Brad Stevens Adds His Voice to NBA Tanking Issue, Hints at Multiple Solutions – Sports Illustrated

BOSTON — Tanking has become one of the NBA’s most pressing issues this season. A loaded draft with some potentially franchising talent at the top has teams racing to the bottom to maximize their chances at bouncing off the NBA floor and into the playoff conversation next year. 
It has created a unique scenario where the league is split very distinctly into haves and have-nots. The chasm between playoff and non-playoff teams is massive, with the eliminated 11th-place Bucks 10 games behind the 10th seed Miami. Dallas, 11th in the West, is 11 games behind 10th-place Golden State. 
“This is not a new issue in this league,” Commissioner Adam Silver said after last month’s Board of Governors meeting. “I understand where that incentive takes our teams. This meeting was not about pointing fingers at any team in particular … I will say it seemed unanimous in the room that we needed to make a change and we needed to make a change for next season. Exactly what that change is, we’re continuing to work on.”
Before his Boston Celtics took on the Charlotte Hornets on Tuesday night, President of Basketball Operations Brad Stevens addressed the issue, saying he’s very much on board with finding a solution. 
“I’m a huge proponent of doing everything we can to make sure that every night is as competitive as humanly possible,” he said. “We have the best players in the world and I think it’s important to let them be that on that stage.”
The NBA has recently presented three different plans to address tanking, each a variation on changing the lottery odds and involving a different amount of teams into the lottery process. One proposal mimics the WNBA’s system of taking two years into account rather than one.  
“There are a lot of discussions going on about how to best focus on that, both in the near term and long term,” Stevens said. “Maybe there is a near term solution that is a stopgap before a longer-term solution when people have time to really think about it and break it down.”
A stopgap could give the league a short-term solution to see if it, along with a less-than-stellar 2027 NBA draft, can take some of the focus away from tanking and put more attention on the on-court product. Soon, the regular season will end and the league will turn to showcasing its good teams in the playoffs. For Stevens, it’s the type of product he wants to see more often when NBA teams face each other, not just when they play in the spring. 
“There’s nothing like the competitiveness and the energy and the talent that you see on the court in these playoffs,” he said. “The more we can get every game to be incredibly meaningful to every team is really important, in my opinion.”
Loading recommendations… Please wait while we load personalized content recommendations
John Karalis is a 20-year veteran of Celtics coverage and was nominated for NSMA's Massachusetts Sportswriter of the Year in 2019. He has hosted the Locked On Celtics podcast since 2016 and has written two books about the Celtics. John was born and raised in Pawtucket, RI. He graduated from Shea High School in Pawtucket, where he played football, soccer, baseball, and basketball and was captain of the baseball and basketball teams. John graduated from Emerson College in Boston with a Bachelor of Science degree in Broadcast Journalism and was a member of their Gold Key Honor Society. He was a four-year starter and two-year captain of the Men’s Basketball team, and remains one of the school's top all-time scorers, and Emerson's all-time leading rebounder. He is also the first Emerson College player to play professional basketball (Greece). John started his career in television, producing and creating shows since 1997. He spent nine years at WBZ, launching two different news and lifestyle shows before ascending to Executive Producer and Managing Editor. He then went to New York, where he was a producer and reporter until 2018. John is one of Boston’s original Celtics bloggers, creating RedsArmy.com in 2006. In 2018, John joined the Celtics beat full-time for MassLive.com and then went to Boston Sports Journal in 2021, where he covered the Celtics for five years. He has hosted the Locked On Celtics podcast since 2016, and it currently ranks as the #1 Boston Celtics podcast on iTunes and Spotify rankings. He is also one of the co-hosts of the Locked on NBA podcast.
© 2026 ABG-SI LLC – SPORTS ILLUSTRATED IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK OF ABG-SI LLC. – All Rights Reserved. The content on this site is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Betting and gambling content is intended for individuals 21+ and is based on individual commentators' opinions and not that of Sports Illustrated or its affiliates, licensees and related brands. All picks and predictions are suggestions only and not a guarantee of success or profit. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, crisis counseling and referral services can be accessed by calling 1-800-GAMBLER.

source