Too terrible to tank
Happy Thursday! And hopefully you’re doing better than the NBA’s worst squads this year. The league tried to make tanking harder by tweaking the draft lottery, such that being truly terrible is no longer quite as rewarding. But 3 weeks in, the early results are not especially encouraging: Chicago, Sacramento, Milwaukee, and Utah have combined for just 4 total wins in 45 games, producing one of the worst collective starts by the league’s bottom quartet of teams in decades. We’ll look at whether the NBA has actually changed the incentives around losing — or just realized that some teams can be catastrophically horrible without even trying. Plus, both of Wednesday’s Cy Young winners were unanimous for just the third time ever, Commanders-Giants gets the Thursday Night Football spotlight, and UConn-Ohio State headlines a busy night of women’s college hoops. Here’s what we’re watching today:
The Main Events
All listed times are Eastern. 🚨= Elimination game
Football:
🏈 Thursday Night Football: Commanders (45%) at Giants (55%) - 8:15 p.m. (Prime Video)
🏈 CFB: Memphis (62%) at South Florida (38%) - 8 p.m. (ESPN)
🏈 CFB: Louisiana (78%) at Louisiana-Monroe (22%) - 9 p.m. (ESPN+) - Battle on the Bayou
🏈🏆 Super Bowl check-in: 49ers 17% to win the NFL title
🏈🏆 College Football Playoff check-in: Georgia 32% to win the national title
NBA:
🏀 Mavericks (34%) at Timberwolves (66%) - 8 p.m. (NBA TV)
🏀 Raptors (21%) at 76ers (79%) - 7 p.m.
🏀 Pistons (79%) at Wizards (21%) - 7 p.m.
🏀🏆 NBA title check-in: Spurs 23% to win
NHL:
🏒 Hurricanes (73%) vs. Kraken (27%) - 12 p.m. (NHLN) - NHL Global Series from Helsinki, Finland
🏒 Canadiens (46%) at Bruins (54%) - 7 p.m.
🏒 Wild (62%) at Maple Leafs (38%) - 7 p.m.
🏒🏆 Stanley Cup check-in: Hurricanes 13% to win
Soccer:
⚽ UEFA Nations League: France (49%) at Italy (27%) - 2:45 p.m.
⚽🏆 Champions League check-in: FC Barcelona 24% to win
⚽🏆 Premier League title check-in: Arsenal FC 76% to win
⚽🏆 Europa League check-in: Bournemouth/SL Benfica 19% to win
⚽🏆 MLS title check-in: Nashville SC 26% to win MLS Cup (playoffs start Thursday, 11/19)
⚽🏆 NWSL title check-in: Washington Spirit 46% to win (playoffs continue w/ semifinals on Saturday, Nov. 14)
College Basketball:
🏀 WBB: No. 2 UConn (77%) at No. 18 Ohio State (23%) - 6:30 p.m.
🏀 WBB: No. 1 South Carolina (98%) at Clemson (2%) - 7 p.m.
🏀 MBB: Montana State (4%) at No. 23 BYU (96%) - 9 p.m.
🏀🏆 March Madness check-in: Duke 17% to win the men’s national title
Race to the (almost) bottom
Tanking has long been the scourge of the NBA, dating back to at least the 1980s (if not earlier) — and on some level it’s an unavoidable consequence of giving the best draft picks, and thus potentially franchise-changing talents, to the worst teams from the season prior. Once a team decides going for wins in the current season is pointless, their attention naturally turns to losing as much as possible for better picks in the future.
This race to the bottom got particularly absurd last season, though, as five different teams (Grizzlies, Nets, Jazz, Pacers and Wizards) won 5 or fewer games in the 2 months (!) following the All-Star break, with 10 teams seeing their win rates drop by 10 or more percentage points versus their pre-All-Star form. In response, the league instituted its latest round of draft lottery reforms, putting in a very interesting twist: the 3 worst teams now have slightly worse odds to draw the No. 1 overall pick than the next 7 worst teams, whose odds are now flat (rather than gradually dropping with each successive rank from the bottom):
In theory, that change complicates what was previously a straightforward (if cynical) strategy: Just lose, baby. It’s a lot tougher to plan to be pretty bad, but not so bad that you drop into that bottom 3 by record, and the difficulty in threading that needle would presumably cut down on teams deliberately being as bad as possible.
At least, that was the thinking. Now that the 2026-27 NBA season is a little more than 3 weeks old — doesn’t it actually feel like more? — we have some early returns from the latest tankathon… and, well, maybe these teams are just bad, deliberately or not.
Four different teams (Bulls, Kings, Bucks, Jazz) have just a single win to begin the season — all are 1-9 or worse — and the Clippers (2-8) and Nets (3-8) aren’t faring much better. Somehow, despite the NBA’s most stringent anti-tanking policies yet, this year’s bottom 4 teams — with their average win percentage of just 8.9% — are far worse than their counterparts from all but one season (1997-98) under the previous eras of lottery odds:
Weirdly complicating matters, only half of those four teams (the Bulls and Kings) actually own their own picks in next year’s first round. Milwaukee’s pick goes to New Orleans or Atlanta no matter what, due to a previous trade. And Utah will keep the middle of either its own pick or those of Cleveland and Minnesota, with Memphis getting the best of the three. Plus, Utah’s own pick can’t land in the Top 5 because it did so in each of the past two drafts. (NBA draft-pick protections and conditions are their own entire separate insane can of worms!) So the Bucks and Jazz are both a bit removed from a direct tanking incentive, or at least the conditions are complicated enough to make brazen losing for its own sake less of a consideration.
And yet, both teams are a combined 2-22 on the young season, suggesting that it’s surprisingly easy to build an incredibly bad NBA team whether you intend to or not. But don’t worry — traders think the stronger incentives may win (i.e., lose) out in the end, assigning the Kings the highest odds of finishing with the worst record this season:
Two-nanimous
For just the third time in the award’s history, both Cy Young Award recipients on Wednesday were unanimous winners: Cam Schlittler of the Yankees and Jacob Misiorowski of the Brewers joined a club with Denny McLain and Bob Gibson (1968) and Justin Verlander and Sandy Alcantara (2022). There’s a lot that’s notable about Misiorowski and Schlittler’s seasons, from both pitchers’ youth — each is age 25 or younger — to their dominance — both carried sub-2.00 Earned Run Averages. But maybe the most striking is how each typifies the high-velocity pitching that has taken over MLB; the pair ranked Nos. 1-2 in average fastball velocity this season, with Misiorowski in particular pushing the envelope for just how hard a starting pitcher can throw.
What else we’re reading
Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.
🏀 “‘This is an 82-game season’: Hopium, denial, and misdirection” by Henry Abbott
🏈🏀 “Less to hold on to: Conference title games are ending in football, and college basketball rosters barely carry over anymore.” by Chris Gallo
🏈 “Notre Dame - Miami Review: The Irish Answer in the Eye of the Storm” by Michael Bryan
🏒 “The Quietly Elite Skating Ability of Casey DeSmith” by Robert Tiffin
🏈 “An NFL Midseason Ombudsman” by Ray Carpenter
Next on deck…
Friday (11/13)
🏈 CFB: Illinois at #8 UCLA
🏀 NBA: Warriors at Spurs
🏒 NHL: Predators at Golden Knights
⚽ UEFA Nations League: Germany vs. Serbia
🏀 CBB: #12 Arizona at Auburn
⛳ PGA Tour: Butterfield Bermuda Championship (Round 2)
Saturday (11/14)
🏈 CFB: No. 22 Missouri at No. 1 Georgia
🏈 CFB: No. 6 Texas at No. 21 LSU
🏈 CFB: No. 18 USC at No. 9 Indiana
🏀 NBA: Mavericks at Cavaliers
🏒 NHL: Oilers at Maple Leafs
⚽ NWSL Semifinal: Utah at Washington 🚨
🏀 CBB: LSU vs. No. 14 Gonzaga
⛳ PGA Tour: Butterfield Bermuda Championship (Round 3)
🥊 UFC 334: Ciryl Gane vs. Josh Hokit
Sunday (11/15)
🏈 NFL: Patriots at Lions
🏈 NFL: Vikings at Packers
🏈 NFL: 49ers at Cowboys
🏈 NFL: Steelers at Bengals
🏀 NBA: Mavericks at Celtics
🏒 NHL: Panthers at Stars
⚽ NWSL Semifinal: Gotham FC vs. Kansas City 🚨
🏀 WBB: No. 1 South Carolina vs. No. 3 USC
⛳ PGA Tour: Butterfield Bermuda Championship (Final Round)
