There are great incentives for NBA teams to tank and hope it results in a better future. Enough teams engage in the act for it to be considered a problem the league needs to solve. And it sounds like they're on it, based on a Tuesday morning report from ESPN's Shams Charania.

With the NBA's trade window open for business, which teams are the most likely to deal players in or out before the deadline in February?

The 2026 NBA playoffs will begin on April 18. The 2025-26 regular season wraps up on April 12, giving teams a short break before the postseason tips off. The Play-In Tournament, introduced in 2021 to keep more teams competitive and reduce tanking, determines the final two playoff spots in each conference.

Tanking played a role in the FBI's investigation, as an individual known as "Co-Conspirator 8" reportedly told one of the defendants that the Portland Trail Blazers intentionally sat some of the team's best players during a 2023 game against the Chicago Bulls in order to get a better draft pick.

In the East, the New York Knicks are riding their NBA Cup championship, surging to second in the East. However, the rest of the conference remains in flux as the other eight teams besides the Knicks and Pistons remain within 1.

Tanking, the controversial practice of teams deliberately losing games to gain advantageous draft positioning, continues to challenge the NBA's

The polls have opened. Voting for the 2026 NBA All-Star Game is now open, and for the next month fans can cast one vote a day for the starters in that game — an All-Star Game that returns to NBC and will debut on Peacock.

In the worst-case scenario, the NBA confirmed it would use its own NBA League Pass or its official app to unlock coverage for all thirteen teams that would be impacted by FanDuel Sports Network's shuttering. They would also have to sign linear broadcast deals with local networks for over-the-air rights.