The NBA Investigated The Kings For Tanking Only To Learn They Weren't Trying To Lose, They Just Have No Idea What They're Doing
Ezra Shaw. Getty Images.Tanking this, tanking that. It's all we're hearing about these days when it comes to the NBA. Something that, if we're all being honest with ourselves, isn't even that big of an issue, but for whatever reason (aka an all time Draft), the topic of tanking has been a major storyline during the 2026 NBA season. The league stepped in and fined the Jazz for lineup decisions in a game they actually won (?????), Adam Silver came up with all these ideas to stop tanking, and the big solution he pitched to the owners was actually to make it so there are more incentives for even more teams to tank. Really top-notch stuff.
If there's one thing we're learning about Adam Silver, it's that he and his underlings are EXTREMELY online. It's why they float ideas to Shams so he can put out the tweet, and they can get a general sense of what NBA Twitter thinks about it. I know that sounds crazy, but we have yet another example of it from the other night.
In the Kings/Warriors game earlier this week, a post went rather viral suggesting the Kings were trying to pull off one of the more egregious tanking attempts known to man. With a late lead, they randomly intentionally fouled which helped the Warriors close the gap late and eventually win the game.
The only issue here is that if you actually watched the game, you knew this was not what they were doing. But in the world where life is now about engagement and going viral etc, once this narrative was out there, it caught on and went super viral. So much so, that the NBA then came out and said they were launching an investigation into this game and what went on
And the results of said investigation?
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NBA statement: "The NBA has completed an investigation of the Sacramento Kings and Head Coach Doug Christie's decision to foul intentionally late in the team's game against the Golden State Warriors on April 7. The league's investigation determined that Christie mistakenly believed that the Warriors were not in the penalty and therefore instructed his team to foul in an attempt to stop the clock and utilize one of the team's remaining timeouts. The investigation found that Christie made no intentional effort to give the Warriors a shooting foul, or to cause the Kings to lose the game."
We've seen a lot of things over the years in this league, but I don't think I've ever seen
"Actually this team wasn't taking, they just have no idea what they're doing"
I'm not sure if that's better or worse than if the Kings were intentionally tanking? I mean, it's not great that the head coach and all of the assistants on the bench didn't know how many fouls his team had. I'm pretty sure you can just look around the arena at the scoreboard, but oh well.
The fact that it was the Kings in all this is what makes it so funny, because of course it was. The KANGZ doing KANGZ things I guess, which certainly shouldn't really surprise anyone. Ever since Day 1 of their offseason, nothing about what the Kings have done in 2026 has made sense. The roster made no sense, how they play makes no sense, not truly tanking once their season was over made no sense, it's all been a disaster for the most part. So the fact that not only were they part of an investigation that was absolutely a result of misinformation, but that it concluded they're not cheating they're all just bad at their jobs is exactly how I would expect this all to go knowing the Kings are involved.
It's also not the best look for the league that this investigation determined it was just a Kings strategy mistake, but they had no problem fining the Jazz $500K for lineup choices in a game that they….won. For Adam Silver, that was too much and a clear sign of tanking. Mind you, not a single team has been fined that 500K since over the last few weeks of the season, and have you seen some of those lineups? If I were the Jazz, I'd be pissed about all that. Very inconsistent, if you ask me.
The more I think about it, I would almost prefer the league say I was tanking than declaring the entire staff is awful at their jobs. Fans don't give a shit about tanking at this point of the season when you're in the position the Kings are. Life is about the pick at this point, who cares? The perception around your team and franchise after hearing that ruling is way worse than being found guilty of tanking in the last week of a lost season.
And while it may be fun to poke fun at the Kings and whatnot, I do really feel for Kings fans. They didn't ask for any of this shit and outside of a year or two of fun during the early Beam Team era, it's been nothing but a disaster since. They're right back to being a laughingstock, all because their ownership group has no idea what it's doing. The front office can't get out of its own way. Doug Christie, probably won't be getting any new head coaching jobs anytime soon, the list goes on and on. And you know who suffers? Kings fans. They fought like hell to keep their team in Sacramento, only for the Kings to turn right back into the KANGZ. That's tough.