Portland Trail Blazers fans not only completed the Tanking 101 course over the past few seasons, but received a post-graduate degree by the time the team started winning games early in 2025. Which makes recent tanking efforts of other teams all the more clear. Just a week ago, the Toronto Raptors seemed to avoid NBA tanking fines by starting (most of) their best players against the Blazers, but sitting them in the fourth quarter to grab a loss from the clutches of victory.
ESPN’s Kevin Pelton and Tim Bontemps took a deeper dive in this concept today.