Draymond Green blasted the NBA’s handling of tanking after the Golden State Warriors beat the Sacramento Kings 110-105 on Tuesday night, saying the league should hit teams harder when they appear to be losing on purpose. Green said the NBA needs to “just fine the hell out of people,” and added that he gets fined when he does wrong.
Green’s comments came with the Warriors already headed to the Play-In game and sitting 10th in the Western Conference at 37-42, while the Kings were 14th. He argued that teams should be treated the same way players are, saying the league would “snatch that money in a heartbeat” if the issue involved individual conduct. He pointed to the league’s two recent tanking-related fines: a $500,000 penalty for the Utah Jazz in February after they removed several of their best players down the stretch of two games, and a $100,000 fine for the Indiana Pacers for violating the Player Participation Policy in a Feb. 3 game against Utah.
The debate has hung over the second half of the season, with teams looking toward a draft class viewed as strong in 2026. The Play-In Tournament was designed to discourage that kind of losing, but Green said the idea loses its force when a team can drop its last 15 games and still end up stuck in 10th place. “I think it worked initially, and now to have a team stuck in 10th, it ain’t working,” he said.
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That leaves the league with a familiar problem and a simple test: if it is serious about stopping tanking, it will have to punish clubs as aggressively as it punishes players.