The “T” word is a no-no in most NBA front offices. It conjures up teams willfully losing games to get better draft position or avoid having to give up a protected pick. GMs and others would prefer to call their long-term strategy “flexibility for sustained success” explain the difference between tanking and rebuilding.

Tanking is deliberately losing games by manipulating who gets minutes in key games. Rebuilding is about creating a roster that is unlikely to succeed — perhaps because of its youth — on the court but one which management thinks doesn’t insult the integrity of the game. Did we mention that rostering a young team can work?

Sometimes, of course, the line isn’t always a bright one and maybe someone says something that gives away the punchline, like Joe Tsai may have done in September when he discussed the team’s strategy this September

“Well, I have to say that we’re in a rebuilding year,” Tsai said on the All-In podcast back in September. “We spent all of our [2025] picks — we had five first-round draft picks this past summer. We have one pick in 2026, and we hope to get a good pick. So you can predict what kind of strategy we will use for this season. But we have a very young team.”

Now, Shams Charania reports the league is taking note of how many teams are trying to get a top pick and is looking for solutions to make sure that teams aren’t losing on purpose. Is it likely to affect the Nets? Not for years. The process is still in its early stage. Back in the 2017, the last time the NBA looked into making the Draft less prone to tanking, the changes took two years to implement. Moreover, and this seems more important, Shams description of what the Nets are doing leans toward a rebuild rather than a tank.

Shams said the discussion began in earnest Friday at the NBA Board of Governors — aka the owners or their reps — meeting in Orlando.

In recent years, multiple teams have either shut down players early or sat players for games to try to improve their draft positioning, often tied to a protected pick. Sources said multiple ideas were proposed as a brainstorming measure to combat tanking, including:

Limiting pick protections to either top four or 14 and higher, which would eliminate the problematic mid-lottery protections

No longer allowing a team to draft in the top four two years in a row

Locking lottery positions after March 1

These ideas, which came from the league and its high-ranking officials, would theoretically dissuade non-playoff teams from sitting their starters for games throughout the season and provide reason to continue to try to win games, particularly down the stretch of a campaign.

Shams, however, was quick to point out the changes are not meant to stifle rebuilds which are most often based on tearing down the old rosters and replacing them with younger players chosen in the draft through a lottery that’s based on the team’s record in a previous season.

As multiple sources described, the attempts to find solutions to tanking are not intended to deter rebuilding teams who use their players as normal but rather teams that deliberately manipulate their rosters down the stretch of a season to land a higher pick or a protection range.

That sounds like what Sean Marks & co. have been doing since last season, winning the No. 8 pick in 2025 and hoping for a top four pick this June.

Shams points to three examples from recent NBA Drafts where teams deliberately tried to spin losing into better draft position. In each case, the tank succeeded. Two of the three — the Mavericks in 2023 and the Jazz last year — were ultimately fined but kept the picks they sought by losing. Last year, the 76ers who were not fined were rewarded for their efforts which mostly concerned keeping players out with questionable injuries and illnesses.

Last season, the Philadelphia 76ers, who entered the year with title aspirations, were able to preserve the top-six-protected pick they owed the Thunder. They lost 29 of their last 37 games, finishing with the fifth-worst record entering the lottery. They moved up two slots in May and selected guard VJ Edgecombe at No. 3. That pick is now top-four protected in the 2026 draft; it’s currently slotted 21st, as Philadelphia is 16-11 and Edgecombe is averaging 16 points per game.

No one has seriously accused the Nets of keeping healthy players out of games to help their draft lottery position, but if they start winning and they decide against trading Michael Porter Jr., there might a temptation to do the same.