The Herd with Colin Cowherd THE HERD - Hour 1 - Adam Silver is sick and tired of tanking in the NBA, Knick are a serious contender
Feb 20, 2026
Rachel Nichols, veteran sports journalist and NBA analyst, joins to break down tanking and team construction. They dig into Adam Silver’s crackdown on losing strategies and why teams still pursue stars through rebuilds. The Knicks’ title viability, coaching moves around the league, and trade chatter heat up the conversation.
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Draft Incentives Drive Tanking
- Tanking spikes when a draft class is generational because incentives reward losing to land superstars.
- Jason McIntyre argues the draft is the fastest path to relevance in the NBA, so tanking won't fully disappear.
Tanking Is A Symptom, Not The Root
- Adam Silver signaled the league will reexamine anti-tanking rules after an unusually extreme season.
- Rachel Nichols says tanking is a symptom of limited avenues for bad teams to improve, not the root problem.
Create Real Paths For Team Improvement
- Give struggling teams more realistic pathways to improve besides losing games.
- Rachel Nichols recommends creating alternative avenues for roster building so teams won't feel forced to tank.