{"id":703646,"date":"2026-04-07T16:33:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703646\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T16:33:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:33:28","slug":"nba-tank-watch-wizards-end-the-season-on-top-of-the-bottom-kings-hurt-their-odds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703646\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA Tank Watch: Wizards end the season on top of the bottom, Kings hurt their odds"},"content":{"rendered":"

We’ve done it. We’ve reached the final week of the regular season, and with it the last NBA<\/a> Tank Watch. And what a way to go out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last Friday, the NBA was hit with a perfect storm of try-hards against never-trys. It didn’t go well. Of the nine games that evening, seven featured tanking teams vs teams bound for the play-in or playoffs. Five of those matchups were decided by 30 or more points, and the average margin of victory across all nine games was 24.4 points. That’s the largest differential on any night with at least eight games in NBA history<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To recap, the Pacers<\/a> lost in Charlotte by 21. The Nets<\/a> lost to the Hawks<\/a> at home by 34. The Bulls<\/a> lost at the Knicks<\/a> by 40. The Jazz<\/a> lost in Houston by 34. And the Grizzlies<\/a> lost at home to the Raptors<\/a> by 32. Among the tanking teams, the most competitive games of the evening were the Mavs losing to the Magic<\/a> at home by 11 and the Kings<\/a> pulling out a four-point home win over the Pelicans<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That sound you hear is commissioner Adam Silver hurling a glass against the wall and summoning his top advisors for more anti-tanking proposals. We’ve been pretty snarky here at Tank Watch about the league’s breathless anti-tanking crusade, but nights like that are hard to push back on when the Wolves-Sixers matchup was pretty much the only game going where both teams were actively giving it their all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We covered the league’s latest potential measures to curb tanking in last week’s Tank Watch<\/a> and made the case that they scan like an overcorrection to what mainly feels like an optics issue. But the reasoning behind the tweaks and the degree to which the rules are altered are almost beside the point now because changes are inevitable. There’s no stopping it. Next season will be a very different tanking atmosphere.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u25e6 Note:\u00a0 Teams are rated based on who’s doing the best job of being bad in a given week. Teams that lose and find innovative ways to get around the league’s player participation policy will rise in the rankings. Teams that accidentally win a game they wish they would have lost will fall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NBA Tank Rankings: April 7
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1. Washington Wizards<\/a> (17-61)<\/p>\n

Last week: 2<\/p>\n

The Wizards have lost six in a row and are back in their rightful place as the worst team in the NBA. They even faceplanted while trying to execute a dumb and ill-advised April Fools joke<\/a>. They’re bad at everything. Tank Watch loves them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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2. Indiana Pacers (18-60)<\/p>\n

Last week: 8<\/p>\n

The Pacers picked up two wins last week, but they’ve still lost 20 of their last 23 games. As long as they finish in the bottom three they’ll have the same 14% chance at landing the top pick as the other two worst teams. And, crucially, they’ll have a 52.1% chance of picking in the top four. That’s important because the Pacers owe the Clippers<\/a> a first-round pick in the upcoming draft that only ships to Los Angeles if it falls in the 5-9 range.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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3. Utah Jazz (21-58)<\/p>\n

Last week: 1<\/p>\n

There’s a case to be made that the Jazz should have remained in the top slot for a second consecutive week. Utah has lost nine in a row, the longest active streak in the NBA. Of course it helps when the Jazz’s last six opponents all had winning records and are bound for either the playoffs or the play-in. In the process, the Jazz are now tied with the Kings for the worst record in the Western Conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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4. Memphis Grizzlies (25-54)<\/p>\n

Last week: 6<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies have lately done a great job at doing a terrible job. That includes listing everyone who lives in Memphis or has visited the city on their injury reports. Just look at this injury update<\/a>. A masterpiece of the genre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Grizz have lost five in row, including Monday’s home defeat against the Cavs that dropped them a half-game below the Mavericks<\/a> in the standings. They also played three guys on 10-day contracts in the first quarter against the Raptors. You will be shocked to learn they did not win that one, either. Keep up the bad work, Memphis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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5. Chicago Bulls (29-49)<\/p>\n

Last week: 5<\/p>\n

After years of being stuck in the mediocre middle, the Bulls detonated their front office<\/a> on Monday and fired vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley. In tacit appreciation for everything the duo never did for the organization, the Bulls have lost seven straight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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6. Brooklyn Nets (19-59)<\/p>\n

Last week: 4<\/p>\n

The Nets are looking to lock up that last bottom-three slot and with it a 14% chance at the top overall pick. The concern here is that Brooklyn is just one game worse than the Kings and Jazz in the loss column, and the Nets have the second-easiest remaining strength of schedule. Brooklyn has two games left against the Bucks<\/a> and one against the Pacers before wrapping up its season in Toronto.<\/p>\n

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7. Sacramento Kings (21-58)<\/p>\n

Last week: 3<\/p>\n

Along with the Jazz, the Kings still have an outside shot of finishing in the bottom three if the Nets get an unexpected win or two this week. But considering Sacramento head coach Doug Christie has repeatedly insisted that the Kings aren’t a tanking team, should the Lottery Gods really reward such insolence?<\/p>\n

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8. Dallas Mavericks (25-53)<\/p>\n

Last week: 7<\/p>\n

Cooper Flagg<\/a> is playing out of his mind right now and might end up winning Rookie of the Year after all<\/a>. That’s good for his development and the team’s future. It’s less ideal for tanking purposes, considering Dallas just got passed by Memphis in the race to the bottom.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tank Watch Game(s) of the Week<\/p>\n

Bulls at Wizards, Thursday, 7 pm ET
The game is in Washington, but maybe the Bulls can convince the Wiz to run an in memoriam for the Karnisovas and Eversley Era.<\/p>\n

Pacers at Nets, Thursday, 7:30 pm ET
Brooklyn can’t be too careful about staying in the bottom three. This is one the Nets absolutely (don’t) need.<\/p>\n

(Final)\u00a0Tankathon<\/a> Spin of the Week
\n Tankathon<\/p>\n

And with that, our watch has ended<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We’ve done it. We’ve reached the final week of the regular season, and with it the last NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3792],"tags":[7,247,329,149,126,4056,177,6,338,9167,88197,69801,7332,69802,986,477,4055,427,468],"class_list":{"0":"post-703646","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sacramento-kings","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn-nets","10":"tag-chicago-bulls","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-indiana-pacers","13":"tag-kings","14":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nba-draft-order","17":"tag-nba-lottery-odds","18":"tag-nba-no-1-pick-odds","19":"tag-nba-tankathon","20":"tag-nba-tanking","21":"tag-nba-tanking-rules","22":"tag-sacramento","23":"tag-sacramento-kings","24":"tag-sacramentokings","25":"tag-utah-jazz","26":"tag-washington-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116364393059370179","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}