NBA Record Chases and Tank Races Put Betting Markets in Uncharted Territory 2026
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander rewrote a 63-year scoring record and Bam Adebayo dropped 83 points, yet nearly a third of NBA teams spent the season trying to lose. A May vote on drastic lottery reform could change everything before summer
83 points from Bam Adebayo against Washington on March 10 barely had time to settle before Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, two nights later against the Celtics, recorded his 127th consecutive game with at least 20 points and took a Wilt Chamberlain record that had sat untouched since 1963. If you’ve been tracking lines on 1 x bet through any of this, preseason assumptions about the league went out the window weeks ago. Eight franchises are openly trying to lose as many games as possible before the draft lottery, and the league office just announced plans to overhaul the system before summer, so there’s that too.
When Records Fell Two Nights Apart
Adebayo going for 83 as a center known primarily for defense and passing felt like a one-week story at minimum, the kind of performance you argue about for days because it passed Kobe Bryant’s 81 and only Chamberlain’s 100 still sits above it. Then Gilgeous-Alexander came along and pulled focus with a mid-range jumper that, had it rimmed out, would have left the record tied. It didn’t rim out.
That streak dates back to a November 2024 blowout in Portland that nobody remembers, and the absurd part is that Gilgeous-Alexander didn’t even play the fourth quarter in 39 of those 127 games because OKC was already up by too much. The Thunder went 103-24 across the streak, which is almost beside the point when you look at who’s next.
Kawhi Leonard is sitting on 43 consecutive 20-point games as the best active streak after SGA’s, and Kevin Durant‘s career-best of 72 is the only 21st-century number that makes this conversation interesting. SGA nearly doubled Durant’s mark while regularly going home early.
Eight Teams Racing to the Bottom
A loaded 2026 draft class is to blame for most of this. AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer. Enough front offices decided those names were worth tanking for that the league had to start writing checks.
| What happened | Why it matters |
| League fined the Jazz $500,000 for yanking starters in fourth quarters of winnable games | Largest tanking-related fine in recent memory |
| Pacers fined $100,000 after doctors confirmed Pascal Siakam was healthy enough to play | NBA overruled a team’s own medical staff designation |
| NBPA publicly accused the Bucks of trying to bench a healthy Giannis Antetokounmpo | Milwaukee doesn’t even own their first-round pick this year |
| Eight teams eliminated from playoff contention before April | Five from the West, three from the East |
The Giannis situation was the strangest of the bunch. A two-time MVP telling his team he’s ready to come back from a hyperextended knee, and the team basically saying no thanks. The players’ union got involved, publicly called it an anti-tanking enforcement failure, and Milwaukee’s coach responded to reporters by saying he didn’t have an answer. Just said that out loud. You’d think a franchise without its own first-round pick would have less motivation to tank, but apparently protecting Giannis for a potential offseason trade counts as its own kind of draft strategy.
Silver Pledges the Biggest Overhaul Since 1985
The commissioner spent March 25 at the Board of Governors meeting saying things that sounded different from the usual PR language.
“We are going to fix it. Full stop.”
The proposed reforms are not minor. One option would expand the lottery to 18 teams and flatten the odds so the bottom 10 all have equal chances at the first pick. Another borrows from the WNBA and would calculate lottery odds using a two-year average of team records, with a 20-win floor so that going 12-70 gets you no more advantage than finishing 20-62. There’s a vote expected in May, and the league wants changes in place before free agency opens.