BOSTON — Sunday will be one of the most important days of the 2025-26 NBA season, and it’s not because there are two second-round playoff games happening. The annual NBA Draft Lottery will commence in the afternoon, dictating whether or not a struggling squad has a bright future — or if they just wasted a year tanking.
While “tanking” is a dirty word in the NBA, there’s no hiding its existence, especially this past regular season. League commissioner Adam Silver is committed to ending the practice of intentionally losing, as the bottom five teams in both the Eastern and Western Conferences weren’t even close to qualifying for the Play-In Tournament, let alone the playoffs.
Some execs in the Association play dumb and act like there’s no tanking going on. However, Boston Celtics President of Basketball Operations is not one of them. On Wednesday morning during his exit interview at the Auerbach Center, Stevens implied that many teams this season were racing to the bottom rather than competing for a title.
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“You have to consider, especially for next year, is there were a lot of teams in the NBA that were playing for draft positioning this year,” Stevens stated.
The Celtics weren’t one of those teams. Although they could’ve tanked with star forward Jayson Tatum recovering from injury for a majority of the 2025-26 campaign, the Green Team played to win and surprisingly finished in second place in the East with a 56-26 record. But, the Celtics disappointed in the postseason and bowed out of the first round after squandering a 3-1 series lead against the rival Philadelphia 76ers.
Stevens maintained an honest tone throughout his exit interview, so despite the fact that he was proud of the Celtics for exceeding expectations, he argued that they still have a lot more work to do if they want to contend with the best-of-the-best in the NBA.
