It’s not quite a Friday news dump, but it might as well be one.
In his latest attempt to thwart tanking, NBA commissioner Adam Silver leaked a few new rules he plans to implement to ESPN’s Shams Charania.
Here are lots of words:
Like everything else the NBA does — see: the current CBA, All-Star Game format — this is so convoluted. How do you expect the average fan, the people who you are most trying to appease with anti-tanking rules, to understand or even care about this?
And how does this even help? Having a worse record still gives you a better chance at a higher draft pick. When teams don’t have the ability to build a competitive roster, losing games on purpose will still beat vying for a spot in the Play-In.
The idea of factoring in two years worth of records is also silly. You want teams to be more competitive, so you punish them for tanking, which will then make them even worse. How does that create competitive balance?
What about the teams who are just bad without tanking? The Chicago Bulls came into the season looking to reasonably compete (I know, I know). After being stuck in Play-In purgatory, Chicago fans are probably ecstatic the front office finally decided to go this route.
People make fun of The Process, but it worked. The Sixers were irrelevant basically from the time Allen Iverson was traded until Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons arrived — save for one playoff run where they benefitted from a significant injury to Derrick Rose. No, they haven’t won a championship, but they’ve built multiple rosters over the years that at least felt like they had a chance. And the tanking wasn’t full-proof — they selected Markelle Fultz first overall and Jahlil Okafor third. You still need to have an ounce of competence to make the strategy work.
Look at the top teams in the NBA. The Oklahoma City Thunder deployed the most brazen tanking strategy in professional sports and now they have a juggernaut. The San Antonio Spurs, an organization that’s considered a gold standard, tanked their way into Victor Wembanyama. The Detroit Pistons are led by No. 1 overall pick Cade Cunningham, but suffered plenty with other bad selections after tanking.
The bottom line is the best franchises find the best way to acquire talent. When you see teams like the Thunder and Spurs tank to build what will likely be dynasties, you know it’s a viable and effective strategy — if you draft properly and get a good bit of luck.
I’ll admit to bias in being a pro-tank guy. I think about teams who are always in the lottery because they don’t have great front offices and they’re not attractive enough destinations for free agents. Even if they don’t tank, they still won’t be very good. Again, how do any of these rules help competitive balance? How can a team like the Washington Wizards get out of NBA hell without tanking?
NBA ratings are good. There are great games being played almost every night. I just watched that Rockets-Timberwolves game the other night. It was awesome. I think the playoffs have a chance to be very competitive and a lot of fun.
We spend so much time focusing on tanking and not enough on the actual awesome games being played. If you don’t want to watch the Thunder destroy the Bulls, don’t want watch it. Flip on Hawks-Celtics or Heat-Cavs instead.
Tanking and load management are considered big problems with the NBA, but Silver hasn’t done anything to help either cause. Less games might be the answer to both, but then people would lose money.
And therein lies the problem — are you trying to produce the best product or trying to make the most money? Maybe by simply improving the product, the money will come. It’s hard to see how these rules do either.
