Houston Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey wants draft order change

Although the NBA does have a lottery to decide the top three picks and have the remainder of the draft decided by record, many around the NBA don’t believe that does enough to stop teams from attempting to have the worst record possible, which is commonly referred to as tanking.

This season, several teams are tanking and none seem to be doing more to lose than the league’s two worst teams, the Milwaukee Bucks and Philadelphia 76ers.

Houston Rockets’ general manager Daryl Morey, who spoke at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference at MIT Friday, believes the league needs to do something in regard to tanking.

“We have to get rid of the marginal incentive to lose,” Morey told Dan Feldman of ESPN’s TrueHoop.

This year’s draft includes center Joel Embiid and forward Andrew Wiggins of the Kansas Jayhawks, forward Jabari Parker of the Duke Blue Devils and point guard Dante Exum from Australia, among many other prospects, so the Bucks and 76ers aren’t the only teams who aren’t especially interested in winning.

“It’s bad right now,” Morey said. “I think last year, at the end of the season, I counted like two-thirds of the teams weren’t trying to win.”