Could the Nets' rebuild be affected by the tanking of other NBA teams?

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The Brooklyn Nets (23-49) are one of the NBA teams that have been rebuilding since the beginning of the season after the franchise pivoted towards a full rebuild to find their next superstar. While Brooklyn has been considered one of the teams performing a so-called "ethical tank," they could be paying the price for what other teams have done over the course of this season.

"Coming off this season, it would be reasonable to expect that we would reengage with our competition committee and see if there's anything they might want to explore to tackle the issue," Evan Wasch, the NBA's executive vice president of strategy and analytics, said to Tim Bontemps and Kevin Pelton of ESPN. Wasch was speaking on the issue of how some rebuilding teams have been handling the end of the season with regards to positioning for the NBA Lottery.

With teams like the Utah Jazz recently being fined for how they have chosen to rest some of their best players in the hope of preserving a terrible record, it's natural for there to be talk about how the league can fix how teams are tanking. This applies to the Nets in the sense that if the NBA decides to address the egregious tanking from this season by doing something like changing the lottery odds, Brooklyn could be one of the teams that suffer.

"Philosophically, I'm not aware of anyone making a serious push to eliminate our current philosophy of the draft, which is to award top picks to teams that are most in need of talent," Wasch said, per Bontemps and Pelton. "That is a fundamental tenet of our current draft system." It's possible the league wouldn't punish other teams for the sins of the few that are pushing the limits of how teams can rebuild in an acceptable way, but anything can happen in the future.

Heading into Tuesday's slate of games, the Nets are tied with the Philadelphia 76ers for the 5th-worst record in the league, meaning that they have a 9.7% chance of getting the first overall pick and the chance to draft Duke forward Cooper Flagg. Brooklyn hasn't gone to the lengths of the Jazz and the Toronto Raptors in terms of affecting what happens on the floor, but time will tell what that means after this season and in the near future for rebuilding teams.

This article originally appeared on Nets Wire: Could the Nets' rebuild be affected by the tanking of other NBA teams?

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