Each week during the 2025-26 NBA season, we will take a deeper dive into some of the league’s biggest storylines in an attempt to determine whether trends are based more in fact or fiction moving forward.

Last week: The Thunder won the trade deadline

The NBA’s tanking problem, it seems, creeps earlier and earlier into the season, to the point that two teams were fined on Thursday for violating the league’s tanking policies.

In consecutive games against the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat, the Utah Jazz removed Lauri Markkanen and Jaren Jackson Jr. prior to fourth quarters that were still in doubt and never reinserted either former All-Star into the contests. The Jazz blew a 17-point lead in the final 13:49 of a 120-117 loss to the Magic and actually held on to defeat the Heat 115-111.

Asked how close he came to subbing Markkanen and Jackson back in, Jazz coach Will Hardy said plainly, “I wasn’t,” blatantly baiting the league into taking action against them.

As Miami’s Bam Adebayo, whose Heat are vying for a play-in berth, conceded afterward, “We’ve got to find a way to win against teams that are, I guess you can say, trying to lose.”

So, there you had it: The Jazz were clearly undermining the integrity of the game, and an opposing player called them on it, which resulted in a $500,000 fine for Utah’s franchise.

“Overt behavior like this that prioritizes draft position over winning undermines the foundation of NBA competition and we will respond accordingly to any further actions that compromise the integrity of our games,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in Thursday’s press release. “Additionally, we are working with our competition committee and board of governors to implement further measures to root out this type of conduct.”

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The league’s board of governors plans to meet in March, when tanking will be a hot topic.

Jazz governor Ryan Smith is worth an estimated $2.6 billion, which means that $500,000 is about the same as $1 to someone who has $5,000 in his savings account. This is hardly a disincentive when the prize on the other end of their tank job — a high-end pick in what is considered a loaded draft — could increase the franchise’s value by hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars. Consider what Stephen Curry did for the Golden State Warriors.

As long as losing is the way to get the most Ping-Pong balls in the NBA’s annual draft lottery, teams that have no hope for the playoffs are going to intentionally lose games.

This is an epidemic. As much as a third of the league has every incentive to lose from here on out, especially the Jazz and Washington Wizards, who each owe their first-round picks to other teams if they do not fall in the bottom eight. The playoff fields in each conference are all but set — with two months to go in the regular season. There is little left to play for.

The season is too long, and there are financial reasons why team owners would not want to give up regular-season games — for the gate receipts. But what are they selling to fans? Stars are resting for all or parts of these games, and the product is, at best, watered down. At worst? Some of the product is essentially rigged, with one or both teams trying to lose.

Think a $100,00 fine against the Indiana Pacers for resting a healthy Pascal Siakam is going to dissuade Indiana from trying everything in its power to secure a top-three pick — and the rights to AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson or Cameron Boozer — in the draft? Think again.

The Pacers are hoping and praying that Dybantsa, Peterson or Boozer, or whomever they get, eventually commands half a billion dollars in salary and is worth every penny to them.

If the NBA must fine teams, it must fine them Ping-Pong balls, hitting them where it counts in the lottery and removing the incentive to lose. Teams will learn real quick not to tank.

Maybe it is time to scrap the lottery entirely. Make it a wheel. Drastic measures are required to root out a serious problem. What the NBA does about gambling, salary cap circumvention and its All-Star Game are other matters, but this issue seems fixable.

As is, the Jazz assigned season-ending surgery to Jackson for a non-cancerous growth in his knee. Even though the procedure is necessary, Utah’s actions leave us to wonder if the team might have elected to postpone Jackson’s surgery if it had any incentive to win.

Likewise, the Wizards apparently traded for both Trae Young and Anthony Davis with the reported intention of resting both stars for the remainder of the season. What is the NBA going to do — convince Young that a lingering quad injury is no longer a concern? Tell Davis not to worry about the hand and groin injuries that he sustained on the Dallas Mavericks?

It is too easy for teams to find reasons to rest their stars in pursuit of losses. Anyone can have some sore soft tissue, and no amount of NBA investigation may discover otherwise.

So, what to do if you are the NBA? Incentivize winning, maybe. Give the No. 1 pick to the non-playoff team that wins the most games after the All-Star break, or something like that. This is hardly a revolutionary idea, and it would surely lead to more problems (for example, would not teams try to duck out of the play-in tournament?), but it is at least something.

And something is better than what we have now, which is a gamble — accepting the league’s fines in hopes of landing a franchise savior — that billionaires are willing to take.

Otherwise, fans will have to take the issue into their own hands and stop going to or tuning in to these games. Paying $1,000 for a family of four to see a game that may or may not feature its star players is, on the other hand, a gamble most fans may no longer make.

Determination: Fiction. Obviously.