Feb. 22, 2026, 12:05 p.m. ET

Brooklyn Nets general manager Sean Marks is hoping that this season will reward his team with a premium pick in the 2026 NBA Draft that gives them their next franchise player. Brooklyn is trying to build through the draft instead of trading for players that can immediately lead them to a championship, but it sounds like the Nets’ rebuild could be cut short before they’re ready to compete.

“Evan Wasch, an executive vice president with the NBA, had been laying out the league’s ideas for anti-tanking measures that could be implemented next season when the timing of those potential changes was questioned,” Joe Vardon and Sam Amick of The Athletic recently wrote. NBA commissioner Adam Silver recently held a call where he addressed some of the measures that the league will be looking to take to combat the recent bout of tanking.

“Sean Marks… which would read as unfair to executives midway through a previously accepted practice that has benefited other teams,” Vardon and Amick wrote before noting how Marks tried to get clarity of the situation. “‘Have you guys given any thought to that?’ Marks asked Wasch, according to notes of the call provided to The Athletic by three executives on the call.”

As Vardon and Amick noted, Marks is one of several general managers around the league that is hoping that the rules around how teams can rebuild won’t change too quickly for them to adapt to. ESPN’s Shams Charania recently reported that some of the measures being considered to limit tanking could come down to pick protections or which teams can be entitled to what picks depending on where they finish within a given sample size.

The Nets, who have at least 12 first-round picks between 2026 and 2032, are probably hoping that the league doesn’t implement some kind of restriction against teams who are consistently towards the bottom of the NBA in terms of win-loss record. However, it seems like Marks was one of the executives around the league that is trying to ensure that his team has the best chance to rebuild moving forward.

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