Mark Cuban says the NBA should
embrace tanking and criticizes recent punishments for teams
[February 18, 2026]
DALLAS (AP) — Mark Cuban wrote in a pair of lengthy posts on social
media that the NBA should embrace tanking, and the minority owner of
the Dallas Mavericks criticized the league for punishing teams that
appear to be losing on purpose to improve their chances of landing a
high pick in the draft.
Cuban's posts on X on Tuesday came three days after Commissioner
Adam Silver said the NBA was considering changes to the draft
lottery and the possibility of revoking picks.
When announcing a $500,000 fine last week for Utah after the Jazz
sat star players Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. in the fourth
quarter of a loss to Orlando, Silver said the league “would respond
accordingly to any further actions that compromise the integrity of
our games.”
The sharpest comments from Cuban amounted to a response to Silver's
strong words.
“The worst that the NBA dishes out is that if you don’t lie to your
fans about what you are doing, even though it’s obvious to them, you
get fined,” Cuban wrote. “And (they) threaten you with losing
picks.”
Indiana president of basketball operations Kevin Pritchard, whose
Pacers were fined $100,000 at the same time as the Jazz over roster
management decisions, asked his fans in a post if they agreed with
Cuban. Most did.
The Pacers reached the NBA Finals last season, losing to Oklahoma
City. Their best player, Tyrese Haliburton, tore an Achilles tendon
in Game 7, and the expectation was he would miss the entire 2025-26
season. Indiana lost 12 of its first 13 games and had a 13-game
losing streak to drop to 6-31, but has a .500 record since then.
The Mavericks are in a similar situation a year after trading
generational superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for a
package centered around oft-injured big man Anthony Davis, just nine
months after Dallas reached the NBA Finals.
Davis missed more games than he played for the Mavs before getting
sent to Washington in a trade deadline deal this year. It was the
final step in moving on from an ill-fated trade. The first was the
November firing of general manager Nico Harrison, who orchestrated
the Doncic deal.
Dallas converted just a 1.8% chance in the lottery for the rights to
draft former Duke star Cooper Flagg first overall this past summer.
[to top of second column] |
Flagg is now the future of the franchise, and the
Mavs have to decide, presumably soon, whether Kyrie Irving will play
at all this season. The nine-time All-Star tore an ACL last March,
and the Mavs entered the All-Star break on a nine-game losing
streak, their longest in 28 years.
While Cuban is no longer in a decision-making role
after selling majority ownership of the Mavs, he was fined $600,000
by the league when he was still in charge late in the 2022-23 season
for admitting Dallas was tanking to try to protect a first-round
pick. The Mavs ended up getting center Dereck Lively II, a promising
talent who has been plagued by injuries.
With tanking a hot topic again, Cuban started his post with “Why the
NBA should embrace tanking,” and went on to say fans don't mind
tanking because they want to have hope that the team can improve.
“Few can remember the score from the last game they saw or went to,”
Cuban wrote. “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.”
With that in mind, Cuban said, the league should focus more on
affordability than the integrity issue that is at the heart of
tanking.
“The NBA should worry more about fan experience than tanking,” he
wrote. “It should worry more about pricing fans out of games than
tanking.”
Though the Mavericks weren't accused of tanking in 2017-18, Cuban
essentially wrote in his post that they did. Dallas finished with
its worst record in 30 years at 24-58, but didn't get lucky in the
lottery like this past year. The Mavs ended up with the fifth pick
and had to trade up two spots to get Doncic.
“We didn't tank often,” wrote Cuban, who also noted that current
salary cap rules have made productive rookies even more valuable for
winning rosters. “Only a few times over 23 years, but when we did,
our fans appreciated it. And it got us to where we could improve,
trade up to get Luka and improve our team.”
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved
 |
