Who will land the No. 1 pick in the Draft?

The NBA season is past the halfway point, and the league’s worst teams are focused on the 2019 Draft. Who will tank their way to the No. 1 pick?

With the glitz and glamour of NBA All-Star Weekend now in the rear-view mirror, the home stretch is in sight for all 30 NBA teams. More than half of the season’s games are done and dusted, and the remainder of the regular season is a series of micro-battles leading into the playoffs.

There’s the race for playoff seeding and home-court advantage, as the upper echelon of teams fight for position in the standings. Then, there’s the race to even make the playoffs, which can certainly be entertaining – just look at last season’s final days, when the Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets faced off in a do-or-die clash for the West’s eighth seed.

The problem is, any race that involves winning doesn’t end with the regular season. In that final-day battle a year ago, all the Timberwolves really won was the right to be poleaxed by James Harden and the Houston Rockets in the playoffs.

There’s one race, though, that goes nowhere near the postseason – the race for the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. With their finish line in sight, the NBA’s tanking teams will hit top (or is it bottom?) gear in the coming months, as they scrap and fight for the worst record and the best odds in this year’s lottery. This is interesting and exciting in the same way that a pimple-popping video or a video of a horrific injury is interesting or exciting – it’s disgusting and terrible and should make you feel bad, but you somehow just can’t stop watching it.

With that in mind, here is the guide to Tankapalooza 2019 (alternate titles; Not Tryin’ for Zion, Missed J’s for RJ, Acting Slow for Romeo, We Can’t– it’s Ja Morant, and so on). I’ll be looking at the teams who currently hold the five worst records in the league, and grading them in the following important factors:

Current talent: Worse teams will lose more games. Pretty simple, right? Players capable of taking over a game and winning it single-handedly drop the scores here.

Team needs: If the players at the top of the lottery fill a positional need or gaping talent hole, a team will be more motivated to tank for the chance to pick them. Teams in need of talent overall also get a boost.

Injuries/”Resting” potential: The easiest way to lose? Find a reason to bench your best players.

The Dell Demps Desperation Factor: In honour of the recently fired Pelicans GM, this indicates which way the front office and ownership may be leaning in an attempt to save themselves. A higher rating here means a higher chance to buy into the tank.

Strength of schedule: How difficult a team’s opposition for the rest of the season is, using Tankathon’s excellent remaining schedule strength as a guide.

Add them all up, and you have a team’s overall Tankability! Without any further ado, let’s jump into the murky depths of the NBA standings.