The NBA’s 10-team tanking spectacular will produce disgusting basketball

The NBA trade deadline charts the course for the rest of the season, and now it’s in the rearview mirror ahead of the 2026 playoffs. In the wake of the trade wreckage, there’s a small inner circle of championship contenders, and a slightly larger group of teams with a puncher’s chance of winning it all. Some teams, even good ones, realized they probably have no shot at the title, so they decided to simply cut their payroll or make smaller moves around the margins that could impact the roster next year. Then there are the teams whose top objective was maximizing their ping-pong balls for the upcoming NBA Draft lottery for a stacked 2026 class with three potential No. 1 overall talents leading the way. Read our latest 2026 NBA mock draft for more on this class.

It was easy to see a massive tank race eventually forming even before this season started. Kansas guard Darryn Peterson, Duke forward Cameron Boozer, and BYU wing A.J. Dybantsa were all no-brainer elite prospects coming out of high school who were destined to leave NBA GMs salivating. When North Carolina forward Caleb Wilson and Houston guard Kingston Flemings also emerged as excellent prospects in their own right, the 2026 draft had a legit top-5 that rivals any in my 13 years on the beat here.

The current NBA rookie class is already so good, and next year’s could be even better. As the trades were going down on deadline day, I noticed there were a ton of teams incentivized to lose every game the rest of the season if they could. It might be even worse than it looks:

Three of the biggest trades at the deadline involved tanking teams as buyers: the Jazz acquired Jaren Jackson Jr. for a package headlined by three future first-round picks, the Wizards made a shocking deal for Anthony Davis, the Pacers went out and got Ivica Zubac for two premium future first round picks. Does that mean that these teams are going to start trying to win games immediately?

Of course not! Utah’s pick is top-8 protected to the Thunder, and they just pulled all of their starters with a 17-point lead in the fourth quarter and lost. The Wizards have already indicated Davis and Trae Young probably won’t play a game for the organization this season. Zubac had been healthy and productive for the Clippers this season, and now the Pacers will have to figure out how to proceed with him after trading a top-4 protected 2026 first-round pick that morphs into an unprotected 2031 first-rounder if it lands in the protected zone.

NBA draft lottery odds by spot and rules

The bottom three teams all have a 14 percent chance at the No. 1 overall pick and a 52.1 percent chance to land in the top-four. Final lottery positioning is still important: teams can only fall a maximum of four spots after the lottery, meaning the team that finishes with the worst record can do no worse than the No. 5 pick, the team with the second-worst record can’t fall further than No. 6, and so on.

Here are the odds for the No. 1 pick and each top-4 slot from every spot in the lottery:

At this point, the entire bottom-10 is incentivized to try to lose out. Let’s run through the stakes for each team looking at the standings as of Tuesday morning:

1. Sacramento Kings (12-43): Tried to win with veterans like Zach LaVine, Domantas Sabonis, Russell Westbrook, and DeMar DeRozan, but never had any chance. The roster never fit, and most of the key pieces struggle to impact winning despite putting up solid numbers. This tank is as ethical as it gets, but this franchise just feels hopeless.
2. Indiana Pacers (13-40): Gap year without Tyrese Haliburton. Pick is traded to the Clippers for Zubac, 1-4 protected. The Pacers basically decided they only want Boozer, Peterson, Dybantsa, or Wilson, and were otherwise willing to give up the pick. Pacers brass is going to be watching the lottery with bated breath. Indy deserves lottery luck more than any other team after watching Haliburton get hurt in Game 7 of the NBA Finals last year.
3. Washington Wizards (14-38): The Wizards will be resting Trae Young and Anthony Davis the rest of the season it seems. Washington’s rebuild could suddenly look really interesting if they can land inside the top-4.
4. New Orleans Pelicans (15-40) -> Atlanta Hawks: The Pelicans traded their unprotected 2026 first-round pick to Atlanta to move up to select Derik Queen. New Orleans was always in danger of being horrible this season, and that’s exactly what happened. The Hawks played their cards perfectly and could luck into a top prospect without tanking.
5. Brooklyn Nets (15-37): The Nets owe a pick swap to the Houston Rockets next year, so they need lottery luck now while they can still get it.
6. Utah Jazz (16-37): The Jazz are blatantly tanking by resting their starters in the fourth quarter. The Jazz would seemingly love to keep Dybantsa in Utah.
7. Dallas Mavericks (19-33): The Mavs have to get lucky in the lottery too without control of their first-round pick until 2031 due to trades the franchise made to build around Luka Doncic. Whoops. Dallas cashed in on a 1.8 percent chance from the No. 11 spot last year to Cooper Flagg, and needs to find him a co-star this year.
8. Memphis Grizzlies (20-31): Traded Jaren Jackson Jr. after trading Desmond Bane over the summer. The Grizzlies are loaded with future picks and are set to rebuild around Zach Edey, Cedric Coward, and the rest of their young core.
9. Milwaukee Bucks (21-30): The Bucks can pick as high as No. 2 this year with lottery luck, because the Hawks have the most favorable of their pick and the Pelicans’ pick. The front office probably wants the team to try to lose out, but will Giannis Antetokounmpo push them to compete if he comes back healthy?
10. Chicago Bulls (24-30): The Bulls have refused to tank for years, but finally played the role of sellers at the trade deadline. If the NBA wants to reward teams who don’t lose on purpose, the Bulls deserve some lottery luck. They haven’t had a top-3 pick since they selected Derrick Rose at No. 1 in 2008 despite having the NBA’s fifth-worst cumulative record since the start of the 2017-2018 season. The Bulls have some solid role players, but they haven’t had a superstar in a long, long time.

The NBA’s tanking problem could solve itself after this year … for a little bit

Why did the Jazz and Wizards both make win-now trades for veterans after being long-time tanking teams? My theory is because the 2027 NBA Draft doesn’t look like it’s worth tanking for. While we knew prospects like Victor Wembanyama, Cooper Flagg, and Cameron Boozer were studs by the time they were sophomores in high school, there’s no one that looks the part of a future NBA superstar yet in the current senior class. I’d say the top prospects in 2027 right now are Tyran Stokes, Caleb Holt, and Anthony Thompson, but none of them are even close to a sure thing. The 2028 NBA Draft also doesn’t have an obvious top prospect at this point.

Obviously, a lot can change between now and the day of the 2027 and 2028 drafts, but at this point I’m expecting weaker classes the next two years. I want to stress I could be very wrong about that, but it’s just how it feels right now based on the top player juniors and seniors plus the international classes. My guess is the Wizards and Jazz wouldn’t have made their deadline deals if another Wembanyama or Flagg was coming next year.

Every draft has good players, even bad ones. I covered the 2013 NBA Draft here when Anthony Bennett went No. 1. That was a bad draft. It also had two Hall of Famers picked after the lottery in Giannis Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert, plus a ton of solid players mixed in. My two cents is that every draft has good players, but not every draft is worth tanking for.

The NBA has already introduced anti-tanking measures this year. These are all up for debate:

There’s nothing the NBA can do this year to discourage tanking. I predict the next two years won’t have anything like this tank race.

The lottery has given us some true stunners in recent years. The Hawks moved from No. 10 in the lottery to the No. 1 pick in 2024. The Mavericks moved up from No. 11 to win the rights to Cooper Flagg. That’s some hope to cling to for Chicago, Milwaukee, and Memphis right now.

Most teams still have about 30 games left before the end of the year. That means there’s going to be a lot of bad basketball in the name of trying to get the best odds possible to land a top prospect. I don’t think this will be an issue every year, but there’s no saving the NBA’s competitive integrity for the rest of this season.