The NBA seems to have many issues as of late with the concept of tanking. Starting back in the mid-2010's when the Philadelphia 76ers were most forthright with it for "The Process", it's now become a more common phenomenon across multiple bottom-feeder teams every year.

Without the playoffs anywhere in sight, these bad teams decide to strategically lose games, whether it's by sitting their quality players for quarters or games when they're otherwise healthy, shutting down a player for the season altogether, or even trading away good players in order to be intentionally worse off. The goal is simply to lose as many games as possible to secure the best odds for a high draft pick.

Though it's not a problem that the Golden State Warriors have necessarily been guilty of for the most part, considering their wholly competitive direction ever since Steph Curry graced the franchise with his presence, depending on who you ask, it can feel like the league is approaching a certain point that may tip one way or another if it continues without interference.

At All-Star media availability this weekend, Curry talked to reporters about a myriad of topics, including tanking in the NBA, and gave his thoughts on the situation.

"Is it really that big of a problem? We feel like there's a lot of competition. It's something I'm sure every year, the NBA wants to address. It's why the play-in tournament exists. Things evolve. Problems arise, and everyone wants to shine a spotlight on all the negatives in the league, but let's focus on the positives of how great the competition is at the top."

Curry went on to discuss the lens he's viewing the league from right now.

"There still is relevancy regular season-wise of the seeding and playoff chase. I know there's conversations around how many games we're playing, that's probably where I would focus more of the attention. But, let's not forget the league is in a great place overall in terms of the attention, the skill level, the global reach, all of that stuff. Every year, you'll address the issues. I don't have the answers though."

The online debate right now lies heavily on what the NBA is going to do to stop the tanking, and while some ideas are fun to throw around and hypothesize about, it may not be as blatant of a problem as the media and fans might perceive it to be, just as Curry said.

That's where the real issue lies for the NBA. Though fans can point to teams like the Utah Jazz or Washington Wizards sitting their best players in fourth quarters as clear forms of tanking, NBA teams can always just fib and say they were sitting such players for injury precautions.

Tanking can take form in many different ways with a multitude of possible excuses that teams can realistically employ. That's what makes it so difficult for the NBA to address it in any form.

Fans sometimes point to the quickness with which the NBA changes rules for apparel, such as the ninja headbands in 2019, and compare it to the minimal progress against tanking. However, while it can be easily put into words what is or isn't an allowed headband, it's much harder to encompass all the ways tanking can take place.

In order for the NBA to address it, they'd have to curb all of the popular ways that teams go about it in an objective way, which is difficult when tanking is actually quite a subjective notion.

It might not be as tame as Curry was saying, but on the same spectrum, it might not be the league-ending problem that some fans make it out to be. Until it becomes something more clear-cut that the NBA can rigidly define, it'll likely just continue to be a judgment call from the league that results in a fine.