The regular season of NBA had entered into its last month, April. It was the most competitive period of the season.
The teams at the bottom were competing to lose in order to get a better draft pick. If they accidentally won a match, they would definitely face an angry manager.
The teams at the top had confirmed their home-court advantages in the playoffs. At this time, they had to consider their first opponents in the playoffs, especially the first and second-placed teams in the Western and Eastern Conference. They could try to manipulate their rankings to select their first-round opponent. For example, they could intentionally lose to certain teams to help increase their rankings in order to remove the opponents they would rather not face in the first round of the playoffs.
