How the NBA Play-In Tournament Changed Tanking

Ten teams per conference now have a shot at the postseason in April. Before 2020, the number was eight, and by the All Star break a fan of the tenth best team in the West could usually tell you exactly how far out of the playoffs they were and how many ping pong balls a few more losses might buy. The NBA play-in tournament was built to wreck that math.

Six seasons in, it has partly worked. The play-in has changed how teams in the middle of the standings behave after February, made the trade deadline more crowded, and given us some of the most watchable April basketball in years. What it has not done is end tanking. It has just pushed the tank further down the standings, and that distinction is the whole story.

How the NBA Play-In Tournament Works

The format is simple enough to explain at a bar. The teams finishing seventh through tenth in each conference play a mini bracket before the first round.

The 7 seed hosts the 8 seed. The winner takes the 7 seed in the playoffs.
The 9 seed hosts the 10 seed. The loser is out.
The loser of game one hosts the winner of game two. The winner takes the 8 seed.

So the 7 and 8 seeds need one win in two chances. The 9 and 10 seeds need two straight wins, both on the road for the 10. Teams eliminated in the play-in are lottery teams, and they keep the same draft position their record would have earned anyway.

What Tanking Looked Like Before

To understand the change, you have to remember the old incentives. Under the lottery system that ran through 2018, the worst team in the league had a 25 percent chance at the top pick and could fall no lower than fourth. A team sitting at 10th or 11th in its conference in February had almost no reason to chase a first round sweep against the top seed.

The famous example is Philadelphia's Process era, when the Sixers won 19, 18 and 10 games across three straight seasons from 2013 to 2016. They were the extreme case. The quieter problem was the dozen teams each spring who sat healthy veterans, gave rookies 40 minutes and lost games nobody in the building wanted to win.

The league flattened the lottery in 2019, giving the three worst teams an equal 14 percent shot at the first pick. That made the very bottom less attractive. The play-in attacked the middle.

The Middle Class Now Has a Reason to Play

This is where the play-in has clearly delivered. A team hovering around .500 in March used to face a choice between a likely first round exit and a slightly better lottery pick. Now that team is often fighting for a top six seed to avoid the play-in, or fighting for 10th just to get in.

That has real effects on the court and in the front office:

More teams buy at the deadline instead of selling, because a play-in spot feels reachable.
Late season games between the 8th and 11th place teams carry genuine stakes.
Veterans who might have been shut down with a sore knee in March stay on the floor.

There is a cost, too. A team pushing hard for a 9 or 10 seed can end up with the worst of both worlds: no playoff series, and a pick in the 11 to 14 range instead of somewhere higher. Front offices still debate whether that is progress.

Why Tanking Did Not Disappear

Here is my disagreement with the people who call the play-in a cure. It changed the incentives for teams ranked roughly 8th through 12th. For teams sitting 13th, 14th and 15th in a conference by the deadline, nothing changed. They are just as committed to losing as before, sometimes more so, because the bottom three still share the best lottery odds.

Watch the standings in any recent March and you will see two separate leagues. The top 11 or 12 teams in each conference are playing hard. The bottom three or four are running development rotations, managing minutes and listing veterans with vague injuries. The league's later rules on resting star players were partly an admission that the tank had simply moved.

The fan experience in the basement

If your team is in the bottom four, the play-in gives you nothing to cheer for in March. If anything, it makes your losses feel more deliberate, because you can see teams just above you pulling in the opposite direction.

Is the Play-In Fair to the 7 Seed

The loudest players to criticise the play-in have usually been stars on 7th place teams. Their argument is that 82 games of work can be undone by one bad shooting night. It is a fair complaint on its face, but the numbers soften it.

Seed	Path to playoffs	Home games
7	Win 1 of 2	Both, if needed
8	Win 1 of 2	One
9	Win 2 of 2	One or two
10	Win 2 of 2	None

Most 7 seeds survive. The bigger issue is fatigue: a team that plays two play-in games starts its first round series a day or two later and often against the best rested team in the conference. That is the real price, and it is a sensible one for finishing 7th.

What It Means for How You Watch the Season

The play-in has changed which games are worth your time. A Tuesday in late March between the 9th and 12th teams in the West now often matters more than a matchup between two locked in top seeds who are resting starters. That ties straight into the minute management we covered in why NBA load management is smarter than the outrage suggests.

It also shapes summer. Teams that sneak into the 8 seed and get swept often convince themselves they are one move away, then stretch the payroll. With the tax rules explained in our piece on the NBA second apron, that kind of overreach is now punished harder than it used to be.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do play-in losers get lottery odds?

Yes. Teams that lose in the play-in are treated as non playoff teams and enter the lottery with the odds their regular season record earned.

When did the NBA start the play-in tournament?

A limited version ran in the 2020 bubble, and the full four team format per conference began in the 2020 to 2021 season. The league has kept it ever since.

Has a 10 seed ever won a playoff series after the play-in?

Lower seeds from the play-in have made deep runs, most famously Miami reaching the 2023 Finals as an 8 seed after losing its first play-in game. Deep runs from the 9 or 10 spot remain rare.

The Takeaway

The play-in made the middle of the NBA competitive in spring and gave fans of average teams a reason to watch in March. It did not fix tanking at the very bottom, and it was never going to without changes to the lottery itself. Judge it on what it was built to do, and it is a success. For more on how the league shapes its own season, browse our NBA coverage.