Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - How Proposed NBA Anti-Tanking Changes Could Impact the Lakers

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

The NBA is reportedly planning to institute new rules for next season designed to combat tanking. It remains to be seen exactly what those changes will look like, but a few of the ideas being kicked around, according to ESPN's Shams Charania, include:  First-round draft picks can be protected only for top-four or top-14-plus selections Lottery odds freeze at the trade deadline or a later date No longer allowing a team to pick in the top four in consecutive years and/or after consecutive bottom-three finishes Teams can't pick in the top four the year after making conference finals Lottery odds allocated based on two-year records Lottery extended to include all play-in teams Flatten odds for all lottery teams Some of these things are good ideas, some less so, all will have consequences that are anticipated, and others that aren't. But for Lakers fans, how should they look at efforts to combat tanking? They aren't typically in position to tank, whether because the team is too good too frequently, or they don't control their picks, having used them in trades and such.  So why does this matter? We explain.  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky  Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub   Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Turbo Tax For a limited time, you can have your taxes done by a local TurboTax expert for just $150 — all in, if a TurboTax expert didn’t file for you last year. Just file by February 28. Take taxes off your plate and get back to your life.  Visit https://TurboTax.com/local to book your appointment today.  Quo Make this the year where no opportunity — and no customer — slips away. Try Quo for free plus get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://Quo.com/lockedonnba. Quo — no missed calls, no missed customers.  5-Hour ENERGY Have your cake & drink it too. Birthday cake-flavor is back, no fork needed. Vanilla-y cakey flavor, caffeinated kick, and no sugar. It's party time. Order Now at 5-hourENERGY.com or Amazon. Indeed Listeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast Gametime Today's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONfor $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply. FanDuel Use your Profit Boost on an NBA future and get entered for your chance to win a trip to the NBA Finals. Play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Visit https://FANDUEL.COMto get started.    FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The NBA is planning on rolling out new anti-tanking measures next season. What's that going to mean for the Lakers? That's next. You are Locked-on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Thanks to everybody for making Locked on Lakers. First listen to every day, Monday through Friday,

sometimes on weekends, even on holidays, and now more than once a day, no matter how or where you get your podcast, whether that's Apple, Spotify. Maybe you're one of the 37,000 plus subscribers to the Lockdown Lakers YouTube channel. Matter how you're doing it, part of making the Lockdown Sports Podcast Network, the number one sports podcast network in this or any other known universe. I'm Brian Kaminzki with Andy Komenetsky, covered the Lakers for nearly 20 years for the ESPN for the LA Times for the athletic. And one of the things that has become a major issue over the last few seasons, Andy,

is tanking. It's gotten particularly egregious in new and exciting. ways, I think, this season. And the NBA, while I think they often have rabbit ears about too many things that are too hyper online, do recognize that this is a major problem, both with the perception of the product, with the actual way that seasons play out, the competitive balance and all these things inside seasons, not always good for fans and so on and so on and so on. multiple sources telling sham Shirania from ESPN that the league with Adam Silver, Andy,

is planning on some changes for next season to try to at least minimize the tanking, mitigate some of the tanking, make tanking less appealing. Discord and Shams, some of these stuff that's been tossed around with the competition committee, I don't believe that they're going to do all of these things,

but certainly a smattering of them might be possible. First round draft picks can be protected only for top four or top 14 plus selections, limiting protections. Theoretically makes it a little bit harder. Utah, for example, trying to protect the top eight pick. That would go away in a scenario like this. Lottery odds freeze at the deadline or a later date.

So at least in theory, you lose the incentive to try to lose after the All-Star break. No longer allowing a team to pick in the last year. the top four in consecutive years and or after consecutive bottom three finishes, meaning if you suck too many years in a row, you lose your privileges to draft really high. Teams can't pick in the top four after making a conference final. Lottery odds allocated based on two-year records, not just one. Lottery extended to include all play-in teams. That's to help make sure teams don't try to skip the play-in in order to get a higher draft pick.

Flatten the odds for all lottery teams. These are just some, Andy, ideas that have been bandied about in the competition committee. Yeah, and I think all of these are interesting. I think some strike me at least immediately more at face value as more potentially effective than others. Like, I feel like the protections thing, if you really want to disincentivize that from being a thing, I would just eliminate protections. What gets interesting about that, though, and this is where I think the league has to recognize that there's always going to be a certain sacrifice or tradeoff.

It is believed that if you eliminate protections on picks, you will see fewer trades because very often teams will make these sort of trades if they can hedge their bets a bit with the picks they're giving up by protecting them. And this matters because the transaction cycle for the NBA gets a lot of eyeballs and a lot of clicks and presumably a lot of revenue generated from it because all of this is about the money. So there could be, I imagine, a fear within the league offices that if you started making picks less incentivized to move around or teams, you know, hoarding them a bit more, there might be fewer transactions and less attention.

And I bring that up just because with all of these, and I'm sure we can find the pros and cons or the potential unintensive consequences, pitfalls, whatever, you're going to have to accept imperfections. You're going to have to accept the idea that none of these are going to be perfect. Like at the trade deadline, the standings are frozen. I can tell you there will be teams looking to lose up until the point. But then their players will miraculously return. There's going to be, as long as there is a draft,

there's going to be some type of incentive for some teams to lose because those teams, many of them, sometimes you just, you happen to be in potential possession of a good pick, even as a big market team and you want to keep it. But for a lot of the smaller and even mid-market teams, they actually need those picks, whether to turn into players or to use as trade assets, I mean, trade assets, because that's how they get better because free agents never go to them. Nobody forces a trade to Salt Lake City. That doesn't happen.

Nobody forces a trade to Milwaukee. That doesn't happen. Those teams need the draft capital in one form and other. So it's going to be complicated to fix, but the first step in, at the very least, alleviating it is actually trying. We discussed this in a previous show, just like the problem the league has in it you know the NBA is just more than any other sport is tilted by individual players the quality of any of you get a wendy a lebron a you know potentially

cooper flag players like this um you know these all-star or better players elite elite players the the fortunes of your franchise pivot in an instant yeah um and you just you know it It's not that you can't get good without some of those guys, but those guys are franchise changers. Or just as many cracks at the Apple as possible. Sure. Even drafting all over the first round, you need the avenue to draft. And so as long as you have that setup

where lesser teams are given a better chance to try to get better rookies, you can't eliminate the tanking thing entirely. I did see on ESPN, like one of the interesting I think this was proposed by an executive, an unnamed executive, that you count losses until a predetermined date, and then after that to wait lottery odds,

you actually count wins. And so teams would be incentivized to win in order to improve their lottery odds after, you know, March 1st or whatever, which could be kind of interesting. If nothing else, it still doesn't solve the tanking problem before, like to make yourself,

as bad as possible before that, but it does at least make the games down the stretch potentially more competitive. I mentioned this only, not to debate this particular theory, but like you say, there are tradeoffs for everything. Well, really quick too, and I want to say this just because I think we sometimes, the Royal We lose side of this, the problem with that proposal is there are teams that actually lose simply because they're not very good. Yes. And they're not trying to lose.

You're actually in a scenario like that going to penalize the teams that truly do need the most help. But most teams, if they are not true, most teams that if they're that bad, generally are trying to lose. Unless they don't have their pick. The only exception is a team like New Orleans for this year into next year that just doesn't own their pick. But there are teams. It is just important to remember that sometimes the struggle is real as opposed to manufacturing. You and I covered Lakers teams that were not tanking. They were just terrible.

All right. After the break, we'll break down, though, how some of these rules impact the Lakers and why they, a team that really never uses their draft picks, should still care about this. Locked on Lakers is brought to you by Fanduel. The winter games are officially here. You're locking in for events that you only get to see on the biggest stage every four years following the winter games on Fanduel.

It makes sense from metal counts to individual events. finding your angle on the sports that you care about the most. FanDuel gives you more ways to stay connected to the action. Curling, for example, all of a sudden, incredibly intense, even though you really don't even understand quite what's going on. It doesn't matter. It's going to feel just locked in competition, both the athletes and you watching. FanDuel keeps the entire Olympic experience engaging from start to finish.

The winter games are on. There's no better way to follow them with FanDuel. FanDuel, play your game. Talked on Lakers, brought to you by Quo, New Year New Systems. This is the time when a lot of us look at the messier parts of how we run our business and think there has got to be a better way. And of course, there is streamlining your communications. It's one of the quickest upgrades that you can make. And that's why today's episode's brought to you by Quo.

That's spelled QUO, the smarter way to run your business communications. They make everything simpler from keeping your whole team on one shared business number. So nothing gets missed. Full conversation threads. So everybody can follow what's going on. AI smart tools, logging calls, summarizing conversations, all kinds of great tools, which is why it's no surprise. The Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, trusted by more than 90,000 businesses from solo operators to growing teams. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer slips away.

Try Quo for free plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to Quo.com slash Lockdown MBA. That's Quo.com slash Lockton MBA quo, no miss calls, no miss customers. And Lockdown Lakers brought to you by five-hour energy drink. Welcome to the five-hour energy flavor draft. We are looking at every aspect of the draft to let you know which flavors are the best, the ones that might be sleepers, the board's set, the flavors are ready. Only one is going to take the top spot. They got a wide variety of flavors at five-hour energy,

something for everyone with zero sugar boost. I'm drafting peach mango. They've got the right peach flavor, the tropical depth and sweetness from the mango. it's slightly richer than citrus flavors, but still absolutely love it. Had a little lime to it. Get Frank Ocean vibe, mango peaches and lime, sweet life.

I am also open, I'm keeping an eye on watermelon and blue raspberry, but my drafty, peach, mango. Find your favorite flavor of five-hour energy shots available at five-hourenergy.com or Amazon. Okay. One of the, you know, it remains to be seeing how the league

is going to enforce some of these rules that they do it. But like tanking impacts the Lakers in a lot of ways. I mentioned the competitive balance stuff. The Lakers 33 and 21 heading into Friday night's game against the Clippers. They are right in the thick of things in the Western Conference. And quite literally, the balance of seating, whether you're a four or a five, open at home, open on the road, can be determined by how many teams do you play over the last 25 that are trying to live? lose. That is not anything related to your own good fortune with injuries, your own talent level,

your own growth is a team. That is dumb luck. And the league should try to avoid things that are based on that. That impacts teams like the Lakers every year. Another little way that some of these tanking rules impact the Lakers. The TV thing, Andy, when you play on TV all the time, your stars are expected to be in games. And so the Lakers, not that they're trying to tank, but they are impacted by these rules. So when other teams play the Lakers on television,

they have to play all their guys. You might see teams that appear less on television, all that other stuff. National television. National television, yes. Like maybe they get an extra game or two over the course of a season. You know, it's the one time, you know,

where they don't get to see as many of, you know, you get to play more teams in more situations where they can be sitting more players. There's all kinds of little ways in which this stuff matters. And then obviously for a team like the Lakers that trades often its draft picks, how those draft picks are treated by the league and what the value ultimately of those draft picks turns out to be, is a huge deal for the Lakers because those are trade chips for a team like L.A. more than a thing that they use for players. Explain that a little bit further, though,

what you mean in terms of the potential impact moving forward on the picks themselves? Let's say, you know, how protections, if protections go away and teams that are perceived to be less good. The picks of those teams become more valuable. The picks of teams for teams like the Lakers, which are seen as a team generally that, okay, fine, maybe Luke is going to get older, but there's always going to be another player

that drops into their lap or a different guy that ends up signing there or whatever. Teams like the Lakers that don't tend to be in the lottery very often are teams that, for whom their draft picks, just aren't as valuable. And so other teams can protect their picks all the way up to make them seem like they're basically picks in the 20s or mid-20s, late 30, or up to 30, like the Lakers typically are. But if you eliminate a lot of those protections or make protections go away or whatever it might be,

those picks for middling teams or struggling teams become significantly more important. That's one thing. You mentioned in the first segment, if those picks become that much more important or whatever, teams might be that much more reluctant to trade them. And so that changes the market for how the Lakers can acquire players, what players are on the market, who goes into cap space, all these are the things. There's a lot of downstream impacts, I think, potentially. I don't know what they are because I don't think anybody really understands what they're

going to be. But when you start messing with the value of draft picks, when you start messing with, or are changing the way that winning and losing is quantified for lottery odds and the incentives that teams have, it's going to flow upwards in some ways to teams like the Lakers that aren't perceived as one of these tanking kind of teams. Yeah, I mean, what's interesting about that to me, at least immediate reaction to the way you framed that, and I thought that was interesting, is if protections start becoming less of a thing that some of these teams that need to hedge against moving some of their

picks or losing some of their picks, maybe it leads to them trading them less often, which could then have a potential positive effect on the Lakers because their picks might start seeming more valuable in the sense that they become the ones that are more available, period. No, that's true. That's interesting, because they're the only picks that are on the market. That's true. Granted in the 20s, but... Right.

I mean, but depending on what teams can get or can't get as a better offer, you never know if all of a sudden picks that are in the 20s start gaining more currencies simply because they're on the market, take it or leave it. Yeah, I just, I look at this and, you know, the Lakers, my big takeaway from all these things is I think it's going to take two or three years to really, and we can quit on this. But I think it can take two or three years to people really understand what the changes mean, and how they impact things. There's a lot of moving parts.

You start implementing anti-tanking rules as the league is still adjusting to the new apron rules and sorting itself out that way and contract structures are changing. There's a lot of overlapping things happening at once. But I will say, like my big takeaway from all this is when you start and start to think about it, they will impact everyone. It is not just a thing to eliminate the behaviors of, you know, the same eight teams every year, it seems like eight to ten teams. It is something that will impact every team across the league, whether that's through free agency,

whether that's through the draft, whether that's trade season or whatever it might be. So don't think the Lakers are not part of that. Locked on Lakers on YouTube is where you can go hang out with over 37,000 subscribers to the channel. Catch us on Cambrothers on Twitter if you want to reach out that way. Leave us questions. Leave us comments. We'll see everyone next time.