NBA's anti-tanking rules are showcasing a bigger problem in the league

The debut of the NBA’s new lottery odds to prevent teams from tanking might actually be a success. Sure, it’s only one-eighth of the way through the season, and it’s too early to tell if any team plans on throwing in the white towel, but it might be working.

What it didn’t take into account, however, is the very low quality of basketball being produced and the future lottery punishments these awful teams will have to endure. There is a growing gap between middling and bad, and if nothing changes soon, it will keep those bad teams in the doldrums of the league.

Entering Wednesday, 15 teams held a record of .500 or below, including four teams with only one win — Milwaukee Bucks (1-10), Chicago Bulls (1-8), Utah Jazz (1-10) and Sacramento Kings (1-10) — and another two teams with only two wins — Brooklyn Nets (2-8) and Los Angeles Clippers (2-8). Ten of those teams lie within the East.

But isn’t half the league being average or below the norm in sports? Not necessarily. Let’s use last season’s standings as a small sample size.

On November 11, 2025, there were six teams in the East at or below .500 and eight teams in the West in the same category. That’s 14 teams, so it’s close. However, by the end of the season, five teams in the East and six teams in the West qualified and of the 10 to miss the playoffs, they were at least 11 games or more out.

Fast forward to Nov. 11 of this year. Of the six futile teams listed earlier, the Nets are closest to the play-in, only being 6.5 games back. The rest are already seven, eight or even eight-and-a-half games out a month into the season, and Brooklyn is only in the conversation due to the staggering difference between the two conferences.

While win-loss record isn’t everything, this stat might be. The largest negative point differential in NBA history was set by the 1992-93 Dallas Mavericks (11-71) with -15.2. They would lose the lottery and pick fourth in the draft.

This season, there are FIVE teams that are in the top 17 of worst point differential in league history, including the Bulls, who are destroying the record at -16.67, the Bucks, who are close to breaking the record in third at -14.91, and the Kings, who are fifth-worst at -12.73. The other teams are the 4-7 Charlotte Hornets, who sit 12th at -11.55, and the Jazz, who are 17^th at -11.18. 

Some have been unlucky, but overall, these are not only teams that are not winning, but they’re bad teams losing a lot, with no hope in sight.

To compare, there are only four other teams on the list from this decade, including the 2024-25 Washington Wizards who are sixth at -12.44, the 2025-26 Wizards in eighth at -11.98, the 2020-21 Oklahoma City Thunder in 20^th at -10.64 and the 2023-24 Hornets in 23^rd at -10.24.

The only difference is that the teams earlier in the decade all drafted sixth overall, except the 25-26 Wizards, who won the lottery. The 2026-27 squads will be lucky if they get to select sixth. Go on Tankathon and play with the lottery simulator and discover the 7-4 Mavericks and the 5-4 Denver Nuggets getting top-three picks while some of the aforementioned teams slide as far as the 11-15 range.

The lottery system, as flawed as it is, does nothing but showcase the growing gap problem, which will keep these teams rebuilding for a while. Plus, with two more teams likely entering the fold soon, that gap will grow, and those new teams might not ever get out of the starting blocks.