To hear billionaire businessman Mark Cuban tell it, the NBA doesn't actually have a tanking problem, as commissioner Adam Silver outlined during his All-Star press conference over the weekend.
Rather, in Cuban's opinion, the league has a fan experience problem on its hands.
In a lengthy post on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday morning, the Mavericks minority owner outlined why he believes the NBA should actually "embrace" tanking, and instead turn its focus toward improving "affordability and quality of game presentation."
The NBA is "in the business of creating experiences for fans," Cuban argued. "Few can remember the score from the last game they saw or went to. They can’t remember the dunks or shots. What they remember is who they were with. Their family, friends, a date. That’s what makes the experience special."
Fans know losses are a part of that equation, he added, but they still want that hope that their favorite team will eventually have a chance at improving and competing for a ring.
The "one way to get closer to that is via the draft. And trades. And cap room," he went on. But "you have a better chance of improving via all three when you tank."
With that in mind, "the NBA should worry more about fan experience than tanking. It should worry more about pricing fans out of games than tanking."
Cuban also said that, although the Mavs didn't tank often, their fans appreciated it when they did, because it put the team in a position to improve.
Why the NBA should embrace tanking -
— Mark Cuban (@mcuban) February 17, 2026
The NBA has kate been misguided thinking that fans want to see their teams compete every night with a chance to win. It’s never been that way that way.
When I got into the nba, they thought they were in the basketball business. They…
It's certainly an interesting argument. Yes, tanking is helpful from a team-building point-of-view—but what fan wants to attend a game where their favorite team is playing poorly on purpose? Doesn't that contradict his point about "quality of game presentation"?
Perhaps not, if you, like Cuban, consider tanking part of an unspoken agreement with fans. Indeed, he seems to view it as a team's signal that it's trying to get better, if those in the stands wouldn't mind holding on just a little longer. And if no one can afford to come to the games anyway, does it even matter if the team plays poorly?
An interesting POV.
In Silver's consideration, tanking is "worse this year than we've seen in recent memory." Just last week, the Jazz were fined $500,000 for intentionally throwing games, while Indiana was fined $100,000 for somewhat similar conduct. Of course, bad teams—or at least struggling teams—need to get better somehow, which Silver understands. But this is overall a difficult needle to thread.
If Cuban were in charge, though, it sounds like he thinks the league would be better served to abandon its efforts re: effort and focus solely on getting fans to come back again and again.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Mark Cuban Makes Passionate Argument for Why NBA Should 'Embrace' Tanking.
