Blazers Edge on Tanking

[PhoSita]

http://www.blazersedge.com/2014/3/24/5541226/nba-tanking-draft-lottery-wheel-philadelphia-76ers-milwaukee-bucks

Let's put it this way.  If the General Manager in Milwaukee thought he had a clear and legitimate chance at acquiring LeBron James when James' contract ends sometime between now and 2016, would the Bucks be "tanking" right now or trying to build a financially prudent, talented, successful squad so they could both afford him and convince him to come?  That they're not taking this route shows that...

A.  Players like James are ultra-rare and indispensable.  If he doesn't come, Plan B Free Agent won't do any good.  Nor will the rest of the team they were trying to build around him contend in his absence.  And...

B.  No matter what kind of team they try to build and what pitch they make, that franchise has zero chance of signing LeBron James.  Absolutely zero.  None.  That's not because they're dumb or because their GM is inferior.  It's because they're Milwaukee and in the NBA, LeBron James does not go to Milwaukee unless he's drafted there.

The article makes some interesting points.

I understand what the author is saying.  You can't blame GMs of smaller-market teams from doing the math and feeling that it's in their best interest to make their teams worse before they try to make them better.


Personally, I'd like to see the draft incentive removed entirely.  Not because blatant tanking a la Philadelphia is really a serious, widespread issue, or that I think untethering the draft from regular season record would improve competitive balance. 

Rather, I think it would improve the average quality of the product on the floor in the regular season.  The NBA would still have a clear upper echelon of teams, but the distance between the 15th best team and the 30th would not be the enormous gulf that it is today (especially in the last third of the season).

Given the example that the author uses in the quote above, a team in Milwaukee's position would have little incentive to not try to build "a financially prudent, talented, successful squad." 

The draft is taken out of the equation entirely.  Suddenly the franchise is accountable to its fans for the product on the floor right now, not what might be on the floor next year or the year after.  Sure, sometimes teams will deliberately take steps back, either to give more time to young players or to create future cap space.  But there'd no longer be any reason to avoid "NBA purgatory" a.k.a. "being decent to pretty good year after year" except for financial reasons (and financial concerns could be allayed by more robust revenue sharing).

Teams aren't tanking to get ahead.  Teams are tanking so they don't fall so [dang] far behind.

You know the problem with poverty?  It's those stupid poor people.  Let them eat cake...once every 30 years.

I like The Wheel idea because it just crystallizes the NBA reality that the really good teams have superstars and all the other teams can't really do anything but wait their turn to get one.  The poor teams will get their cake once every 30 years.  The rest of the time, they'll make do by trying to put a relatively entertaining product on the floor, and fans can get excited about the prospect of "shocking the world" in a first round 1 vs 8 matchup.

And hey! Every once in a while you'll get an underdog contender built without high draft picks like the Pacers and the mid-2000's Pistons.  Viva la revolution.

[manl_lui]

I agree with this entirely. As a fan, I HATE tanking, especially if you see another team is doing it. It's disgusting and you know they have to tank to "get in position" to get a high pick. People pay good money to see your team play well.

[Smokeeye123]

You can shake up the lottery however you want, the NBA unlike any other sport is a sport weak on parity and absolutely reliant on a handful of superstars.

Honestly even though it would never happen, I believe the league would be served well to cut 2 teams and increase the talent pool.

[D.o.s.]

You can shake up the lottery however you want, the NBA unlike any other sport is a sport weak on parity and absolutely reliant on a handful of superstars.

Honestly even though it would never happen, I believe the league would be served well to cut 2 teams and increase the talent pool.

I think you're not watching enough sports if you believe the NBA is the only sport that's weak on parity.

[Smokeeye123]

You can shake up the lottery however you want, the NBA unlike any other sport is a sport weak on parity and absolutely reliant on a handful of superstars.

Honestly even though it would never happen, I believe the league would be served well to cut 2 teams and increase the talent pool.

I think you're not watching enough sports if you believe the NBA is the only sport that's weak on parity.

NFL, NHL, and to a lesser extent MLB all have much more parity than the NBA. MLB would probably have the MOST parity if they set up a better salary floor/ceiling.

[pearljammer10]

You can shake up the lottery however you want, the NBA unlike any other sport is a sport weak on parity and absolutely reliant on a handful of superstars.

Honestly even though it would never happen, I believe the league would be served well to cut 2 teams and increase the talent pool.

I think one of the NBAs biggest problem is certainly the amount of teams. It waters down the talent level of the league. Cutting two (Id even say four) teams would be great for the action but since its not great for the NBA profit it won't happen.

I like the wheel idea since it makes that one small market team relevant once ever thirty years but an instant problem that comes up are now college players know which teams will be drafting what pick and in what year. I think some college players, especially ones looking at being the number one pick, will end up staying in school to basically choose the franchise they want to go to. So the small market teams still might end up getting screwed even on that 1 in 30 year because the top college player wouldn't want to declare and go to that team.

So say we have the wheel this year and a guy like Wiggins or Parker knows that its the Bucks year this year, the 76ers next year and oh I don't know... OKC or Miami in the third year...What's going to stop Wiggins from saying well I dont want to play for those terrible teams I'm just going to take my chances in college, come out as a junior, play alongside Durant possibly win a ring with him and then eventually take over the reigns of an already contending franchise.

[LooseCannon]

I think people are missing the whole point of that post:

I'm all in favor of considering solutions like The Wheel as long as you apply them to every facet of the game.  But Wheeling up the only part of the system that actually seems to favor the disadvantaged parties while leaving the rest untouched is pretty much a joke.

Considering tanking as part of the whole instead of an isolated problem allows us to see that removing the perceived "reward" for poor performance doesn't fix the system or balance it out.  It all but engraves the already-existing imbalance in stone.  All the reasons a team would want to tank--the ills of the environment--would be even worse in post-Wheel world.  You got rid of the weed but poisoned the orchard.  You'd get rid of tanking without touching any of the reasons people tank to begin with.

[D.o.s.]

You can shake up the lottery however you want, the NBA unlike any other sport is a sport weak on parity and absolutely reliant on a handful of superstars.

Honestly even though it would never happen, I believe the league would be served well to cut 2 teams and increase the talent pool.

I think you're not watching enough sports if you believe the NBA is the only sport that's weak on parity.

NFL, NHL, and to a lesser extent MLB all have much more parity than the NBA. MLB would probably have the MOST parity if they set up a better salary floor/ceiling.

If those are the only sports you're paying attention to, then I stand by what I said.

[LooseCannon]

I like the wheel idea since it makes that one small market team relevant once ever thirty years but an instant problem that comes up are now college players know which teams will be drafting what pick and in what year. I think some college players, especially ones looking at being the number one pick, will end up staying in school to basically choose the franchise they want to go to. So the small market teams still might end up getting screwed even on that 1 in 30 year because the top college player wouldn't want to declare and go to that team.

Given the way people talk about destinations, wouldn't the wheel screw whichever team has a #1 pick the year before the Lakers have it, according to how many people think?  How would you feel if the Celtics were in that spot?

[LarBrd33]

Some teams have advantages in free agency... New York, LA...  Miami was a peculiar situation.  That was less about the allure of the city/weather (overrated by media) and more about the president and captain (Riley and Wade). 

I'd think Boston has an advantage over the majority of the league.  Pretty huge sports market.  History of MLB, NHL, MLB and NBA success.  It's been a free agent destination for other leagues.  Great franchise.  Great city.  A team in Boston is inherently going to have an advantage over a team in Denver. 

For a lot of the league, tanking is a smart move.  There's the frequent naysayers who point out the rarity of teams winning titles with drafted players.  I mean... it's partially true.  But it's also a fact that Orlando wouldn't have been a Finals contender in the 90s had they not bottomed out and landed Shaq.  Cleveland wouldn't have been a Finals contender in the 00s had they not bottomed out and landed LeBron.  Orlando wouldn't have been a finals contender in the late 00s had they not bottomed out and landed Dwight.   Oklahoma wouldn't have been a Finals contender right now had they not bottomed out and landed Durant and Westbrook.   Spurs wouldn't exist right now had they not bottomed out for David Robinson and eventually bottomed out for Duncan.

Yes, it's true we can build a contender through other means... seeing as we are one of the privileged teams in a prime media market.  But even for us... take a look at the contenders we built in the past.  It's usually from drafted talent taken in the top 6. 

[Lucky17]

I'm not sure how relevant or applicable it is to the discussion of tanking, but I always thought that the practice of relegation in the English Premier League was an interesting idea.

Maybe someone smarter than I can figure out a way to make relegation in the NBA a possible counterbalance to tanking.

[LooseCannon]

I'm not sure how relevant or applicable it is to the discussion of tanking, but I always thought that the practice of relegation in the English Premier League was an interesting idea.

Maybe someone smarter than I can figure out a way to make relegation in the NBA a possible counterbalance to tanking.

Not relevant at all.  Relegation and the lack of a draft (which wouldn't make sense at all, given the way English soccer is structured) are factors in the English Premier League being top-heavy, with less long-term parity than the NBA.

[Smokeeye123]

You can shake up the lottery however you want, the NBA unlike any other sport is a sport weak on parity and absolutely reliant on a handful of superstars.

Honestly even though it would never happen, I believe the league would be served well to cut 2 teams and increase the talent pool.

I think you're not watching enough sports if you believe the NBA is the only sport that's weak on parity.

NFL, NHL, and to a lesser extent MLB all have much more parity than the NBA. MLB would probably have the MOST parity if they set up a better salary floor/ceiling.

If those are the only sports you're paying attention to, then I stand by what I said.

Those are and for the foreseeable future are the big 4 of sports...? Am I supposed to reference the parity of professional lacrosse? If that's even a thing?

[MBunge]

The problem with The Wheel concept is that you risk destroying franchises who have a run of bad luck or bad management.  What happens when your turn on The Wheel comes up and that player then suffers a career-ending or career-limiting injury during his rookie season?  What happens if you turn comes up and you take Darko instead of Carmello?  What happens if you turn comes up when the draft is weak like is was last year?

The problem in the NBA isn't tanking.  It's a bad combination of horrible front offices and players coming into the league greatly lacking in emotional and professional development.  There has been some hillariously bad GMing in the league, something the new luxury tax rules seem to be fixing.  If they could change the one-and-done rule to two-and-done, that might help with the other.

Mike

[LooseCannon]

The main problem in the NBA is lack of sufficient revenue sharing.  There needs to be more redistribution of money away from teams in major media markets towards the other teams.

My idea to decrease tanking would be to increase revenue sharing first, then tie some of that revenue sharing to win-loss record so that teams have a significant short-term financial reason to avoid tanking.