AROUND the NBA:

[Dahlsim]

I think some of you are missing the biggest issue associated with "tanking".  The NBA didn't just put their toe in the gambling world, Adam Silver shiny noggin jumped in head first into the world of sharks. MILLIONS are legally wagered every half, every quarter and every second of every game. You think, in this world of prop bets, the Johntay Porters of the world is the worst version of screwing with the integrity of the league?  Watch how condoning teams or coaches screwing around with lineups midgame does for the league's image. You can't, on one hand, have gambling ads plastered all over the court and in every commercial break and at the same time have people wondering whether a team is truly giving max effort in every way.

Yes, this has a lot to do with the Lottery. But Silver has put himself in the crosshairs by making gambling intertwined with the league's image. This is a dangerous slippery slope. If a team gets caught up in a gambling scandal, Silver would find himself testifying before Congress, especially if he never showed a history of trying to address it.  Yep, a big part of this is the Draft. But there's a whooooooole other angle that could destroy the league.

Great catch and nod to the historical connection here.  Changing of the NBA guard from Stern to Silver was historically a major part of the move to the open legalized sports gambling world of today in the USA.  Adam Silver played a role well before the Supreme Court made the dramatic shift ruling in on May 14, 2018, when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision in Murphy v. NCAA, struck down PASPA as unconstitutional, ruling that sports betting was a state issue.

Leading up to that, in 2014, Silver published his op-ed in The New York Times titled "Legalize and Regulate Sports Betting,".  

By contrast, Commissioner David Stern testified before Congress in 1991 against expanding sports betting, warning of potential corruption. Along with the NFL, MLB, NHL, and NCAA, the NBA actively fought legalization efforts.  

Today we have the 2025 scandals and federal indictments of players like Terry Rozier, coach Chauncey Billups, and former player Damon Jones with illegal betting schemes tied to organized crime. Truth is many of us understand this is just the part of the cheating iceberg that surfaced to visibility for a moment. 

The draft/tanking issue is relatively small if "integrity of the game" is the real concern. 
For the record, the current system for distributing the odds might be about as good as it's going to get compared to every prior system I've seen or any of the proposed ideas.  In an exceptionally promising projected draft year like this one, tanking is unavoidable.  Its almost hysterically revealing that Adam Silver says openly that his concern is about how overtly the tanking is executed.  Covertly then, not a problem.  Good stuff from the champion of legalized pro sports gambling. 

Changing the lottery rules again?  Window dressing while gambling is the elephant in the integrity room.  The only thing any NBA draft system can do is change how many tanking teams you have, how overt the tanking might become and how soon the tanking begins.