Although he did not technically use the term “tanking”, Wizards security guard Bub Carrington he said in an interview with WUSA-TV in Washington (Link to YouTube), that the organization didn’t quite go all out to win games last season. Speaking to Marshall Kramsky, Carrington said the Wizards have a “very talented” group, but so far they haven’t been told to “go be the best version of themselves.”
“We’ve all been held back in a way just because, like you said, we were trying to get (No. 1 overall pick) A. Ya. Dybants“, Carrington said. “It’s not a secret, it’s not a secret.
“But nobody’s handcuffed right now. Everybody’s unshackled. So that’s just the beginning of the conversation. But then you put it on top of the coaching, on top of the vets that we have. This is a playoff team, and it’s going to happen. … Then when it happens, it’s going to happen for a long time. Whenever we get there, whether it’s this year, next year or the year after, we’re going to stay there.”
Carrington’s comments came after Trey Young discussing the same topic during a speech at Michael Porter Jr‘s The Curious Mike Podcast. Young said he knew he wouldn’t be in a “win-win situation” after being traded from Atlanta to Washington last season, prompting Porter to point out that his Networks and Young’s Wizards “both tried to make the #1 pick.” Young agreed with a laugh (Link to video on Twitter).
As Carrington rightly points out, it’s certainly not news that the Wizards didn’t insist on winning last season. Young and Anthony Davis has dealt with various health issues very carefully, with Young making just five Magic appearances since being acquired in January, and Davis not playing at all since being traded from Dallas to D.C. in February.
In the second half, Washington also relied heavily on two-way players, 10-day signees and other contributors who did not participate in the game. From the Feb. 5 trade deadline until the end of the regular season, players with two sides Julian Rees and Holey blackrecruit Will Rileyand a veteran reserve Anthony Gill were the team’s top four players in minutes per game.
The NBA is generally tolerant of these kinds of roster decisions as long as teams don’t go out of their way to violate the league’s anti-tank rules. But the league office has historically been leery of players, coaches and executives saying the silent part out loud. most memorable, Mark Cuban – who was still the majority owner of the Mavericks at the time – was fined $600,000 in 2018 after the public admission, he told his players that “losing is our best option”.
In this case, the NBA does not expect to punish the Wizards or Carrington, according to the source Josh Robbins and Sam Amick of The Athletic. While league officials probably weren’t thrilled to hear the third-year guard openly discuss the issue, a player suggesting a team isn’t optimizing its lineup decisions is less of a problem for the NBA than a team owner expounding on the merits of losing games.
The league has redesigned the draft lottery format ahead of the 2026/27 season in an attempt to stop tanking.
