People should read "The Myth of the Tanking Spurs".
Not an attack at you LC, but I really disliked that article. Felt like the author was explaining things to children, and never really gets at the actual point of the whole tanking vs no tanking debate.
The real gist of it is, "The easiest path to acquiring top-end talent is to be poor enough and/or lucky enough to acquire a high draft pick, and lucky/savvy enough to do the right thing with it."
That's the whole discussion. Are the Celtics 'tanking'? Are the Sixers? The Bobcats?
Who cares? Every single one of those teams has assembled squads that are bad enough that they shouldn't win that many games, and should (in theory) be bad enough to get the Celtics/Sixers/Bobcats a top 5 or so pick, and a shot at the 1st overall.
Is it still 'tanking' if they're cautious with Rondo's injury? Is it still 'tanking' if they took what the league sees as a godfather deal from the Nets for 2 of their top-3 players?
Is so asinine. Its all tanking. The Spurs tanked. They learned Robinson was out for the duration, they did nothing to significantly improve their roster, and fired their coach.
A bad team that stays bad or actively gets worse with the understanding that its better for them in the long-run to do so is tanking as much as a team that sits its starters with bullcrap injuries in February.
The real point is that merely gaining the good lottery odds isn't enough to guarantee success, anymore than being born 7ft tall and athletic guarantees you'll be a NBA player. It just makes gaining that success easier.