NBA Commissioner Discusses Possible Relegation System, Why It Will Fail

The NBA has been trying its best to crack down on the issue of tanking, and while there have been suggestions across message boards and social media to have them try and introduce relegation, league commissioner Adam Silver does not think highly of it.

Silver recently met with Phoenix Suns employees following the aftermath of the Robert Sarver situation in which he apologized on the league's behalf, and it was reported that an employee asked Silver on what the NBA plans to do with regard to the tanking of other teams.

He noted that they are "paying special attention" to it while mentioning that they have "thought about relegation as a potential solution to ensure the worst-performing teams are incentivized to compete," but he believes it to be destabilizing to the NBA instead of helpful.

"It would so disrupt our business model and even if you took two teams up from the G League, they wouldn't be equipped to compete in the NBA," Silver reportedly told them.

For those not in the know, the relegation system prevalent in European football means that those who finish the season at the bottom of the league are sent a division down as a consequence for not performing at the highest level.

In England, association or club football has eight divisions, but the following are the most popularly known: the English Premier League, English Football League Championship (EFL Championship), League One and League Two.

The system is as follows: the bottom three teams from the Premier League are relegated to the English Football League Championship, the bottom three from the EFL Championship are sent to League One and the bottom four in League One go down to League Two–all taking into effect the following season.

On that same note, those who finish at the top of the standings, usually the top two or three in their respective leagues are promoted to the next level to play an ever-increasing level of football.

The Japanese B. League applies a similar system between two divisions, B1 and B2, with B1 being the most elite level of basketball.

While it works overseas, the NBA is not convinced that it would work in the United States.

Silver noted that the draft is still a good system "in principle," but the NBA will adjust in some way as "teams are smarter" and "creative" in getting generational talent to their teams.

As it stands, implementing a relegation-based system will give the NBA more trouble than benefits since it will take an extremely long time to get the foundations right.

Moreover, it is worth noting that the English system has been in effect since the merger between the Football Alliance and Football League in 1892–giving football a nearly 200-year start to get it right.

One thing that NBA fans should know is that the commissioner of any sports league is to balance the ever-precarious demands of the stakeholders, which include but not limited to: team owners (governors in the NBA), the players, broadcasters and other stakeholders.

For Silver to outright say that establishing a relegation system in the NBA is "destabilizing" points to the multitudes of problems that they will face from everyone involved.

In theory, the relegation system does work in dissuading franchises from outright tanking, but the impracticality of implementation trumps the theoretical side of it all for a league celebrating its 76th season.