The Whiteboard: Has the NBA finally shed its tanking problem?

The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning.

The NBA has put an incredible amount of energy over the past few years into solving the problem of tanking, or at least the perception of it is a driving organizational value for struggling teams. They’ve re-adjusted NBA Draft lottery odds to flatten the probability of the worst teams getting the top pick and they’ve experimented with a play-in for the final playoff spot in each conference, raising the stakes for teams in the middle.

I don’t know that we can attribute a huge amount of change to those two initiatives but it does seem like we’re in for a remarkably competitive season.

Which NBA teams could find themselves playing for lottery position instead of playoff position?

The Thunder are the only one of the 16 playoff teams from last season that underwent any dramatic changes that obviously push them out of postseason contention. In the East, the Hawks, Bulls and Wizards have made big additions to try and leap into the playoff picture. The Pistons, Hornets and Cavaliers are still in the process of building for the future and probably all are postseason longshots. But they all also have win-now veterans on their teams, and an incentive to try and squeeze out every win they can in the early season, setting themselves up for a surprising run.

And things are even more competitive in the Western Conference. The Suns, Grizzlies, Pelicans and Warriors all missed the playoffs last season and are clearly planning on trying to fix that this year. The Spurs have a balance of youth and experience and will likely be making the same push, and the Timberwolves invested heavily in their present with the D’Angelo Russell trade. The Kings seem like the only other obvious non-playoff team in the conference and even they have the pieces and motivation to push for wins right now.

Things will obviously change once the games start, there will be more and more separation between the good and the not-so-good teams. The calculus will change for certain teams as the season goes along. But there are really only a handful of teams for whom the obvious measure of success is player development, divorced from wins and losses.

It’s a particularly interesting dynamic this season because, by all accounts, the 2021 NBA Draft class could be historically loaded. Cade Cunningham looks like a generational talent and there are a half-dozen other players who could eventually challenge him for the No. 1 pick. And pretty much every one of those players would have looked even stronger if placed in the disappointing 2020 NBA Draft class.

We can chalk it up to circumstance, a strange confluence of events on and off the court. And maybe this is all a mirage that will evaporate if a team like the Cavaliers gets off to a disastrous start. But, from where I’m sitting, we have more teams than I can remember with a reasonable chance and a respectable motive for pushing for the playoffs, at the same time as a generational draft class is forming. Does something give? Or will the NBA be able to argue that the problem has finally been solved?

#OtherContent

With small-ball grand chancellors Daryl Morey and Mike D’Antoni gone, an air of uncertainty surrounds the Houston Rockets. Here are their five biggest questions for 2020-21.

The 2021 WNBA season is still months away but Howard Megdal is already laying it on the line with fearless predictions about what’s to come.

The Washington Wizards resisted the urge to blow things up and brought in Russell Westbrook to flank Bradley Beal. Here are their five biggest questions for 2020-21.

There’s little doubt the Denver Nuggets possess a talented trio, but how does Michael Porter Jr.’s skillset mesh with Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray?

With the 2020-21 NBA season set to tip-off soon, Micah Wimmer has 50 reasons to be excited about the league’s return.

The Oklahoma City Thunder are a totally new team after myriad changes this past offseason. Here are five big questions facing the Thunder this season.