Is tanking even that big of a problem? In my opinion, the combination of the play-in tournament and more balanced odds at #1 pick have sufficiently discouraged tanking.

This season was supposed to be a huge tank-a-thon for Wemby, and yet... most teams were fairly competitive.

Looking at the first half of the season, only four teams out of thirty have less than 20 wins: Pistons, Hornets, Spurs, Rockets.

• Pistons missing Cade to injury.
• Hornets reeling from losing Miles Bridges + Melo injuries
• Rockets and Spurs definitely tanking. The Spurs in particular are going wild with the tank

The only other team with <25 wins is the Magic (24-35), and they're not actively tanking. They just suffered a lot of injuries early in the season.

The remaining teams under 30 wins are:

• Pacers (26-34): Devastated by Haliburton injury. They're 2-10 without him
• Bulls (26-33): Plagued by Lonzo injury, plus team is meh
• Lakers (27-32): Don't even own their pick. Started the year 2-10.
• Raptors (28-31): Lacked a center which they addressed at deadline.
• Wizards (28-30): 19-10 since Delon Wright came back from injury
• Blazers (28-30): No idea what they're doing but I know it's not tanking.
• Jazz (29-31): Started the year strong. Dumped some vets at deadline
• Thunder (28-29): Shai's having a career year. Team's past peak tanking
• Hawks (29-30): Injuries (2-8 without Hunter) and bad coaching (which they just fired)
• Warriors (29-29): They've just been bad on the road. (22-7 vs 7-22)

None of those 10 teams have been actively tanking. They've just been dysfunctional for unintended reasons. Despite this, everyone still has a shot at playoff. They're all at most 3ish games back which they'll probably fight for. The only team that's actively gotten worse at the deadline has been the Jazz (and maybe the Blazers).