Silver 'worried' draft lottery reform won't abolish tanking

NBA commissioner Adam Silver's motivation behind lowering the odds for the worst-performing teams to garner the first overall pick in the draft lottery was to eliminate extreme rebuilding blueprints such as the Philadelphia 76ers' famed "Process."

Beginning in 2019, the bottom three teams in the Association will have an equal shot at winning the lottery, while the odds for the other non-playoff clubs will be more even, but Silver still feels it's going to take more to eradicate tanking from his league.

"I am worried that even with the change coming next year, it won't do enough," Silver said Friday morning on ESPN's "Get Up!"

"A lot of teams are conflicted, as well, because they'll be trying their best to win games, and even their fans, and even the media in their market will be saying, 'What are you doing? That's not the best strategy. You should be breaking down your team completely.'"

Since tanking may be difficult to avoid, the point was brought up to Silver that perhaps there should be more incentive for teams to win, such as giving more money to franchises that qualify for the postseason.

"In our league, regardless of whether you even make the playoffs, all 30 teams get the exact same share of our national and international television money," Silver said. "So there's a bit of a so-called 'free rider' issue, as well, by not putting the best performance forward, the financial incentive isn't there, other than in your local market."

As it pertains to Philadelphia's process, Silver credited president and general manager Bryan Colangelo for surrounding his young stars (Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid) with veteran talent (Marco Belinelli, Ersan Ilyasova, and J.J. Redick), propelling the Sixers to a 52-win campaign and a hot start in the first round against the Miami Heat.