NBA intel: How 7 draft lottery teams jump-start their rebuilds

On Wednesday, the NBA slapped the Utah Jazz with a $100,000 fine for violating the league’s player participation policy for sitting star Lauri Markkanen in a game last week in Washington “as well as other recent games.”

Markkanen had missed nine straight games with various ailments, and the league reached the conclusion he had actually been able to play. In other words, the team appeared guilty of blatant tanking. It was working, too; the Jazz lost eight of the nine games.

Shortly after the fine was levied, the Jazz updated their injury report to declare Markkanen available to play that night against the Memphis Grizzlies. The Jazz lost again anyway.

The same night, in a high-value tank game in Toronto, the Raptors started two rookies, a two-way player and a player on a 10-day contract and still beat the Philadelphia 76ers, who had more than $140 million in salaries on the inactive list. As a result, Toronto moved ahead of the 76ers in the actual standings, but Philadelphia moved into a tie for fifth in the NBA’s draft lottery standings, a vital development for a 76ers team that needs its draft pick to land inside the top six to keep it.

“Right now there are nine teams tanking,” one league executive said. “And next year’s draft is going to have maybe more franchise players than this year’s draft. A year from now, you may still have nine teams tanking.”

Let’s dive into the next steps for a handful of those teams — the seven with the best odds at the No. 1 overall pick, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index (BPI) — as we canvass the league for intel on the franchises that will matter most leading up to the May lottery and June draft.

Jump to a team:
Raptors | Nets
76ers | Pelicans
Hornets | Jazz
Wizards