Why Mark Cuban is Dead-Wrong About Tanking

Right now, things aren’t all peachy-keen in pro basketball land. While there have been some good storylines – like the emergence of the Detroit Pistons and a surprisingly fun All-Star Game – for the most part, the NBA season hasn’t been terribly interesting. It’s also had prominent problems, like rampant injuries and teams eager to jettison guys who not too long ago were considered franchise players. But those issues perhaps pale in comparison to the biggest elephant on the court. In NBA history books, 2025-2026 might just be labeled the Season of the Tank.

As many have pointed out, tanking is by no means new; ever since the draft lottery was instituted, teams have tried to give themselves the best chance at nabbing a great player by losing games. While top-of-the-draft players aren’t always as impactful as advertised, they can still change a franchise. Look at the San Antonio Spurs. Thanks in large part to getting Victor Wembanyama a few years ago, they’re on pace to have their best season in a decade.

Traditionally, however, tanking teams never said the t-word out loud (or if they did, it was to deny that they were doing it), instead taking much more of a “we’re just not gonna try too hard to win” approach. But that’s changed dramatically this season, as several organizations have gone to comical extremes to secure as many ping-pong balls as they can.

If your goal is to lose as many games as possible, putting a bad team on the floor isn’t too difficult. But the weird thing is that this season, teams have actually looked like they were trying to improve while at the same time not trying to win. The Utah Jazz, for example, after trading for Jaren Jackson Jr., assembled a squad that could potentially compete for a playoff spot. But at the end of multiple close games, Jackson and their other top players were benched. And now Jackson has been shut down for the rest of the year after knee surgery.

The Washington Wizards recently traded for two former All-Stars – Trae Young and Anthony Davis – and while Young may play sparingly, Davis isn’t expected to suit up at all this season. While having them on the court wouldn’t salvage another dreary season for the Wizards, it would perhaps give fans a glimpse into potential better days ahead, or at least make things a little more fun for the folks who actually pay to watch their games.

The fans. This is what professional sports are supposed to be all about, right? While players play for trophies (and their large paychecks), if nobody cared to see them compete, would they still do it? Their paychecks certainly wouldn’t be as large, that’s for sure. This is why the recent comments by Mark Cuban about tanking are so tone deaf. Believing that the NBA should not only condone tanking but embrace it, he wrote:

“Few can remember the score from the last game they saw or went to. They can't remember the dunks or shots. What they remember is who they were with. Their family, friends, a date. That's what makes the experience special.”

Now, this may be true for some people. No matter who your hometown team is playing or where they are in the standings, NBA games can be fun to watch in person. With mascot shenanigans, jumbotron antics, and t-shirt guns, it’s a spectacle. It’s also extremely expensive (more on that later). For casual fans or perhaps families looking for something to do on a Saturday night, that’s all well and good, and, as Cuban says, they may not remember the game so much as the experience.

But, what about for diehard fans? The ones who live and breathe their teams? They don’t remember the halftime show or the toddler races or whatever else happened between the action. They remember the game. They remember the big shots, the costly turnovers, the nerves they felt when the outcome was in the balance. I, for one, have vivid memories of many of the games I’ve attended over the years. For example, I can still picture Del Curry (Steph’s dad) hitting a wide-open three late in a game at Madison Square Garden to help the Hornets beat the Knicks.

This is why blatant tanking is so insidious – it’s like a team giving real fans the finger. Having a bad team is one thing, but keeping good players on the bench – or injured list – to purposely not win is something else entirely. This is especially true when organizations still expect fans to dole out a substantial amount of money to attend or even watch games. The average ticket price in the league now is more than $52, and that’s going to be in the nosebleeds. Plus, when you add in parking, food, drinks, and other expenses, it’s more than a lot of people can afford.

What about if you just want to watch games on TV or your devices? NBA League Pass will cost you over $100 a year, and you’ll still need other streaming services/channels to see a lot of games, including the playoffs. Affordability is another area Cuban touched on:

“You know who cares the least about tanking, a parent who can’t afford to bring their 3 kids to a game and buy their kids a jersey of their fave player. [The NBA] should worry more about pricing fans out of games than tanking.”

Cuban is right about this, but he seems to be missing the bigger point. If teams aren’t going to care about winning games, why should fans even want to attend them? Why should they buy jerseys of players they’ll only see on the bench in the fourth quarter? Now, if tanking teams announced that they’d be drastically lowering ticket or concession or souvenir prices while they had an aversion to winning, that would be something, but that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.

It looks as though – perhaps due to public outcry or just the brazen tanking this season – that the NBA has finally had enough. Both the Jazz and Pacers were fined for keeping players out of games, but the league isn’t stopping there. It was recently announced that anti-tanking rules would be going into effect for next season, and they could be much more of a deterrent than fines.

It’s also nice to know that some team owners don’t agree with Cuban. Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia called tanking “losing behavior done by losers” and “embarrassing for the league and for the organizations.” He also wrote that it’s a disgrace when teams shut down players to purposely lose games, and that it’s “horrible for fans that pay to watch and cheer on their team.”

(Let’s just hope that when the day comes when a downtrodden Suns team is jockeying for draft position to get the top pick to select a generational player, Ishbia sticks to his principles.)

The truth is that as long as there’s even a modicum of incentive to lose, tanking will never completely go away. But teams that take a “you’ll thank us later” attitude with fans may just discover that the fans aren’t there when they decide to start trying to win again.