Adam Silver and the NBA league office are banging their heads against the table in trying to find a fix for tanking. A former Mavericks majority owner felt the need to do the exact opposite.

Mark Cuban maintains that fans of teams with a poor record live on hope. They pray that the lottery gods will answer their prayers and give them a lottery pick. He doesn’t mind if teams openly state their strategy to fans. That honestly gets penalized, with the Jazz suffering a hefty fine recently. In the wake of those events and the conversation of tanking growing, Cuban recalled a suggestion he gave.

“Make the draft more like free agency. Except that the worst record gets the salary slotted to the first draft pick. The next worst record gets the next amount, etc. Then the teams recruit players with their “rookie cap room “. The team with the worst record has the most money. But if their organization is terrible, the best players don’t like the coach, whatever, they can take less money and go to a different team,” Cuban wrote on X.

That idea was quickly shut down at the time. However, the NBA Commissioner appears to be seriously considering abolishing the draft. Adam Silver wants teams to be ethical, even though they might be bad. Lose on their merit, and get a lottery pick for their efforts to win. That’s the reason he discourages team activities that go against the sport’s competitive spirit.

But a recent report suggested that if fines don’t work, the league office has considered turning the draft into free agency. Would it be the same format as Cuban’s past suggestion? It hasn’t come to a point where they are worried about details. But fans aren’t supportive of the business mogul’s ideas.

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NBA fans bash Mark Cuban for his draft suggestions

Fans spotted a common problem with Cuban’s suggestion to make a rookie cap room. Big market teams such as the Warriors, Lakers, and Knicks will always hold an advantage. “This is garbage, man,” one fan reacted.

“That’s cool and all, but what if rookies decide to take a slight pay cut to start their career to avoid playing for teams like the Jazz or Hornets?” a fan questioned. In the early years, rookies aren’t focused on making the most money. And nowadays, with NIL deals, that’s the least of their concerns. A rookie would prefer to be part of a big market team to maximize their development and off-court future.

Moreover, one fan thinks his suggestion doesn’t eliminate tanking. “The 2nd part would cause tanking,” they wrote, that being the salary allotment. Teams would still have an incentive to underperform, which is to get the most money to sign rookies. The practices would remain the same, only the reward is slightly altered.

Rather, fans feel giving rookies control over their fate could worsen the problem. “They’ll go to stacked teams that need their position. This is so dumb,” one such argument read. Mark Cuban, for his part, doesn’t oppose tanking. He feels the NBA’s second-apron creates many obstacles in team building. One of the things he pointed out is how the new CBA addition restricts filling out the team with veterans.

“Think about it. If the 2nd apron is 207, and a super max is almost 60. Add a second max at 58m. That’s less than 90m left to sign 13 players. And you have diminished exceptions to sign players. So, it’s mostly minimums and maybe a partial taxpayer MLE,” Cuban noted.

Tanking in the obvious ways isn’t great. But in some ways, Cuban’s call for the league to understand certain teams’ situations does make sense. Maybe accepting that some fanbases aren’t focused on winning right now could help calm the controversy around unethical competition.