Is there "too much" tanking?

[Boris Badenov]

I thought of this after seeing PhoSita's thread about revamping the lottery, but didn't want to derail it, it seems like this is a separate thread:

Do we really think that there's "too much" tanking?

I for one have been surprised by how many mediocre teams have taken steps in this offseason to improve rather than degrade their quality. And this is supposed to be maybe the year in which tanking has the greatest payoff ever.

This view also seems consistent with the opinions of many people on this board, who are against tanking because it might not pay off. It looks like at least some teams may believe the same thing.

So if it's not happening now, should we (or the league) really worry about it? Is the current degree of randomness enough to be a useful deterrent?

What does everyone else think?

[PhoSita]

I think in any given season there are only a few teams that are obviously outright tanking / purposefully putting an abysmal team on the floor.

I believe it's relatively settled in NBA circles, though, that there is such a thing as "NBA Purgatory" -- i.e. you don't want to be a middle of the pack team unless you're a young team on the up-and-up. 

I think every season we also see teams that could make the playoffs if they made a couple of moves or spent a bit more money on free agents, but don't bother to because they have very little incentive to do so, because having a lottery pick is almost always better than getting crushed as the 7th or 8th seed.


I think there's way too little meaningful competition in the NBA among teams that could conceivably make the playoffs.  That's why in the East we often end up with 7th and 8th seeds with sub-.500 records.

Primarily I just feel that when you're a team entering a rebuilding phase, the NBA creates a really messed up set of incentives that inform the decisions that you're going to make about how to approach your rebuild.

Daryl Morey has shown us very recently that you don't HAVE to tank to put together a really talented squad.  But not every team has the guts or the scouting / analytics department to go the Morey route.  Morey also had to get really lucky (though good GMs make their own luck).  Many teams will instead do as the Magic, Bobcats, and Sixers have done, hoping to be the next Oklahoma City Thunder.

I mean, just look at how and why Danny Ainge traded Pierce and Garnett.  Wouldn't it be nice if Danny didn't have to feel that doing so was necessary, because even if we weren't a contender with Pierce and Garnett sticking around, we still had a significant chance of picking in the top 10 in any given season?


Aside from the best of the best teams in the league, I'd like to see pretty much every team have a good chance at getting a pick that could become a top contributor, whether that team wins 20 games or 45 games.

[fairweatherfan]

Tanking usually happens late in the season when teams are already out of the playoff hunt.  Tanking for a full season is pretty rare. 

Most teams try to add talent in the offseason so they can at least talk up their chances to their fans.  That's one of the reasons why the only two teams to really blow things up - Philly and Boston - are in larger markets.  Very few franchises can afford to trade a 10% better chance at an Andrew Wiggins for a $20 million bath on ticket sales.

[MBunge]

Some of the awful teams have been bad for so long that they can't stand the idea of tearing their roster apart again to tank.  If you're Cleveland, Detroit or Washington, could you really subject your fans to that?

Boston, so far, is absolutely NOT tanking.  Ainge has accumulated assets but there's no way you can accuse him of blowing the team up to get really bad.  If the Celtics struggle up to the trading deadline, Ainge might go for a full fledged tank but not right now.

Philly is the only team that's clearly tanking right now and they've started to do it earlier than any team ever has.  We'll see who else joins in.

Mike

[wiley]

Some of the awful teams have been bad for so long that they can't stand the idea of tearing their roster apart again to tank.  If you're Cleveland, Detroit or Washington, could you really subject your fans to that?

Boston, so far, is absolutely NOT tanking.  Ainge has accumulated assets but there's no way you can accuse him of blowing the team up to get really bad.  If the Celtics struggle up to the trading deadline, Ainge might go for a full fledged tank but not right now.

Philly is the only team that's clearly tanking right now and they've started to do it earlier than any team ever has.  We'll see who else joins in.

Mike

I think the term "tanking" should be reserved strictly for teams who don't play healthy players or whose players on the floor are not giving effort late in the season.

I don't think "tanking" should be applied to team's in transition from being highly competitive (Philly and Boston) to a year or two where they decide not to waste money on mediocre free agents but instead develop young players.

So I feel the term is over-used.  There are so many variables in building a contender.  Being bad is just one variable and often a weak one at that.  Pity the bad teams of the NBA as most of them are bad year after year after year.

[MBunge]

Some of the awful teams have been bad for so long that they can't stand the idea of tearing their roster apart again to tank.  If you're Cleveland, Detroit or Washington, could you really subject your fans to that?

Boston, so far, is absolutely NOT tanking.  Ainge has accumulated assets but there's no way you can accuse him of blowing the team up to get really bad.  If the Celtics struggle up to the trading deadline, Ainge might go for a full fledged tank but not right now.

Philly is the only team that's clearly tanking right now and they've started to do it earlier than any team ever has.  We'll see who else joins in.

Mike

I think the term "tanking" should be reserved strictly for teams who don't play healthy players or whose players on the floor are not giving effort late in the season.

I don't think "tanking" should be applied to team's in transition from being highly competitive (Philly and Boston) to a year or two where they decide not to waste money on mediocre free agents but instead develop young players.

So I feel the term is over-used.  There are so many variables in building a contender.  Being bad is just one variable and often a weak one at that.  Pity the bad teams of the NBA as most of them are bad year after year after year.

Philly traded an all-star for an injured player who everyone expects will take a few years to develop and a draft pick in 2014.  That's tanking.

[wiley]

Some of the awful teams have been bad for so long that they can't stand the idea of tearing their roster apart again to tank.  If you're Cleveland, Detroit or Washington, could you really subject your fans to that?

Boston, so far, is absolutely NOT tanking.  Ainge has accumulated assets but there's no way you can accuse him of blowing the team up to get really bad.  If the Celtics struggle up to the trading deadline, Ainge might go for a full fledged tank but not right now.

Philly is the only team that's clearly tanking right now and they've started to do it earlier than any team ever has.  We'll see who else joins in.

Mike

I think the term "tanking" should be reserved strictly for teams who don't play healthy players or whose players on the floor are not giving effort late in the season.

I don't think "tanking" should be applied to team's in transition from being highly competitive (Philly and Boston) to a year or two where they decide not to waste money on mediocre free agents but instead develop young players.

So I feel the term is over-used.  There are so many variables in building a contender.  Being bad is just one variable and often a weak one at that.  Pity the bad teams of the NBA as most of them are bad year after year after year.

Philly traded an all-star for an injured player who everyone expects will take a few years to develop and a draft pick in 2014.  That's tanking.

Maybe.  But soon it might just be called an outstanding trade.  Very likely so if Noel's knee is sturdy and the N.O. pick is lottery.

[Fred Roberts]

It certainly doesn't seem like the rewards outweigh the risks. There have been a number of terrible drafts where the prize is a Bogut, Bargnani or Bennett rather than a Duncan, Oden (whoops) or James.

In a loaded draft like 2003, which is very rare, there should be a natural tendency to want to tank. This coming draft may be worth tanking for. But typically, year in year out, it makes little sense to tank. There are so many lottery busts that you're better off developing a sound program, developing talent, and building rather than tearing down.

[Quetzalcoatl]

It certainly doesn't seem like the rewards outweigh the risks. There have been a number of terrible drafts where the prize is a Bogut, Bargnani or Bennett rather than a Duncan, Oden (whoops) or James.

In a loaded draft like 2003, which is very rare, there should be a natural tendency to want to tank. This coming draft may be worth tanking for. But typically, year in year out, it makes little sense to tank. There are so many lottery busts that you're better off developing a sound program, developing talent, and building rather than tearing down.

I would love to see a breakdown on this: how often are "good teams" in the lottery during a strong draft vs a weak draft?  So for instance, this year we saw all the usual suspect bad teams in the top of the lottery, because they're all terrible teams.  However this upcoming year, which just so happens to be one of the strongest drafts in recent memory, we are now seeing the Celtics, Lakers and 76'ers as the 1-2-3 worst teams in the league.  When Duncan was up in the lottery, it was the Spurs (who were very solid except for that one year) and the Celtics competing in the lottery.  Etc. 

I don't know how you would make a stat for that, it would be somewhat subjective but maybe you could rank all the drafts and then weigh all the teams by number of times they went to the playoffs in the last 20 years?  It just seems like the bad teams are always the front runners when there is a bad draft, but whenever a huge talent is in, they're strategically outlost by all the marquee franchises.

[Boris Badenov]

I guess "tanking" means different things to different people. I guess that's part of my question, in a way.

I take it to mean intentionally getting worse in order to get good draft position. There are many ways to do that of course.

Take the Sixers trade. I guess I'd ask "would the Sixers have made that same move if the 2014 draft were viewed as weaker?" Or, "would the Sixers have made the same move if the draft lottery were completely random and did not reward worse records with better odds?"

[mmmmm]

Some of the awful teams have been bad for so long that they can't stand the idea of tearing their roster apart again to tank.  If you're Cleveland, Detroit or Washington, could you really subject your fans to that?

Boston, so far, is absolutely NOT tanking.  Ainge has accumulated assets but there's no way you can accuse him of blowing the team up to get really bad.  If the Celtics struggle up to the trading deadline, Ainge might go for a full fledged tank but not right now.

Philly is the only team that's clearly tanking right now and they've started to do it earlier than any team ever has.  We'll see who else joins in.

Mike

I think the term "tanking" should be reserved strictly for teams who don't play healthy players or whose players on the floor are not giving effort late in the season.

I don't think "tanking" should be applied to team's in transition from being highly competitive (Philly and Boston) to a year or two where they decide not to waste money on mediocre free agents but instead develop young players.

So I feel the term is over-used.  There are so many variables in building a contender.  Being bad is just one variable and often a weak one at that.  Pity the bad teams of the NBA as most of them are bad year after year after year.

Philly traded an all-star for an injured player who everyone expects will take a few years to develop and a draft pick in 2014.  That's tanking.

Maybe.  But soon it might just be called an outstanding trade.  Very likely so if Noel's knee is sturdy and the N.O. pick is lottery.

I think if that N.O. pick looks headed for the lottery, then the Pelicans will tank themselves.  Like a freaking boat anchor.

That pick is top-5 protected.   If the Pelicans get off to a strong start and the season goes well, such that they are likely in the playoffs, then fine.  They'll probably be happy letting Philly take that pick in the mid-to-late first round.

But if things go sour at all, such as injuries, or just plain bad luck losing to a struggling record, their is no way they would want to see that pick turn into a 6-10 pick and go to the 76ers.  Not in this draft!

I think in that scenario, the Pelicans would decide to tank in the most ugly way.   

And, of course, since only 5 teams can end up in the bottom 5, it becomes in Philly's interest to take up one of those spots, leaving only 4 spots for N.O.

If that plays out and N.O. does tank and keep the pick, then they get to repeat the scenario in 2015.

If the pick still doesn't vest for Philly by 2015, it evaporates into 2nd rounders.

The nature of the protection on that pick basically sets up some ugly weird incentives for two teams to tank.