Worldwide Sports News

• Adam Silver says the league would “seriously consider” rookie free agency if it ends tanking.
• A draft-free system changes incentives for “poverty franchises,” but risks star clustering.
• Alternatives like post-elimination win incentives exist.

Is the NBA Draft on the chopping block? Commissioner Adam Silver said that he and his advisors would "seriously consider" replacing the rookie draft with free agency if it's the only definitive way to end tanking.

I am fully onboard with this idea!

With the 2026 tanking crisis reaching a fever pitch following record-breaking fines for the Jazz and Pacers, the league's "flattened odds" lottery experiment has officially failed to deter strategic losing.

As owners grow restless over plummeting ticket sales in rebuilding markets, the nuclear option of a rookie open market is no longer just a "think-piece" theory; it's a looming reality for the next NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Eliminating the NBA draft would actually help small market teams

Claiming small-market teams would be "cooked" is the wrong takeaway.

Players prioritize money, usage, and minutes, which are resources that are limited on every roster. A top rookie might choose the Charlotte Hornets over the Los Angeles Lakers if Charlotte can guarantee 35 minutes a night and the "keys to the franchise," whereas the Lakers might only have a bench role available.

Each team would actually land players who want to be there and are more loyal to the franchise. Players would choose teams based on coaching staff and training facilities rather than being "forced" into a bad situation. This shifts the burden onto front offices to be competent to attract talent.

I opened the debate up on TikTok and was immediately met with hundreds of hot takes as well as a few intriguing solutions. Here are some of my favorites, along with my personal responses.

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What NBA fans are saying

M.T.C||.vids: The NBA should NOT remove the draft. Players won’t willingly move to bad teams that have no chance of winning anything.

Metler: All the reason for those franchises to become competent and stop being rewarded with lottery picks.

M.T.C||.vids: How on earth do you expect a franchise to just “become competent”? This free agent format would make super teams stronger and weaker squads less talented, dealing with the bums the league doesn’t want. The draft allows bad teams to get good young players

Metler: It allows awful franchises to ruin the best young talent coming into the league.

buzz_master: Boston and LA would be good forever. It's everything they want.

Metler: It’s good for the league for those teams to always be good. Same as how it’s good for college hoops for Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky to always be good.

r08: Then the small market will always be at the bottom. The contender will always be the contender.

Metler: The same teams are already at the bottom anyways and are given false hope when they get a superstar for a rookie contract who then forces his way out. The solution is to build grassroots programs and connect with youth basketball in your state and city. Develop NBA talent in your hometown that you could sign in the future.

zacharydegraeve: I really think they should. I don’t think it’s the most popular opinion, but teams that build their organization top to bottom to lose so they can acquire a star prospect aren’t able to properly develop that prospect and build around that prospect in four years.

Metler: Why do we keep sending the best prospects to awful situations? If you want elite talent in your organization, earn it. Build better facilities, get better coaches, learn to develop players.

Cadie: I like what the PWHL does. Once you've been eliminated from the playoffs... every win after elimination gains points towards draft position. More points = higher draft position.

Metler: It’s way better than what we have now but NBA teams would still try and manipulate it.

Emorris984: Just use the NFL format!

Metler: They would tank even harder...

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It's time to abolish the NBA draft

I was shocked by the outcry about protecting organizations that don’t even try to win games. Why are we so concerned about the bottom feeders of the league? Do you think college basketball sits around trying to game-plan ways to improve Boston College and make them relevant?

Imagine if we sent all the best high school recruits to the worst programs. We don’t. Those players go to North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Arizona, and Duke. So why do we suddenly stop caring about the development of the best young talent coming into the NBA and then send them into awful situations?

A lot of the argument is built on the idea that teams like the Hornets would never be able to land a superstar coming out of college. My response to that concern is the 2009 NBA Draft. Do you really think the Hornets wouldn’t have had a legitimate chance to recruit Stephen Curry out of Davidson to play for his hometown team - the same team his dad played for?

The Hornets’ NBA championship odds wouldn’t be +50000 every single season if they had successfully recruited Curry back in 2009.

This article originally appeared on Covers.com, read the full article here

The relationship between NBA basketball and math has long been tenuous.

You’ve seen the debates. The stat nerd vs the hooper. Metrics vs the eye test. It’s as false a dichotomy as one could imagine. To understand basketball, you need both. That will always be the case.

Anyway, the 2025-26 Houston Rockets need a math tutor. Their calculations are off. They’re losing the math game:

And the numbers aren’t lying.

Rockets need to improve efficiency

If you’re reading this, you surely know that the Rockets don’t shoot many threes. In fact, their 34.0% three-point frequency ranks dead last in the NBA.

They hit a high percentage of those triples. Houston’s 37.0% three-point shooting ranks sixth. That amounts to 11.3 made threes per game, which lands 24th in the NBA.

That would be fine – if the Rockets hit a high percentage of their twos. This team wasn’t built to overwhelm opponents with three-point shooting. They were built to dominate the offensive glass and win the math game with extra possessions.

They’re still dominating the glass. Houston’s 39.9% Offensive Rebounding Percentage is first in the league by a long shot. It’s just a somewhat moot point when they’re hitting 52.3% of their two-point field goal attempts.

That’s second-last in the NBA.

That’s right. Only the Pacers hit a lower percentage of their twos. This is a gap year for the Pacers. Despite the significance of Fred VanVleet’s absence, the same cannot be said for the Rockets.

So let’s break out the calculators. What can the Rockets do?

The Rockets must play to their strengths

They shouldn’t be thinking about increasing their three-point volume too dramatically.

They simply do not have the personnel. Sure, Ime Udoka ought to have a little more faith in Reed Sheppard. He could bolster the three-point volume a bit, but he’s only one NBA sophomore. That won’t meaningfully move the needle.

Above all else, the Rockets need to hit a higher percentage of their twos.

The elephant in the room: Alperen Sengun needs to be more efficient. He just does. He’s hitting 69.7% of his shots between zero-and-three feet. That’s a career high, but it’s still not high enough.

For context, Giannis Antetokounmpo hits 81.1% of his field goals from the same area. Nikola Jokic hits 78.6% of his bunnies.

Am I being unfair by comparing Sengun to the best players in the NBA? OK. Domantas Sabonis hits 69.9% of his attempts from the same range. Newsflash:

The Rockets need Alperen Sengun to be better than Domantas Sabonis.

Holding the young star to a high standard should not be frowned upon. Sengun doesn’t offer much from three-point range, so to be a star playmaker, he needs to make hay at the rim. That’s what the math dictates.

Otherwise, Amen Thompson is hitting 75.0% of his shots between zero-and-three. That’s consistent with last year (75.8%), but his volume is significantly down (36.1% from 42.0%). That’s likely symptomatic of his on-ball work. When Thompson is setting up in the halfcourt, it’s easier for defenses to force him into the midrange. Taking him back off the ball and putting him in a position to cut and attack closeouts could get him back at the rim more often.

That’s about it, as far as my solutions go. I’m no math wizard. Let it be said that the Rockets don’t need to play brutal, D’Antoni-style stat-ball. They do need to find a way to improve on their dreadful two-point efficiency if they’re going to be a low-volume three-point shooting club:

Otherwise, the numbers just aren’t in their favor.

It really should be called the final third of the season now, shouldn’t it?

The Sixers just need to put the finishing touches on the final 28 games of the regular season to complete a bounce back from their disastrous 24-win campaign a season ago. With just a game in the loss column currently keeping them out of the play-in tournament in the East, it’ll take a strong finish to secure a top-six playoff spot.

Here are the pressing questions that will define whether they’re able to do so or not.

Is the All-Star break enough to recharge VJ-Maxx?

This has come up quite a bit, because it’s no secret just how much of a workload these two have taken on — Maxey in particular with his 30% usage rate. Not only has the topic of fatigue and tiredness come up quite a bit in Maxey’s recent postgame press conferences, but it seems to be catching up with him as well.

Through the end of December, Maxey was averaging 30.8 points per game on the season shooting 39.6% from three-point range. In January and February he’s dipped down to 26.5 points a night shooting 35.6% from deep. If there’s a silver lining it’s that his minutes per game have gone down from 39 to 37 in that time, though he still leads the league in minutes by far.

Edgecombe is only averaging a measly 35 minutes a night, but he still has a comfortable lead on most minutes played this year by a rookie. Not only has his production gone through dips, but his shot selection seems to indicate a rookie wall as well.

Again, through December, Edgecombe was taking 35% of his shots at the rim and 18% from the short midrange. In the roughly month and a half since, he’s only taken 29% of his shots at the rim and his short midrange attempts have dropped to 14%, according to Cleaning the Glass.

With the top-heavy roster the Sixers have, a week off may be the only relief coming when it comes to these two. Neither of them even had a full week technically, with Maxey being both an All-Star and three-point contest participant, and Edgecombe competing in the Rising Stars game.

We’ll see soon enough whether four days off is enough to recharge either of their batteries because there’s likely to be plenty of 40-minute nights in their near futures.

How much will this shaken up bench be able to produce?

Relatedly, a big reason why so much responsibility is placed on Maxey and Edgecombe’s shoulders is due to the lack of bench production as of late. The Sixers are currently the 28th-ranked team in the league in bench points, averaging 30.4 a night. Jared McCain struggling to crack the rotation while he was still here put the role of bench shooting entirely onto Quentin Grimes.

However tall of an ask that is, he’s struggled to do so after a pretty solid start. Through November he was averaging 17 points a night shooting just a tick below 37% from three. No one’s come down to earth harder though, as he’s averaging 9.9 points a game shooting 42% from the field and 31% from three in the 29 games since then.

Through most of that time, the Sixers had been getting solid bench production from whichever of Kelly Oubre Jr. or Dominick Barlow came off the bench. With Paul George suspended though, both of those guys have become required starters.poiu9o0p[=p-]\

The dumping of McCain as well as Eric Gordon only intensified the need for Grimes to get right. Through the buyout market the Sixers may have found an additional scoring burst in Cam Payne. It’s a long shot, with Payne having spent the first half of this season playing in Europe, but at least the Sixers have seen him impact a playoff game before. As a bottom three bench team in the league, the Sixers will take any help they can get.

How will the front court behind Joel Embiid hold up?

So obviously this stems from the most burning, everlasting question surrounding the Sixers: how healthy will Joel Embiid be?

After enjoying over a month long stretch of healthy basketball, only missing planned nights that were back-to-backs, Embiid missed the last two games before the All-Star break due to another bout of knee swelling. The positive spin there is that this was his right knee, not the left that he’s injured so frequently. Nick Nurse didn’t seem super concerned by this either, saying the soreness had progressed somewhat and that the All-Star break should help that as well.

No one here has to be reminded of the history, though. After starting the season playing well without Embiid, the Sixers once again look like a team dependent on him, losing six of their last seven with him out of the lineup. According to Cleaning the Glass, the Sixers are a -1.4 with Adem Bona on the court and -4.3 in lineups with Andre Drummond.

Bona continues to show flashes as a shot blocker, but has yet to really develop his rebounding skills and has been abysmal as a lob catcher this year. After a resurgent start to the year, Drummond has started to look older each passing game. While they both turned their two-way deals into standard contracts, neither Barlow nor Jabari Walker has seen enough substantial time playing center to know if they are legitimate backup five options.

With the trade deadline come and gone and the buyout market looking just as bare in the front court, the only solution to this problem is probably Embiid staying as healthy as possible. Even if he’s able to, the Sixers still have six more back-to-backs to get through this regular season as they gear up for a busy March.

They won’t be easy hurdles with all the solutions needing to be internal, but how the Sixers deal with these issues will define their second half of the season.

It will be another several months before Mavericks fans see Kyrie Irving on the hardwood again.

The Dallas point guard will miss the rest of the 2025-26 season as he continues to recover from an ACL tear, the team announced on Wednesday morning.

Irving sustained the injury in his left leg in March 2025, and after undergoing surgery shortly afterward, he had initially eyed a return at some point this year.

But in a statement, Irving explained “the right” choice was to allow the knee a few more months to heal.

“This decision wasn’t easy, but it’s the right one,” he said. “I am grateful for the Mavericks organization, my teammates and our fans for their continued support throughout the process. I am looking forward to coming back stronger next season.

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“The belief and drive I have inside only grows. And I wanted to send a huge shoutout to ALL of my brothers and sisters out there who’ve torn their ACL or gotten injured doing what they love to do every day. THANK YOU for the inspiration. No fear!”

Irving joined the Mavericks in the 2022-23 season via a trade from Brooklyn, and the following season, he and Luka Doncic helped lead the team to the NBA Finals.

In 2024-25, he had an All-Star season, but missed the last portion of the year due to the knee injury.

The Mavericks, of course, are in no position to rush back Irving, who’s in the middle of a three-year, $119 million contract — the team sits near the bottom of Western Conference standings with a 19-35 record.

Kansas State basketball's attempt to fire Jerome Tang for cause has been widely derided by the basketball world. After a 90-74 win over Baylor with interim coach Matthew Driscoll on the bench, the Wildcats still mentioned Tang several times postgame.

Kansas State arguably looked more complete than it has all season, with PJ Haggerty and Nate Johnson putting up 34 and 33 points, respectively.

"We (came) more together as a team," Johnson told reporters postgame. "It just bonded us over that period of time, and it showed. His message still showed that we are still together and we're just going to keep getting better every day."

REQUIRED READING: Why Kansas State fired Jerome Tang: 'What he said about the student-athletes really concerned me'

"It's been some very difficult days," Haggerty added. "Every day, we all love Coach T (Tang), you know, as a coach and as a person. He just wanted us to be better men rather than just basketball players, too. But at the end of the day, we're just gonna keep playing and honoring him."

Haggerty also harkened back to a mantra of Tang's.

"'Crazy faith' is something he said every day, whether it was good days or bad days; he always stuck with faith," he said. "Either he had it on his shirt, or he said, 'crazy faith,' and that was the biggest thing that he always told us."

This support lingers even after Tang's firing for cause was justified by a press conference in which Tang derided his roster and said most of the players wouldn't be back next season.

"This was embarrassing," Tang said after a 91-62 loss at the hands of Cincinnati. "These dudes do not deserve to wear this uniform, and there will be very few of them in it next year. I'm embarrassed for the university, I'm embarrassed for our fans, and our student section. It's just ridiculous."

Even with those harsh words, Kansas State's players are rallying behind him as he looks for the $18.675 million buyout he would be owed if Kansas State loses its case to fire him for cause.

Driscoll also sung Tang's praises following his first win as an interim coach. In a lengthy press answer, he said: "I did not come to Kansas State to be the head coach. Coach Tang is an amazing human being. He has always been there for me, he's always supported me, and he's an amazing human being, and he did amazing things at Kansas State."

Driscoll added: "Because of his leadership and because of what he did, that's why tonight transpired, and it's why everything came to fruition tonight. We went through a lot of things, but if you want to know something, there's nothing easy in life, and nothing's normal. Everyone wants it easy, and he said we're not doing that."

Clearly the players and new installation of coaches aren't hoping to bolster the university's case.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kansas State players react to first win since Jerome Tang firing

In the latest installment of Ethical Tanking Theater, the Dallas Mavericks (19-35) announced on Wednesday that Kyrie Irving would miss the remainder of the 2025-26 season as he continues to recover from his ACL reconstruction surgery, which he underwent in 2025.

The team said in a press release that “Irving has made steady progress in rehabilitation and will remain actively engaged with the team through the remainder of the season.”

“This decision wasn’t easy, but it’s the right one,” Irving said. “I am grateful for the Mavericks organization, my teammates and our fans for their continued support throughout the process. I am looking forward to coming back stronger next season. The belief and drive I have inside only grows.”

There was some hope that Irving would return to the court sometime this season after suffering the knee injury that ended his 2024-25 season on March 3 in a 122-98 loss to the Sacramento Kings. The normal recovery time for ACL reconstruction is usually 9-12 months, and here we sit on Wednesday, 11-plus months since Irving crumpled to the ground in the second quarter of that loss.

This news should be viewed through the lens of player health and safety, despite the Mavericks’ current record and downward trajectory. Irving will turn 34 next month, and erring on the side of caution is the only smart thing to do with a player of his caliber and importance to the team. The long end of the normal recovery window would put Irving back on the court sometime in March, and the season will be over in April for these Mavs.

Irving averaged 25.6 points per game in his first full season with the Mavericks and 24.7 before his injury in 2024-25. He shot better than 40% from 3-point range in both his seasons in a Mavs’ uniform.

Fans have been anxious to see how Irving’s game will fit with Cooper Flagg in his rookie-year ascendancy, but they’ll have to wait until year two for that now, when the team’s war chest will hopefully be restocked with another high draft pick in the stellar 2026 NBA Draft. Irving may have been brought here to play Robin to Luka Dončić‘s Batman, but now it appears he’ll come back for 2026-27 as a veteran leader in a young, up-and-coming reboot scenario.

This decision is in the best interest of the player and the team in this case, but it will no doubt be cast as a “tank move” among NBA fans throughout the league. When the loudest cries are pronounced, just be sure to check whose store-bought jersey the one making the call is wearing.

“I wanted to send a huge shoutout to all of my brothers and sisters out there who’ve torn their ACL or gotten injured doing what they love to do every day,” Irving continued in the team release. “Thank you for the inspiration. No fear!”