Latest / On The Ball with Ric Bucher
NBA Tanking Panic Is Fake? The Truth Teams Don’t Want You to Hear
Is NBA tanking really ruining basketball — or is the outrage just noise?
In this solo episode of On The Ball with Ric Bucher, Ric dismantles the modern hysteria around tanking and explains why what fans think is a crisis is actually a decades-old strategy baked into the league’s business model.
Drawing on 30+ years covering the NBA, Ric reveals:
Why tanking isn’t new — and never stopped
How the media profits from outrage narratives
The hidden economics behind losing on purpose
Why the 2026 draft may justify tanking more than ever
The real difference between subtle tanking and obvious tanking…
The skinny
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