) would need to win twice.

Could you have some gaming of the system to drop into these bottom four slots? Yes. But again, if you're a bad team that's going to end up in this tournament, and you're taking away the potential for your team to gel by sitting players who aren't hurt, you're in the long run going to damage your ability to play cohesively in this tournament and earn the No. 1 pick. And that gamesmanship aside, there will still always be bad teams. The Sacramento Kings were destined to be one of the worst teams in the NBA this season no matter who they played. They deserve a little bit of an edge. And with the possibility of getting the No. 1 pick on the line, perhaps they wouldn't be shutting guys down quite so soon. Overall, I think this would be a net positive.

Timeline

The 76th game for every team this season occurs from between March 29th and April 2nd, with 21 teams getting there on either March 31st or April 1st. The Play-In Tournament is scheduled to take place April 14th-17th, with the Playoffs starting the 18th. So April 3-13 is our window. Here's how I have it structured:

The No. 1 tournament leads right into the Play-In, which then stays on its regular schedule and feeds right into the playoffs. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Benefits

First thing's first. The No. 1 tournament could be sold as a package to sponsors and media, and the money earned from that should theoretically offset any losses the league and owners would take from each losing three home games. And of course, not every team would be losing three home games. In some cases, the teams involved would end up playing the full 82 games, and for the 7-10 seeds, they would need to play 83 to win. So this is very much a have your cake and eat it too situation for the league. And the No. 1 tourney in general would give the NBA the opportunity to capture the hearts and minds of the public for another full two weeks leading into the Play-In Tournament. You could dub it the Lovable Losers tourney. This is honestly pure gold. Major League Baseball benefits from these story lines every September. The downtrodden team calls up its No. 1 prospect and shows that there's something to look forward to for next season, that sort of thing.

Nearly of equal importance is the benefit to the teams who reach the Play-In and playoffs, which is astronomical. If you're a top six seed, you now get a full three weeks off to rest, practice, and get ready for the postseason. If you're a Play-In team, you get two weeks to rest, practice, and put your best foot forward to reach the playoffs. The benefits of this cannot be overstated. How many times have we seen playoff games turn on wear and tear injuries? One literally ruined Game 7 of the NBA Finals last year. This break would allow players to have a real reset, and allow the NBA to put the best possible product on the floor in the playoffs. With such a break, and with six fewer games on the docket for each of these teams, you again may see teams hesitate to shut down players, as they will know they have a long rest coming. This would not only improve the playoffs, but also the waning days of the regular season.

Potential Tweaks

I really love this plan, but there are some alternative ways you could structure it. For starters, you could run it concurrent to the Play-In tournament. In this way, you run the end of the regular season like normal, and can spread out the 76 games played throughout the regular season more widely, eliminating some back-to-back games in the process. I would argue that it'd be better to get rid of the Emirates Cup to achieve that, but obviously that tournament already exists and the NBA will be loathe to cancel it.

In my version, I have the tournament taking place at the home arenas of the lower (1-4 seeds), so as to give them the maximum edge in securing the best picks in the draft possible. But you could also host the whole thing at a neutral location. Doing so would cut down on travel and potentially allow you to finish the tourney faster.

Hosting it a neutral location would also give you the opportunity to utilize a round robin format that would be too time consuming to do if you let teams play in their own arenas. Personally, I don't much care for round robin formats, it's too hard to explain. The beauty of March Madness is that you just need that single sheet of paper to know how the entire tournament is going to go. But round robin may be more fair.

Finally, you could just tell the 9 and 10 seeds that sorry, you're out of luck. Not only did you miss the Play-In, but now you also don't get to compete for the No. 1 pick. I think that in a perfect world, saying that to those teams would spur them to try to crack the Play-In Tournament, but you could also see the opposite being true, where they would try to tank down to the eight seed of the No. 1 Tournament. So I included them.

Bottom Line

The NBA has two major problems, and needs an inspired solution(s). Tweaks are inevitable, because stepping out and making bold changes is scary, especially when you're a large organization with a lot at stake. But I think the No. 1 Tournament would be bold, inspiring, and welcome change. The league has made absolutely everything more complicated in the past few years. From draft pick protections, to the salary cap, luxury tax, and apron thresholds and penalties, and of course the various cable and streaming services that host the games, being an NBA fan in 2026 requires a lot of work. Fandom shouldn't require this much work.

The NBA could step in and say "hey, we have a simple solution for the No. 1 pick – PLAY FOR IT." It would be simple, it would be fun, and it would be a hell of a lot more fair and exciting than watching ping pong balls bounce around in some weird, private room in Secaucus, N.J. And in the process, the league could use the creation of the No. 1 Tournament as cover for shortening the season, which will benefit the league as a whole, and create an opportunity for the Playoffs to become the best they can possibly be. Two birds, one stone. Do you have what it takes to be No. 1?