"Our best player is injured. We know he just signed this 4 year extension but he is hurt and we can pick up the best player in college basketball (who is also hurt) and a future first round pick for him. Our team isn't very good as we won just 34 games, so what the heck, we can't turn this opportunity down."
Referring to the Jrue Holiday trade?
I don't really view that as a tanking trade, either.
The Sixers decided that they'd rather get Noel and a future first than continue to build around Jrue Holiday. Because, well, just think about that phrase: "Build around Jrue Holiday."
Tanking, in my view, is a systematic approach where every shred of current value is shrugged off, at a bargain basement price if necessary, for little present return. It can also involve sitting players who would otherwise help you win, for no apparent reason other than the desire to lose more games. The primary benefit of the moves involved is that the team gets worse and thereby leads to a higher draft pick.
If you can reasonably justify a move independent of the draft, then it's not a tanking move, in my opinion. Because, in theory, it's a move the team would have made even if there were no draft-related benefit to being worse.
Conversely, when a move cannot be justified in any reasonable way without referencing the fact that being worse leads to higher draft picks, then it's probably a tank move.
Why is it so important to people that we use the word "tank," instead of "rebuild," anyway, especially when the two things seem to be the same in most people's minds? Is this how we make ourselves feel better about the fact that these other teams, that appear to be very poorly managed, have much better player assets than we do?