Is the NBA’s response enough to curb its tanking epidemic?

Each week during the 2025-26 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

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Fact or Fiction: The NBA’s response is enough to curb its tanking epidemic

The NBA’s tanking problem, it seems, creeps earlier and earlier into the season, to the point that two teams were fined on Thursday for violating the league’s tanking policies.

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In consecutive games against the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat, the Utah Jazz removed Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. prior to fourth quarters that were still in doubt and never reinserted either former All-Star into the contests. The Jazz blew a 17-point lead in the final 13:49 of a 120-117 loss to the Magic and actually held on to defeat the Heat 115-111.

Asked how close he came to subbing Markkanen and Jackson back in, Jazz coach Will Hardy said plainly, “I wasn’t,” blatantly baiting the league into taking action against them.

As Miami’s Bam Adebayo, whose Heat are vying for a play-in berth, conceded afterward, “We’ve got to find a way to win against teams that are, I guess you can say, trying to lose.”

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So, there you had it: The Jazz were clearly undermining the integrity of the game, and an opposing player called them on it, which resulted in a $500,000 fine for Utah’s franchise.

“Overt behavior like this that prioritizes draft position over winning undermines the foundation of NBA competition and we will respond accordingly to any further actions that compromise the integrity of our games,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in Thursday’s press release. “Additionally, we are working with our competition committee and board of governors to implement further measures to root out this type of conduct.”

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The league’s board of governors plans to meet in March, when tanking will be a hot topic.

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Jazz governor Ryan Smith is worth an estimated $2.6 billion, which means that $500,000 is about the same as $1 to…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/is-the-nbas-response-enough-to-curb-its-tanking-epidemic-171534628.html

Author : Ben Rohrbach

Publish date : 2026-02-13 17:15:00

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