NBA commissioner Adam Silver, speaking Thursday to ESPN's Rachel Nichols, praised the league's reformed draft lottery system while saying he hopes that it changes the "destructive" mindset some teams and fans have about tanking.
"Where I think it's the greatest success is, hopefully it'll stop fans in those markets from rooting for their teams to perform poorly," Silver said prior to Game 6 of the NBA Finals at Oracle Arena. "Because that race to the bottom is just destructive, I think, for everyone. Corrosive for players and franchises, and I think, in some cases, even some executives who knew better, felt they couldn't withstand the pressure from the communities, from the media in some cases, saying, 'Why are you operating at this level when you should either get much better or much worse?