MIAMI — The tanking debate is one that could well come to define the 2025-26 NBA regular season, with Commissioner Adam Silver as recently as Friday at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston acknowledging the perils for the league of the ongoing race to the bottom by several teams.

Mostly, though, the debate is about the tanking teams, themselves, and the way they have prioritized lottery positioning over winning.

For his part, in a recent social-media string, former Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who still has a stake in the team, said the practice can work for teams when utilized selectively.

Responding to those posts, Phoenix Suns owner Mat Ishbia rebuked the notion of losing ever as an acceptable means of future success.

And then there was former Heat forward Kyle Anderson, who left little doubt about what currently is at play, when he spoke about his time this season with the Utah Jazz — as in the team fined $500,000 by Silver ostensibly for tanking by not fully utilizing their roster resources — before moving on to the contending Minnesota Timberwolves on the buyout market.

“I don’t even want to get into it, honestly,” Anderson said. “I had a lot of fun in the organization, and everybody in the organization was awesome. Obviously, you know, playing not to win games gets a little tricky and tough. I didn’t enjoy it personally.”

Except tanking is not only about the tankers, not only about those involved in the race to the bottom.

It’s also about the impact on the play-in/playoff races these final five weeks of the season, how the playing field can be sloped to an untenable degree.

Consider it the ancillary impact of tanking, the adjacent impact of tanking, games where teams vying for postseason positioning are having to live the reality of how the tankers can upend the playoff race.

Take the Heat this past week, when the schedule — perhaps to the consternation with those in the Heat portion of the standings — effectively read “bye” and “bye,” with the Tuesday-Thursday set against the Brooklyn Nets.

Then consider a team the Heat are chasing, the Philadelphia 76ers, who on Wednesday night effectively had a bye of their own, when they faced the Jazz, Philadelphia winning that game even in the absences of Joel Embiid and VJ Edgecombe.

That’s where this gets messy, and for more than a subset of the standings playing to lose. The problem is those teams also are playing against teams involved in tight playoff races. And, yet, on some nights, those teams in those playoff races effectively are being gifted with opponents more closely resembling the G League Salt Lake City Stars, Long Island Nets, Capital City Go-Go, Stockton Kings, Memphis Hustle or Noblesville Boom.

Happiness might be Brooklyn, Washington, Indiana, Chicago, Utah, Memphis or Sacramento on your remaining schedule, but there also is the consternation of seeing those teams on the upcoming schedules of the teams you are chasing.

The games this past week against the Nets were gifts for the Heat, as potentially are the Heat’s three remaining games against the Wizards.

But there also will be nights when the Heat will be going against the likes of the Lakers, Rockets, Spurs, Cavaliers and Celtics, only to see the teams they are battling for playoff position going against teams that have made it clear the priority is losing.

That is why tanking is a disgrace, and for more than the comments from Ishbia and Anderson.

Because now it also is polluting a playoff race, impacting teams that actually dare to care about winning.

A look at the remaining times when they and teams in their portion of the playoff race will have the opportunities for walkovers, based on teams that have fully made it clear by now it will be tank or bust:

— Toronto Raptors (5): March 18 at Bulls, March 23 at Jazz, April 1 vs. Kings, April 3 at Grizzlies, April 12 vs. Nets.

— Philadelphia 76ers (7): March 10 vs. Grizzlies, March 14 vs. Nets, March 19 at Kings, March 21 at Jazz, March 25 vs. Bulls, April 1 vs. Wizards, April 10 at Pacers.

— Orlando Magic (4): March 12 vs. Wizards, March 23 vs. Pacers, March 26 vs. Kings, April 10 at Bulls.

— Miami Heat (4): March 10 home vs. Wizards, March 20 at Indiana, April 4 home vs. Wizards, April 10 at Wizards.

— Charlotte Hornets (5): March 11 at Kings, March 21 vs. Grizzlies, March 24 vs. Kings, March 31 at Nets, April 3 vs. Pacers.

— Atlanta Hawks (4): March 12 vs. Nets, March 23 vs. Grizzlies, March 28 vs. Kings, April 3 at Nets.

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