According to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, an unnamed NBA owner recently scolded his coach for having the audacity to try and win a game against a good team while finishing out the regular season's last weeks. Wojnarowski revealed this particular nugget during his most recent episode of The Woj Pod.
"There were teams literally signing G League players, intentionally bringing up guys they knew could not play in the NBA because they were determined to lose games,” Wojnarowski said. “I never heard more talk from front office executives—frustration with coaches who were winning games they didn’t want them to win. And owners, I know of an instance of an owner berating—really berating—his coach here in the last several weeks of the season for going in and beating a pretty good team on the road and going, ‘What are you doing?’”
You can hear it in his own words around the 30-minute mark below:
Previously on tanking news, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was fined $600,000 after he publicly acknowledged that he told his players "losing is our best option." This is not to suggest that Cuban is the owner Woj is referring to; it's just to point out how much more blatant this strategy gets each and every season.
To try and counteract this, the NBA will institute changes to their lottery system that will begin in 2019. These changes will give the league's three crappiest teams an equal chance at the top overall pick (meaning 14 percent apiece). Currently, the NBA's worst team has a 25 percent chance to get the No. 1 selection.
