Let’s meet the 2024/2025 NBA’s tanking teams.

Let’s meet the 2024/2025 NBA’s tanking teams.

NBA teams don’t really tank anymore, do they? Not in the way teams used to tank.

Thanks to the NBA flattening out lottery odds and introduction of the play-in tournament, there really isn’t an equivalent to the Sam Hinkie era Sixers or a late 00’s Sonics, who tanked so hard they moved the team! There isn’t even a single season tanking effort like the Rockets throwing it all away for Ralph Sampson or the Nets for Derrick Coleman back in the day. However, you still might see a team opportunistically remove players from the action if their star gets hurt. Sometimes that works (see: Duncan, Tim). Sometimes it doesn’t (see: Wiseman, James).

All of those circumstances mean that there really are not all that many teams truly in the hole for the chance to draft Duke phenom Cooper Flagg or even gilded supplementary prizes Ace Bailey and VJ Edgecombe. There are, however, a fearsome (if you’re unfortunate enough to have to watch them attempt to play NBA level basketball) fivesome who are absolutely hoping for the right combination of ping-pong balls in mid-2025. Let’s meet them.

Detroit Pistons

The Pistons hold an array of young talent. Cade Cunningham, Jalen Duren, Jaden Ivey and Ausar Thompson have all shown flashes of serious potential. Given they’ve been picking inside the lottery for five straight years, that’s what is supposed to happen.

That foursome – and possibly 2024’s fifth overall pick Ron Holland – could be the core to lead the Pistons back to, at the very least, respectability. They’re certainly better than Killian Hayes and Sekou Doumbouya, their previous two first round selections. Is there, however, a genuine tentpole star in amongst that group?

Duren is already a double/double machine at age 21. His passing chops are underrated but he likely doesn’t have the genuine instincts to become a focal point at either end of the floor. Thompson could be a dynamic Swiss Army Knife type, but a desperate lack of a jump shot (and blood clots) cloud his projections. Ivey’s second season was ruined by Monty Williams and the most mailing-it-in coaching effort in recorded human history.

But what about Cunningham? He certainly looks the part. He’s also, quite famously at this point, one of the most inefficient high volume ball users in the entire league.

The club have added a modicum of professionalism to the team with the additions of Tobias Harris, Tim Hardaway Jr and Malik Beasley. Whilst they will undoubtedly help the youngsters grow which in turn will allow the front office to make better assessments on which cards to hold and which to fold, will they shorten the odds on Detroit getting yet another juicy draft pick?

You can’t help but get the feeling that the Pistons, in a three-player draft, will end up with pick five. Again.

Utah Jazz

The Jazz are a fascinating study. They already have an in-house All Star in Lauri Markkanen who is signed up long term, as well as talented youngsters in Keyonte George, Walker Kessler and Taylor Hendricks with three more highly touted rookies arriving this season. In addition, they sport veteran contributors in Collin Sexton, Jordan Clarkson and John Collins, as well as the highly regarded Will Hardy holding the clipboard.

That is a .500 team, right? The Jazz have played to that level through the first half of their past two NBA campaigns, before shutting down the veterans and trading away those that remained (Simone Fontecchio, Kelly Olynyk, Beasley, Mike Conley).

Whilst their mid-season moves did have the desired effect of improving the Jazz’s draft stock, they couldn’t fully eradicate those solid starts, leaving the Jazz in mid-lottery territory. Utah cannot afford to make the same mistake this season.

The talent is there: Markkanen is a perfect Robin to an as yet unnamed Batman. The rest of the roster is brimming with potential. They just need their superhero.

Brooklyn Nets

You must hand it to Sean Marks. The man knows how to take a bag of mouldy lemons and create lemonade.

Faced with a team going nowhere he somehow managed to poach four (!) first round picks and a swap out of their most hated rival in the Knicks for Mikal Bridges, who has shown himself to be at best a second or third option on a high level NBA squad. Marks then shrewdly re-obtained Brooklyn’s own picks, knowing too well the pain of handing over a high pick after a well-executed tank job.

They still have a selection of very tradable assets, should Marks decide, having already burnt it all to the ground, to salt the earth. Cam Johnson, Dorian Finney-Smith and Dennis Schroder will all surely draw interest from competing teams towards the trade deadline. Nic Claxton is a coveted defensive ace at the pivot. Even Ben Simmons (yeah, I know) might generate something on the market if he looks anything like his former All-Star self. Or plays 20 consecutive games.

Marks understands what needs to be done, here: lose and lose often. He looks like he’s well on the way to making that happen.

Portland Trailblazers

So many people were dissatisfied with the Blazers 2024 campaign. They didn’t lose enough! They failed to trade the veterans away! Given this was their first season since waving goodbye to beloved franchise icon Damian Lillard, that seems somewhat unfair.

The Blazers are squarely in the asset accumulation period of their rebuild and whilst they don’t have a treasure chest of draft picks to rival the Thunder, Nets or Jazz, they do have plenty of ambulant professional basketballers (and one Robert Williams) who could be traded for said draft picks.

Jerami Grant would fit on any number of contending rosters, though the remainder of his $160 million contract, running through to 2028, is somewhat tougher to accommodate on a balance sheet. Anfernee Simons could be the new Jordan Clarkson (how good would he look as the first guard off the bench in Orlando?). Deandre Ayton looked legitimately excellent down the stretch of last season, though the addition of high draft pick Donovan Clingan suggests he’s not long for Oregon. Does a third team take a flyer on Ayton, quickly becoming this generation’s Joe-Barry Carroll?

Even if the Blazers can’t find takers for their very expendable veterans, they do have a built-in advantage in the tank race: the Western Conference. There are 13 teams with realistic expectations of making the play-in tournament and up in 2025. That means that on most nights the Blazers will be playing a superior team with a wont to win the contest, even in the latter stages of the regular season. Don’t underestimate how many losses that will add to this group’s total.

Washington Wizards

It must be a joyless experience following this club. A mostly fallow 45 years where even the good teams were not all that likeable. The John Wall/Brad Beal era of a decade ago was punctuated by petty feuding with opponents and between themselves. The mid 00’s teams led Gilbert Arenas, Antawn Jamison and Caron Butler topped out at 45 wins and a second-round playoff exit. The Chris Webber/Juwan Howard era was over almost as quickly as it began.

Washington famously haven’t experienced a 50-win season since 1979. More recently they haven’t even been above .500 since 2018, including last season’s 15-win monstrosity that saw them claim the ‘prize’ of Alex Sarr, who might never average 15 points a game at this level.

Given they let Tyus Jones walk and traded away Deni Avdija, this is the closest to a traditional tanker that we have in this seasons NBA. Kyle Kuzma is, for some reason, still hanging around. Expect him and off-season pickup-cum-Sarr-bodyguard Jonas Valanciunas to be playing elsewhere by seasons end.

There is no doubt that, even in the weaker Eastern Conference, the Wizards are likely to finish with the worst record in the NBA. Given Washington’s luck, the lottery gods will reward their ineptitude with pick four, where they will duly draft a 35-year-old Jan Vesely, simply to relive this, the greatest moment the franchise has experienced this century.