Adam Silver’s brainstorming hasn’t stopped. And as things are, it won’t stop anytime soon. The drop in ratings has been a bedbug for the commissioner in recent years. The situation becomes even more troublesome given the NBA’s launch into a new media era after the $76 billion deal with Disney, NBC, and Amazon. The new plans for the NBA All-Star weekend also fell flat with the fans after the debacle in San Francisco, where basketball got a screen time of less than 40 minutes in 3 plus hours of TV time on Sunday. With this new headache, the old pains are also creeping up this season, more so thanks to the race to capture Cooper Flagg.

With the regular season due to conclude in a few weeks, the race to the playoffs has intensified with 20 teams across both conferences. But for the rest, it is a different race to run.  12 teams locked, for them a loss is more celebrated than a win. Tanking is the need of the hour for the basement boys of the NBA. But this long-standing malpractice has implications on the league’s TV ratings. Sitting out stars for the sake of losing isn’t doing any favors to grab the eyes and NBA vet Garrett Temple is too much of a “realist” to digest that.

Talking to The Athletic, the Raptor player said, “I’m a realist and I can understand the big-picture thinking. But I would never wish for my team to lose a game.” Garrett called out the tanking habits of the teams trying to finish at the bottom places of the tables just to boost their draft fortunes. “I would never wish my players to go out and not compete to win. … As competitors, it’s who we are. I think it’s a situation that with the way the rules are, then there is the incentive to (think like) that. And that’s, in my opinion, wrong.”

The draft rules were imposed in the first place to maintain parity among the teams. Power scaling is a major problem for any league to be competitive. In turn, the lack of competitiveness has surfaced as a major issue. What’s doable to sort this out? The vice president of the National Basketball Players Association believes that’s something for Adam Silver to ponder upon.

“People come to watch the stars play at the end of the day,” said Temple. “If the stars aren’t playing then they’re not necessarily watching the players that they (paid) to watch. The guys that are on the court are playing hard. They’re NBA players, NBA talent. But it’s definitely different than game 10 in the season or playoff game five or something like that in the first round.”

Adam Silver’s NBA forced into action after questionable decisions

With all due respect, teams like the Wizards, Jazz, and Hornets were expected to be in contention for late-season tanking. But the unexpected turn of events has dragged even the unlikeliest ones into the mix. The 76ers are the prime example of a team lost in the shuffle, resulting in a surprising entry to the Flagg race. And that has prompted Adam Silver’s league to take action.

According to Shams Charania, the league is looking into the Sixers over recently reported injuries to Tyrese Maxey and Paul George. Joel Embiid was already shut down for the season after recurring injury issues. Nick Nurse’s decision to protect Maxey and George was deemed a violation of the league’s Player Participation Policy. Their first-round draft pick will go to the Thunder if it falls outside the first six selections. So the Sixers have a motive to give themselves the best chances at this year’s NBA Draft Lottery.

Not only the 76ers, but even the OKC Thunder were under investigation for sitting out Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Luguentz Dort, Isaiah Hartenstein, and Cason Wallace for the team’s March 7 game against the Portland Trail Blazers. According to league rules, star players must play in nationally televised games unless there is an approved reason for absence. Even the Utah Jazz, another team looking to boost their draft chances, were fined $100,000 for violating the rule. But penalizing penny-pinch sums is not the solution in the long run and for that, Adam Silver must come up with an idea to encourage teams to be as competitive as they can be.