Exasperated, Steve Kerr placed his head in both of his hands. He was imitating Adam Silver.
The Warriors coach imagined the NBA commissioner’s reaction to hearing yet another possible solution to the league’s tanking problem. Then he offered his own proposal.
“Flatten the odds. Everybody has the same odds,” Kerr told Tom Tolbert on Tuesday, agreeing with the host of the eponymous podcast. “The only thing I would add to that is there’s gotta be really big incentives to make the playoffs.”
Since the Jazz pulled their starters in a game they were winning shortly before the All-Star break, everybody from Bill Simmons to Silver himself have weighed in on the situation. Just about the only thing universally agreed upon is that the issue exists.
Kerr was quick to note the extreme circumstances specific to this season, with a draft class considered to be loaded and more than a handful of teams already in rebuild-mode.
Still, “I think something does need to be done,” Kerr said.
With Steph Curry injured and Jimmy Butler out until next year, the Warriors haven’t been immune from the thought of trying to lose their remaining games to take their chances in the lottery instead of the play-in. They didn’t exactly try during the pandemic-shortened season when Curry, Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant were all hurt.
The idea would be even more enticing if all 14 teams had even odds — about 7.14% — at the top pick, as Kerr suggested. To rebut that, Kerr suggested a financial incentive for playoff teams.
“Maybe some kind of cap relief. Maybe some kind of exception to the cap. Maybe there’s actual cash incentives just from revenue,” Kerr said. “But you can’t have a team in ninth or 10th say, ‘Eh, it’s not really worth it; we’re gonna play the one seed and lose anyway, we might as well tank.’”
“Because now you’re looking at the same thing. So there’s got to be a huge incentive for making the playoffs too that goes along with that.”
Teams already get additional revenue from playoff ticket sales — it’s helped line the Warriors’ pockets for years — so Tolbert, the host, offered another suggestion: Additional home games the following season, which would offer cash and a competitive edge.
“Everybody’s got a lottery idea,” Kerr chuckled. “You’ve got yours. I’ve got mine. … Nobody cares. Well, everybody cares but nobody cares about your idea.”
“I just know that we have to have change. Adam Silver has said it: Change is coming. You cannot have a league where teams are trying to lose. You can’t. I think we can do it. But there’s a million ways.”