Cooper Flagg might not be a once-in-a-generation prospect like Victor Wembanyama, but you'd never know that based on how egregiously some NBA teams tanked this year.
While most teams spent the past month jockeying for postseason positioning, a select handful had their eyes on a different prize. They pulled out all the stops to maximize their chances in the May 12 NBA draft lottery, where Flagg looms as the top prize.
Tanking teams have long encouraged players to take games off at the end of the season for the sake of young player development, but a few took tanking to new heights this season. From in-game benchings in crunch time to a 7-footer who started pretending he was the third Splash Brother, teams got creative to avoid running afoul of the NBA's player participation policy and drawing a six-figure fine. (Unfortunately for team governor Ryan Smith, the Utah Jazz were not so lucky in that regard.)
With the regular season now (mercifully) over for most lottery teams, we've decided to look back at the most unethical tankjobs this year. Teams that entered the season with no intention of winning got off to an early head start, but those that dipped deep into the bag of late-season shenanigans had a chance to make up ground.
7. Brooklyn Nets
Among all of the tanking teams, the Brooklyn Nets were arguably the least shameless about how they approached this season.
After trading both Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving at the 2023 trade deadline, the Nets have made no bones about being mired in the early stages of a rebuild ever since. They're devoid of obvious long-term building blocks, which has them stuck in a transitory phase for now.
The Nets did swing a pair of trades ahead of the deadline, sending Dennis Schröder to the Golden State Warriors for De'Anthony Melton (who was out for the year with a torn ACL) and three second-round picks and Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton to the Los Angeles Lakers for D'Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis and another three second-round picks. However, they resisted the temptation to conduct a full-scale teardown at the deadline, hanging onto Cam Johnson and Nic Claxton despite reportedly shopping both.
The Nets also continued playing the likes of Johnson, Claxton and Russell up until the final week of the season. Cam Thomas suffered a season-ending hamstring injury in mid-March, but the Nets otherwise didn't get caught up in the late-season nonsense as their tanking counterparts. For that reason alone, don't be surprised if the lottery gods smile upon them on May 12.
T-5. Philadelphia 76ers and New Orleans Pelicans
A relentless wave of injuries inevitably sinks at least one or two teams every year. The Sixers and Pelicans were the unlucky victims this year.
The Sixers entered this season with championship aspirations after landing Paul George in free agency. However, George missed 41 games, Tyrese Maxey missed 30 and Joel Embiid missed 63. The Sixers also dealt with injuries to Andre Drummond (toe), Kelly Oubre Jr. (knee), Caleb Martin (shoulder), Kyle Lowry (hip), Eric Gordon (wrist) and Jared McCain (meniscus) throughout the season, although they likely weren't hurrying any of those guys back toward the end of the year. (They owe their first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it falls outside of the top six.)
The Pelicans went through a similar experience. Brandon Ingram played only 18 games before suffering an ankle sprain in early December that wound up being the end of his tenure in New Orleans. Zion Williamson played only 30 games. Dejounte Murray played 31 before tearing his Achilles. A hamstring injury sidelined Trey Murphy III to start the year, while a torn labrum ended his season in mid-March.
Both teams began shamelessly tanking in recent weeks as their injuries continued to mount, although there isn't much either could have done to salvage their season. Still, both entered the 2024-25 campaign with the intention of competing for a playoff spot, which puts them below a handful of teams that effectively punted on the season from Day 1.
4. Charlotte Hornets
In mid-January, the Hornets went 5-3 over an eight-game stretch. That wound up being the high-water mark of their season by far, as second-year forward Brandon Miller suffered a season-ending torn wrist ligament in the midst of that.
The Hornets quickly spiraled from there, although to their credit, they continued to play LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges and Mark Williams through late March. Ball eventually got shut down for the year due to ankle and wrist surgeries, but Bridges and Williams each played games in the final week of the regular season.
The Hornets still managed to finish with the NBA's third-worst record, so they'll enter lottery night with a 14.0 percent chance of landing the No. 1 overall pick. Had they pulled the same chicanery as some of their tanking counterparts, they might have had an even higher floor in the lottery. (As is, they could fall all the way to No. 7.)
3. Toronto Raptors
The Raptors will enter lottery night with the seventh-best odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick, but they tried their damnedest to improve those chances over the final few weeks of the season. Unfortunately, a comically easy schedule thwarted their chances of keeping pace with the Nets and Sixers.
The Raptors didn't start tanking in earnest until March, but once they did, all bets were off. Over the final month of the season, they did not start the same five-man unit in two consecutive games. They cycled through giving RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley and Jakob Poeltl games off, and by the end of the year, they weren't even bothering to make up fake injuries for them.
Every tanking team is guilty of that to some extent, though. The Raptors earned a spot in the top three here courtesy of their in-game benchings. They repeatedly sent their top players to the bench early in the fourth quarter never to return, regardless of the score. They still (hilariously) wound up winning some of those games, which is again more of a testament to their strength of schedule than their will to lose.
Since the NBA's player participation policy prevented them from shutting down former All-Star Scottie Barnes without a legitimate injury, the Raptors came up with a workaround that other tanking teams across the league quickly began to emulate.
2. Washington Wizards
Whereas most of the teams featured here waited until after the All-Star break to fully embrace the tank race, the Wizards were there from the get-go. Their top seven players in terms of total minutes played this year were all in their age-25 seasons or younger, and they traded away their two most-played veterans (Jonas Valančiũnas and Kyle Kuzma) to lean even more heavily on their youth movement after the All-Star break.
Jordan Poole redeemed himself after spending last season playing Bozo Ball, although Kuzma's DGAF levels were palpable prior to his trade to Milwaukee. Opening the season starting two rookies (Alex Sarr and Bub Carrington) and a second-year lottery pick (Bilal Coulibaly) was the right decision from a player-development standpoint, but the Wizards were clear from the jump that wins and losses were not their focus this year.
As the tank race came into focus and the Wizards had to stave off the Pelicans and Hornets, they began liberally resting veterans such as Poole, Khris Middleton and Marcus Smart. Middleton was not listed on the injury report ahead of his final appearance on March 27, but he sat out with "right knee soreness" (which later changed to a "right knee contusion") for the rest of the season after that.
Much like the Raptors, the Wizards also weren't shy about pulling their veterans in-game. On March 17, Poole and Middleton played only 11 minutes each against the Portland Trail Blazers and never saw the floor in the second half. Poole went from averaging more than 31 minutes per game prior to the All-Star break to roughly 25 minutes per game afterward.
The Wizards' volume of late-season "injuries" and their dedication to the tank from Day 1 gives them the nod over the Raptors. However, their win over the Miami Heat in the regular-season finale cost them the worst record in the league. That (dis)honor went to the only team that managed to out-tank them.
1. Utah Jazz
Much like the Wizards, the Jazz entered the season under no illusion that they'd be contending for the playoffs this year. However, their preseason win total of 28.5 wasn't quite as low as that of the Wizards (20.5) or the Nets (19.5). They weren't expected to be this bad.
The Jazz largely embraced a youth movement this year, although they have a former All-Star in Lauri Markkanen and a few proven rotation players in John Collins, Collin Sexton and Jordan Clarkson. Unlike the Wizards and Nets, they didn't have a sell-off ahead of the trade deadline, either. That forced them to take tanking matters into their own hands.
The Jazz gave their young players a long leash, including 2024 No. 10 overall pick Cody Williams, who shot a horrific 32.3 percent overall and 25.9 percent from deep on the year. They also relied on 21-year-old Keyonte George and 20-year-old Isaiah Collier as their primary playmakers, which unsurprisingly resulted in them leading the league in turnovers.
After the All-Star break, the Jazz began liberally resting players, which earned them a $100,000 fine for violating the league's player participation policy at one point. Much like the Wizards and Raptors, they also began shutting players down in-game. Against the Raptors on March 14, Markkanen played 19 minutes in the first half and never saw the floor in the second half.
Walker Kessler was their true tanking masterstroke, though. The third-year center attempted six total three-pointers over his first 50 games of the season. He proceeded to shoot 3-of-26 from deep across a five-game stretch in mid-March. Hilariously, his 1-of-6 night against the Wizards during that span didn't stop the Jazz from winning that game.
It makes sense for the Jazz and other tanking teams to experiment with their young players in otherwise meaningless games, but Kessler's sudden Splash Brothers imitation made Jazz games feel like summer league came four months early. It paid off, though, as the Jazz finished with the worst record in the NBA, locking in a 14 percent chance at Flagg and a guaranteed top-five pick.