The NBA has a blatant culture problem staring it directly in the face, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver refuses to acknowledge it.
As a casual fan, the difference between watching college basketball and the NBA in 2026 feels like night and day.
At the time of writing this, the NBA Finals have just gotten underway, and the experience finally feels like championship basketball. But for almost the entire playoffs, it has been nothing but embarrassing clip after embarrassing clip.
Between Shai Gilgeous-Alexander jumping into defenders for foul calls, the Cleveland Cavaliers “quitting” in the middle of an elimination game and players flopping all over the court like fish out of water, the NBA’s level of passion for its championship tournament simply does not compare to any other sport, including its collegiate counterpart.
The “player empowerment” era has contributed to a sense of entitlement that makes the sport almost unwatchable. Players today make so much money that they don’t feel the need to put everything on the line day in and day out. In the regular season, players take games off for “load management” because the games simply don’t mean enough to them.
To solve this, the NBA installed the NBA Cup, a mid-season tournament with a financial incentive for the winners.
But what good is a financial incentive when players already have all the money in the world?
The NBA Cup is as meaningless to fans as it is to players. It doesn’t have the same championship feel as the traditional NBA Finals.
Aside from the lack of passion on the court, the apathy from team decision-makers is just as alarming.
Far too many executives have accepted losing as a “cost of doing business,” but when everyone starts trying to lose, the race to the bottom becomes just as competitive as the race to the top. There lies the tanking problem that Silver keeps trying — and failing — to address.
Back in February, the NBA fined the Utah Jazz $500,000 for “conduct detrimental to the league” after the team chose to bench its best players for the entire fourth quarter across two straight games. ESPN NBA Insider Bobby Marks criticized the fines, comparing them to a luxury tax team owners have no problem paying if it gives them a competitive advantage.
Commissioner Silver and the NBA routinely adjust the rules of the draft lottery to combat tanking, and the latest installment is by far the most egregious. Teams who finish in the bottom three will now be punished with worse odds at the number one pick. While this is meant to discourage tanking teams from finishing last, the teams that are actually bad without tanking are the only ones being punished. This change comes after the 2026 lottery, where the Washington Wizards became the first team with the best odds to actually win the top pick since the system was last changed in 2019.
The previous system didn’t stop teams from tanking, and this new one likely won’t, either. That’s because tanking is a culture issue — not a systemic one. Like the flopping and carelessness of the players, it’s a problem that needs to be solved from the inside out. Players and executives simply have to care about winning and integrity; they should respect the sanctity of the game enough that the thought of manipulating it is repulsive. But that’s unfortunately not the case in the modern NBA.
The NBA can learn from the college game, where culture problems are far less of an issue. Players always have something to play for; there are enough games in a season for each to have meaning — and most importantly, everyone cares.
College basketball teams don’t play more than 40 games in the regular season. Teams play two to three games per week, which keeps players healthy and fresh, and the season is filled with exciting matchups and rivalry games — both in- and out-of-conference — that make the players and fans willing to try harder.
When Florida plays Florida State, it matters whether it’s the first game of the season or the last. The NBA hasn’t had a rivalry like that since the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers faced off in four straight finals from 2015 to 2018.
At the end of the day, fans will care if the players care. The players shouldn’t have to be forced to care, but that’s the world we live in.
The awkward staring contest won’t end until the NBA acknowledges the real problem: the erosion of a competitive culture that once made the league great.
Contact Brayden Schultz at bschultz@alligator.org. Follow him on X @schultzbrayden9.
