Rod Thorn acknowledges that losing games in order to have a higher draft pick is "definitely a strategy" for NBA front offices.

Thorn is the NBA's president of basketball operations.

"I don't look at it as tanking," Thorn told ESPN.com during an interview for TrueHoop TV at All-Star weekend in New Orleans. "I look at it as I don't want to be at this level here. I may have to get worse to be good. It's definitely a strategy and more and more teams are looking at it." 

Thorn says "more and more teams are looking at" trading away players as a way to improve. "We're not very good right now," he says, explaining teams' thinking, "but in a couple years we're going to be pretty good if we get lucky in the draft." 

Thorn is a former NBA general manger.

Adam Silver addressed tanking by saying "my understanding of tanking would be losing games on purpose. And there's absolutely no evidence that any team in the NBA has ever lost a single game, or certainly in any time that I've been in the league, on purpose. And, to me, what you're referring to I think is rebuilding."