The Sixers will face the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday in a game with potentially huge implications for the 2025 NBA draft lottery. Both teams are tied with the Brooklyn Nets at 22 wins apiece, which likely has them in line to finish with the league’s fifth-, sixth- and seventh-worst records (in some order).
The stakes of this tank race are enormous for the Sixers, who’ll send their first-round pick to the Oklahoma City Thunder if it falls outside of the top six. Unfortunately for them, the NBA’s player participation policy puts them at a severe disadvantage relative to their fellow tankers.
The policy pertains to any player who has made an All-NBA team or All-Star team over the past three seasons. It triggers an automatic league investigation whenever “multiple star players on the same team miss the same game” or a star player misses a nationally televised or in-season tournament game. It also mandates that “teams must refrain from any long-term shutdown (or near shutdown) whereby a star player ceases participating in games or begins to play a materially reduced role in circumstances affecting the integrity of the game.” Players who haven’t made an All-Star or All-NBA team in recent years aren’t subject to the same requirements.
We’re seeing the consequences of that disparity play out in real time. Raptors point guard Immanuel Quickley is set to miss Wednesday’s game because of “rest.” The Utah Jazz have given third-year center Walker Kessler the “rest” designation five separate times since mid-January. Those two teams are jostling with the Sixers and the other tanking teams to optimize their position in the lottery standings.
There are exceptions to the player participation policy, which is how the Sixers have avoided being fined in recent weeks with Joel Embiid, Paul George and Tyrese Maxey all sidelined. If a star player misses at least two straight games “due to a bona fide long-term or other injury, illness or other medical condition,” that spares teams from an automatic investigation and/or discipline.
However, the league is allowed to review medical information to confirm that the player “has an injury, illness or other medical condition that could materially affect his ability to participate in a game.” If he does, the league must also determine that “a typical player in the same circumstances as this player could not have, without substantial risk of exacerbating or worsening that injury, illness, or other medical condition, been held out of a different game, or played reduced minutes in the game in question.”
In other words: The Sixers are far more restricted in their ability to rest George and Maxey down the stretch of the season relative to teams without recent All-Stars and All-NBA selections. That puts the Sixers at a disadvantage in the tank race, and it perhaps explains why they’ve yet to shut George down for the season, too.
By all accounts, George and Maxey are legitimately injured at the moment. George confirmed that he was getting injections just before the All-Star break, while Maxey is dealing with both back and finger injuries. However, if either one is medically able to play again this season, the player participation policy might force the Sixers not to shut them down for the year.
Even if the Sixers weren’t in danger of giving up their first-round pick this year, it’s unfair for the NBA to prohibit some teams from resting certain players while other tankers can do so carte blanche. If the league wants to outlaw tanking entirely, every player should be subject to the player participation policy. Otherwise, this system gives star-less tanking teams clear advantages over those with stars.
As if we needed more proof that Adam Silver hates The Process.
Unless otherwise noted, all stats viaNBA.com,PBPStats,Cleaning the Glass orBasketball Reference. All salary information viaSalary Swish and salary-cap information viaRealGM.
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