The NBA All Star Game has officially come and gone with a new-look format that seemingly brought the life back to the game fans grew to love watching the best of the best compete.
Throughout the weekend full of festivities, there was plenty of conversation about the current state of the league and what's to come moving forward.
With a potential expansion that would impact every team in the league and whatever cities the NBA decided to award a team, an expansion draft was a major talking point of the weekend.
Beyond that, arguably the most talked about problem in the league that came up in conversations this weekend was the ongoing problem with tanking; an issue that has become a major headache for the league over the last few seasons.
With teams like the Utah Jazz using an intriguing new strategy to bench key players ahead of the fourth quarter and the Indiana Pacers, who have continously made questionable lineup decisions, tanking has offically become the biggest issue that NBA commisioner Adam Silver has been tasked to fix.
However, if the rumored "fix" that was mentioned this weekend comes to fruition, not only will the Wizards be in trouble, but the entire league as a whole.
Adam Silver could turn draft prospects into free agents
According to NBA insider Joe Vardon of The Athletic, the league would consider ending the NBA Draft as a whole and turning prospects into free agents if it was the only way to put a stop to tanking.
"However, if Silver and his advisers decided the only way to stop tanking, and thereby protect paying customers from forking over money to watch their teams lose on purpose, was to stop the draft altogether and turn rookies into free agents, that same league official said it would get serious consideration," Vardon wrote.
This outcome would prove to be arguably the worst-case scenario not only for the league, but for a team like the Wizards.
If top prospects were free agents, nearly every big market team like the Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics and New York Knicks would be given first dibs at nearly every premiere prospect that would enter the league.
Obviously, the CBA guidelines would hinder some of the issues, but the harsh reality is that rebuilding teams would rarely land top talent and the imbalance around the league would only become an even worse issue.
All that to say, the ongoing tanking issue has to get sorted out before an attempted fix such as this one becomes a realistic rule that the league seriously considers adopting.