The NBA All-Star break can be a boring time for folks in the media space, like myself. There aren’t any real games to cover, and the All-Star Weekend product isn’t what it once was. The absence of content leaves a great deal of room for complaining.
This year, those complaints, on a national scale, went one of two places. Either people voiced how boring or unwatchable the All-Star stuff was (valid, though the game itself got great reviews this year), or they told everyone they know that tanking is ruining the NBA and the league has to do something to stop it.
(I know this is a Boston Celtics site, we’ll get to them shortly, don’t worry).
Frankly, the whining and crying about tanking is stupid. Is it a little annoying that teams are manipulating players’ playing time to avoid giving them fourth quarter minutes? Sure.
Does it suck for fans who paid to see those guys play? Absolutely.
Unfortunately for the anti-tank association, bad teams essentially have no choice but to tank.
Celtics fans are lucky (no pun intended). They had to watch their team spend just one year in the lottery, 12 years ago now, before the front office made the moves necessary to get back into the playoffs every season since.
This is rarely the case. In fact, it’s almost impossible to build a contending team without tanking. Here’s why.
Tanking (or drafting high/well) is a necessity in today's NBA
First and foremost, the NBA is the only professional sports league where adding one player can completely change the trajectory of a franchise. In each of the other major leagues in the United States, there are simply too many factors that go towards winning for that to be the case.
Basketball is just a different game. Only five players from each team can be on the court at a time, and in the playoffs, it’s rare to see a rotation go further than eight deep. Even though that now, more than ever, depth is important in the NBA, a team can only get so far without a top-tier player or two leading the way.
Okay, so, if you need an elite-level guy to compete for a championship, how can you go about adding that talent. Technically, a franchise can bring in players through free agency, trade, or the draft.
Free agency? What is this, 2016?
Let’s start with free agency -- a relic much like the penny, landline phone, or video store. A decade ago, free agency was awesome. You’d stay up past midnight to find out which players had signed where -- a joy that today’s children will never experience.
What happened?
Well, the only players who enter free agency anymore are those whose teams did not want to offer them a contract extension. In July of 2025, the likes of Myles Turner, Josh Giddey, and Nickeil Alexander-Walker headlined the free agency class.
Why?
As part of the 2017 amendment to the league’s collective bargaining agreement (thank you, Kevin Durant), the NBA introduced the supermax contract extension, which enabled teams to offer more money to their players they’d drafted in order to increase the retention rate of stars.
Teams get more loyalty, players get paid, everyone wins, right?
Sort of.
The result of the supermax definitely got more players to sign big extensions to stay put. Like, literally every drafted player who shows promise gets extended. They remain with their initial team until they request a trade.
Ultimately, this still helps the franchises (unless they accidentally give out an albatross extension), as they no longer lose foundational pieces for nothing in free agency. They get some sort of compensation for trading them to a new home, which brings us to our next method of talent acquisition.
How do you get enough assets to trade for a star?
NBA stars typically relocate exclusively via trade in the modern day version of the league. The February trade deadline has effectively filled the void of excitement left by the evaporation of the free agent pool. Fans stay glued to their phones throughout the duration of “Super Bowl Week” hoping to be amongst the first to know which hoopers are getting new threads.
One thing that the supermax has taken away from the league’s superstars is the exclusive power to choose where they play. Sure, there are plenty of cases where a disgruntled star gives his team a shortlist of preferred destinations, but (most times, looking at you, Nico Harrison) there’s still a bidding war to adhere to.
Whichever team puts together the most enticing package of compensation earns the prize.
How do franchises get the assets to trade for stars, you might ask?
They either package together a bundle of draft picks to set the other team for a bright post-star future, include a few intriguing players, who are either up and coming or already established, or maybe a combination of both. Essentially, the team that is sifting through deals will decide on the one that best fits their plan.
Where do the assets come from? How do teams gear up for big swing trades?
Get ready to learn the NBA Draft, buddy
There are a few ways to do this. The least-common is by finding a diamond in the rough through free agency, either giving an undervalued veteran a chance, or maybe finding a nice undrafted player who can impact winning.
Then, of course, there is the draft -- or as we should all refer to it, the puppet master.
All roads lead back to draft day. Making the most of draft picks has never been more important. The more selections a team has, the more opportunities they have to find their next great player or asset, which is why they’ve become a great currency in trades.
Sure a winning team with a late first-round draft pick can hit on their selection, but it’s not common. For perspective, nine of the 30 first-round picks from the 2021 NBA Draft are currently unrostered.
Only eight of the 21 players still on a roster are still playing for the team that drafted them. That means, for one reason or another, things didn’t work out. Of that bunch, five of the unmoved players were selected in the top eight of the draft.
It’s one year. It doesn’t tell you everything. But, it’s one of many examples of how picking higher in the draft is helpful in the long term.
Teams, of course, ensure themselves the highest possible odds of a top draft pick by… tanking. Oh, and sometimes, when they trade future draft picks, they put protections on them. For example, if the Danny Ainge-run Utah Jazz pick outside of the top eight this season, they’d lose their pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Jazz are also the team getting the most flack for tanking. The league fined Utah $500,000 last week after they sat the likes of Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in multiple fourth quarters.
“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,” Adam Silver said in a statement released by the NBA.
How else would you like them to win, Adam?
Ensuring themselves the best chances of keeping their own pick while simultaneously opening the door for asset acquisition is a no-brainer. Sorry if that offends.
The fact of the matter is that there’s only one way to build in the NBA today, and it’s through the draft.
Want quality players to fill the rotation for cheap? Draft.
Need assets to try and entice the Milwaukee Bucks to trade you the perpetually disgruntled Giannis Antetokounmpo? Draft.
Looking for the next face of the franchise to build a team around? Draft.
Regardless of what the goal is; adding depth, trading for a superstar, finding the next franchise player, the draft is a necessity in each equation.
The Jazz, by losing, are doing what they can to win in the long run. With the current structure of the league’s CBA and the incentivization of players to sign contract extensions, going back is the only way for some teams to go forward.
The 2024 NBA Champion Boston Celtics were essentially built through the draft
Let’s circle back to the Celtics as an example. They built the bulk of their championship core through the draft, or by using draft assets to build their team.
Jaylen Brown: Drafted using a pick acquired for Paul Pierce (drafted) and Kevin Garnett (traded for using picks and drafted players).
Jayson Tatum: Drafted using a pick acquired for Paul Pierce (drafted) and Kevin Garnett (traded for using picks and drafted players).
Derrick White: Traded for using Romeo Langford (drafted), Josh Richardson (signed), a 2022 first-round pick, and a 2028 first-round pick swap.
Jrue Holiday: Traded for using Robert Williams III (drafted), Malcolm Brogdon (traded for using former lottery pick Aaron Nesmith, a 2023 first-round pick, and salary filler).
Kristaps Porzingis: Traded for using Marcus Smart (drafted), a second-round pick, and salary filler.
Al Horford: Reacquired in 2021 using Kemba Walker (signed, but also salary filler) and a 2021 first-round pick.
Payton Pritchard: Drafted.
Sam Hauser: Signed as an undrafted free agent.
Luke Kornet: Re-signed after he was waived by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2022.
That team was built on smart draft decisions, good trades which were fueled by draft picks and drafted players, and brilliant fringe signings. It still takes a capable front office to make magic happen like this, but you can’t pay to win in the NBA anymore -- you actually, in most cases, have to lose to win.