With Victor Wembanyama slowly inching closer to his NBA debut, we are going to see more and more teams around the league tighten up their pursuit for the summer’s top pick.
In fact, according to various sources, we can expect an all-out tank war that may be bigger than anything we’ve seen before in league history.
As impressive as Henderson’s potential appears as a franchise lead guard, it is Wembanyama’s unprecedented combination of size, skill and substance at 18 years old that mesmerized the approximately 200 NBA executives and scouts in attendance in suburban Las Vegas and reaffirmed beliefs that this promises to be a transformational player and historic NBA Draft. “Victor distorts basketball reality,” one GM told ESPN on Wednesday. “The tank/trade market will really shift after that showing. It feels like last night will start a race to the bottom like we’ve never seen.”
Teams like the Thunder, Jazz, Magic, Pacers, Hornets, and Rockets are going to be in the running for Wembanyama, but we could see others join the fold, too, if things don’t go their way for the first 20 games of the season.
Either way, the race for the bottom is expected to be intense this year, and it could be why Adam Silver is thinking about organizing some type of response.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver Threatens To Take Action Against Tanking Strategies
According to ESPN, he and other league executives are monitoring the tanking situation and may implement something to help eliminate the practice from the league.
(via ESPN):
During the session, one employee asked Silver about tanking, a theme that is widely expected to dominate the league conversation with 7-foot-4 French phenom Victor Wembanyama — a potentially franchise-altering prospect — being projected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2023 draft.
“We put teams on notice,” Silver told employees. “We’re going to be paying particular attention to the issue this year.”
In a way, teams should take Silver’s statement as a warning. If the tanking gets too bad, and too many teams start out of the gate playing awful, don’t think for a second that Silver will hesitate to make a change.
“It’s something we have to watch for,” Silver said. “A draft is, in principle, a good system. But I get it, especially when there is a sense that a once-in-a-generation player is coming along, like we have this year.” Silver didn’t mention Wembanyama by name, sources present said, but added that the league will adjust as necessary. Teams are smarter, they are creative, and they respond — we move, they move — so we’re always looking to see whether there’s yet a better system,” Silver told employees.
For now, all the league can do is sit back and wait.
As the season progresses and we start to get a sense of who the bad teams really are, it will be easier to identify which squads may be exaggerating their situation for the sake of landing some draft luck.
