AI Summary
5 min read🎙️ The Speakers & Context
- The Format: Host-led discussion with expert interviews.
- The Key Players:
- Hosts: Keith Romer and Erica Barris (NPR Planet Money), blending economics storytelling with sports analysis for incentive breakdowns.
- Guests: Zach Lowe (ESPN/Ringer NBA expert, lifelong analyst); Jaina Hefford (PWHL hockey ops head, 5x Olympic medalist); Sam Mewis (NWSL World Cup champ, editor on women's soccer).
- The Vibe: Analytical and inventive—dissecting incentives like economists, pitching radical fixes with optimism.
🎣 The Executive Hook
- The "One Big Idea": Tanking thrives because reverse-order drafts reward losing; snapping that link via wheels, reverse incentives, or free agency forces competition every game. This mirrors business: misaligned incentives distort behavior, from CEO stock options to carbon regulations—fix rules to align effort with outcomes.
- Why It Matters: In high-stakes markets like NBA (billion-dollar franchises), poor incentives erode product quality (watchable games), fan trust, and league value; parallels tech/AI races where "tanking" via safe bets cedes ground to aggressors.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **🎙️ NBA Tanking Season & Incentives Problem**
- 2 (03:22) **History of NBA Draft & Tanking**
- 3 (05:41) **🎙️ Interview: Zach Lowe (NBA Expert)**
- 4 (13:09) **Proposal 1: Draft Wheel**
- 5 (17:26) **🎙️ Interview: Jaina Hefford (PWHL Hockey Operations)**
- 6 (25:15) **🎙️ Interview: Sam Mewis (NWSL, World Cup Champion)**
- 7 (30:30) **Potential Fixes & Outlook**
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
What do we want from sports? The very best athletes competing as hard as they know how, putting all their effort and training and natural ability to the test against their opponents. But this time of year, that’s not the product the NBA is putting on the court. Instead, teams at the bottom of the league are competing … to lose, because it could help them get a top pick in next year’s draft. It’s called tanking — it’s bad for fans, and it’s bad for the league.
Tanking has gotten especially egregious this year. Even NBA Adam Silver has called out teams for tanking. He recently announced that league bigwigs are considering “every possible remedy” to “align incentives.”
Today on the show — Planet Money fixes the NBA’s tanking problem by … fixing the NBA draft. We get solutions from Hockey Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford, World Cup Champion Sam Mewis, and long-time NBA analyst Zach Lowe.
Handles for the NBA fans in the episode: thevoiceofevan, fullcourtblitz, ashleynevel, igotnxtpodcast, finesse.wes, basketballsavant, and mikedaddino__.
Live event info and tickets here / Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. / Subscribe to Planet Money+
Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the NPR app
Facebook / Instagram / TikTok
Tanking has gotten especially egregious this year. Even NBA Adam Silver has called out teams for tanking. He recently announced that league bigwigs are considering “every possible remedy” to “align incentives.”
Today on the show — Planet Money fixes the NBA’s tanking problem by … fixing the NBA draft. We get solutions from Hockey Hall of Famer Jayna Hefford, World Cup Champion Sam Mewis, and long-time NBA analyst Zach Lowe.
Handles for the NBA fans in the episode: thevoiceofevan, fullcourtblitz, ashleynevel, igotnxtpodcast, finesse.wes, basketballsavant, and mikedaddino__.
Live event info and tickets here / Pre-order the Planet Money book and get a free gift. / Subscribe to Planet Money+
Listen free: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the NPR app
Facebook / Instagram / TikTok
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