The great NBA tank race for Victor Wembanyama is coming into focus

Lucas Peltier-USA TODAY Sports

At the quarter pole, teams are starting to position themselves for a shot at Victor Wembanyama at the 2023 NBA Draft

The NBA regular season has hit the quarter pole. Almost every team is at 20 or 21 games played, which means the time for saying “it’s early” is drawing short. It also means the teams who are positioning for NBA Draft Lottery ping pong balls are starting to come into focus.

Whether you call it “Winless for Wemby”, “Victoryless for Victor” or “Vomiting for Victor”, several NBA teams are putting themselves in the best possible place to snag Victor Wembanyama at the 2023 NBA Draft. And who can blame them? Wembanyama is considered to be a generational talent, possibly at the level of LeBron James two decades prior.

Fully bottoming out and winning as few games possible is no longer a necessity for tanking teams. The NBA solved that issue by flattening out the lottery odds. The top (or bottom, depending on your point of view) three teams in the draft lottery have the same 14% chance at landing the first overall pick.

That means no one needs to hit the depths of the 2012 Charlotte Bobcats, the 2016 Philadelphia 76ers or even the 2010 New Jersey Nets. (If you think we cherry picked bad teams just to shout out the Bobcats and New Jersey, you would be correct!). But teams do want to be bad enough to give themselves the best shot possible at Wembanyama.

Going into this season, there was a reasonably accepted group of seven teams that would be positioning (read: tanking) for Wembanyama. Those teams were (in alphabetical order by city):

Detroit Pistons

Houston Rockets

Indiana Pacers

Oklahoma City Thunder

Orlando Magic

San Antonio Spurs

Utah Jazz

20 games or so into the season, some things have changed. That means it’s time to take an updated look at who is currently “Vomiting for Victor” and how things might shape up for them moving forward. We’re also adding in two teams that have found themselves unexpectedly in the mix for the top pick in the draft.

(Note: All records and projections are as of games played through November 29. Projected records are from 538’s RAPTOR model. Remaining scheduled strength is provided by Tankathon.)

Detroit Pistons

Current record: 5-18

Projected record: 21-61

Remaining scheduled strength: .497, 20th in the NBA

Outlook: The Pistons weren’t approaching this season intending to be bad. It just sort of happened. Cade Cunningham got hurt and could facing a long-term absence if surgery is necessary. Other rotation players also got injured. The offense isn’t good, and the defense is the worst in the NBA.

Detroit is “hurt” by having a somewhat weak schedule moving forward. They have a ton of tank-off games left. But unless Cunningham gets back and this team takes off, they’re a good bet to be in the mix for the top-three in lottery odds.

Houston Rockets

Current record: 5-15

Projected record: 21-61

Remaining schedule strength: .498, 18th in the NBA

Outlook: The Rockets are a good example of a team that is “naturally bad”. They are extremely young and play a ton of kids a ton of minutes. That’s a recipe for a lot of losses.

Houston is likely to continue to be pretty terrible moving forward. The Rockets can’t score consistently, and they defend only slightly better than Detroit. As most young teams do, Houston also turns it over all the time. But imagine adding Wembanyama to a young core that includes Jalen Green, Jabari Smith Jr., Kevin Porter Jr. and Alperen Sengun, along with other exciting kids? It’ll all be worth it.

Orlando Magic

Current record: 5-16

Projected record: 23-59

Remaining schedule strength: .519, 1st in the NBA

Outlook: Much like Detroit, the Orlando Magic’s season has been injury-filled. That finally seems to be turning the corner, but it’s already too late. There was some buzz that maybe Orlando could push for a spot in the Play-In Tournament, but they’re already five games out.

Better health will help this team put together some victories, but that’ll be offset by the hardest schedule in the league moving forward. And there’s no guarantee that better health with last. It hasn’t for the last few years, so why would it now? Also, Orlando has a history of winning juuuuuust enough to take themselves out of great draft position, last year notwithstanding.

San Antonio Spurs

Current record: 6-15

Projected record: 25-57

Remaining schedule strength: .502, 13th in the NBA

Outlook: The San Antonio Spurs could have a few more wins, but after a surprising 5-2 start, Pop and crew got serious about their lottery odds. San Antonio is regularly sitting their best players for games here and there. They’re also experimenting with rotations and even their roster, by making a few end-of-the-bench moves.

Moreso then Detroit, Houston and Orlando, the Spurs are a good candidate to help their “Winless for Wemby” odds by trading away some good players. The others are built around young cores, whereas San Antonio has some tradable vets and nearly $30 million in cap space to eat bad contracts. It’ll be somewhat of a surprise if Jakob Poeltl, Josh Richardson and Doug McDermott are all still with the Spurs after the trade deadline. That should be enough to boost them into top-three for Wembanyama.

Oklahoma City Thunder

Current record: 8-13

Projected record: 28-54

Remaining schedule strength: .501, 14th in the NBA

Outlook: The Oklahoma City Thunder were poised to start taking steps forward in their rebuild. Then Chet Holmgren got hurt and Sam Presti openly admitted that there could be a point where ping pong balls take priority. We aren’t there quite yet, because Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is turning in a legitimately great season. That’s seen the Thunder win a handful more games to open the season than many thought.

However, Presti and head coach Mark Daigneault are in this for the long haul. We’re already seeing players miss games in OKC. The rotation remains in flux from night to night, outside of Gilgeous-Alexander, Josh Giddy and Lu Dort. If that trio starts missing games, the tank is on. And Thunder are still within striking distance of getting into the top-three with relative ease.

New Orleans Pelicans (via Los Angeles Lakers)

Current Lakers record: 7-12

Projected Lakers record: 31-51

Remaining Lakers schedule strength: .510, 5th in the NBA

Outlook: And we have our first unexpected team in the “Victoryless for Victor” derby! The New Orleans Pelicans are poised to benefit big time from having swap rights to take the Lakers pick this season. Los Angeles has been awful, albeit somewhat better recently.

The single biggest thing that could hurt the Pelicans is that the Lakers have no reason to tank. Unlike every other team on this list, LA definitely wants to be good. On the flip side, the Lakers best players are older and injury prone. The remaining schedule is also pretty tough. Los Angeles likely won’t be quite bad enough to give New Orleans a great shot at Wembanyama, but the Pelicans should still get a nice pick after the swap.

Charlotte Hornets

Current record: 6-15

Projected record: 32-50

Remaining schedule strength: .509, 7th in the NBA

Outlook: Much like a few others on this list, the Charlotte Hornets have had an injury-ravaged start to the season. LaMelo Ball sprained his ankle and miss the first 13 games of the season. He re-sprained the ankle after just three games. Gordon Hayward has missed his customary half off the season so far, and Terry Rozier has also missed time. Add it all up and the Hornets stink.

Better health will lift Charlotte somewhat in the second half. The offense will undoubtedly be better when Ball plays and when/if Hayward plays. That should pull them out of the league-worst offense spot they currently occupy. The big things to watch are the remaining tank-off games. Charlotte has 13 of those left. Lose enough of those and the odds for Wembanyama could get drastically better.

Indiana Pacers

Current record: 12-8

Projected record: 38-44

Remaining schedule strength: .512, 3rd in the NBA

Outlook: The Indiana Pacers are our first team that has played themselves out of Wembanyama race. Indiana’s middle-of-the-pack record is supported by a similarly ranked offense and defense. Tyrese Haliburton is the best player in the NBA that almost no one is talking about. Or at least not enough. Also, counter to everything he’s ever done, Rick Carlisle has this team playing fast and getting into nightly shootouts.

If Indiana hangs onto Myles Turner and Buddy Hield, and it seems like they might, the Pacers aren’t going to lose enough to get back into chasing ping pong balls. With nearly $30 million in cap space, Indiana could still pursue upgrades to buoy a playoff push. That’s been the Pacers way for years, and there aren’t any signs it’s going to change now. Even a very tough schedule the rest of the way shouldn’t be enough to sway Indiana from chasing a playoff spot.

Utah Jazz

Current record: 12-11

Projected record: 43-39

Remaining schedule strength: .494, 21st in the NBA

Outlook: The Utah Jazz have been the surprise of the NBA. It was fair to expect them to be leading the Wembanyama race at this point in the season, but instead the Jazz have gone the other way. Utah has also played a fairly difficult, and road-heavy, schedule to this point.

The Jazz have hit a rough patch while dealing with some injuries, especially to Mike Conley. That could be a precursor to Danny Ainge continuing his wheeling and dealing by moving along more veterans ahead of the trade deadline. But Ainge rebuilt the Boston Celtics on the fly once before and let the Brooklyn Nets do his tanking for him. With the Minnesota Timberwolves down Karl-Anthony Towns for the next month or so, Ainge might have outsourced another tank job. If that’s the case, the Jazz aren’t going to directly tank themselves. Then, just as Boston rooted for Brooklyn to lose, Utah fans will become huge fans of whoever is playing Minnesota each night.