Jazz's Markkanen: Tanking is a failed concept

[DeBlazerRiddem]

It’s called playing the long game. If a teams wants to sacrifice short term winning in order to build up future assets, they should absolutely be able to do so.

My whole point is this should not be the best option. I recognize that it currently IS the best option, but it should not be.

Teams would still move on from expensive veterans to rebuild but intentionally losing should never be rewarded.

You are welcome to disagree, but I still say its a dumb system that has fans rooting for their teams to lose. No fan should have to put up with their team sacrificing winning and playing a bunch of g-leaguers just to be bad. Destroys the integrity of the game.

If a team wants to emulate the Chicago Bulls and be a perennial 10th seed, they can do that, too.

Chicago and Chicago fans should not be penalized. They don't deserve it.

Uh... if you got rid of tanking, they would still be 10th seed and punished...

They would have equal odds to every other lottery team. Equal odds is not being punished.

[Ducklett]

My whole point is this should not be the best option. I recognize that it currently IS the best option, but it should not be.

Teams would still move on from expensive veterans to rebuild but intentionally losing should never be rewarded.

You are welcome to disagree, but I still say its a dumb system that has fans rooting for their teams to lose. No fan should have to put up with their team sacrificing winning and playing a bunch of g-leaguers just to be bad. Destroys the integrity of the game.



Chicago and Chicago fans should not be penalized. They don't deserve it.

Uh... if you got rid of tanking, they would still be 10th seed and punished...

They would have equal odds to every other lottery team. Equal odds is not being punished.

So everyone in the league has equal odds or just the non-playoff teams?

[Drakeem]

Perhaps Lauri should read this thread-
viewtopic.php?t=2070402

All OKC's tank did was shift some good players to OKC instead of other teams. It didn't increase league quality. Every guy OKC acquired would still be in the NBA sans tank. Tanking is a zero sum activity that reduces league quality.

Lauri is right about this.

Tanking is not a failed concept. It's a failed execution on the part of many franchises due poor drafting or impatient ownership. A right to fair competition is good for the league but the assumption that forced parity is needed smacks of the millennial mentality that everyone deserves a trophy.

Lauri wanted to stay with a team that had no realistic path towards contention. Either he didn't see it or he was lied to by his agent or Ainge. I don't disagree with everything he said because even he acknowledged that he doesn't have a better solution. I don't particularly find the idea of a league for of teams around .500 exciting nor sustainable.

I mean, he shouldn't need a path to contention to play games. I think that's semi the point. It's not about every team gunning for the finals, but each and every game you should be heading into the game to try and win it. Utah can go 0-82, but play your guys and let them lose off their merit (or lack thereof) vs benching your line up to beat the system.

[HotelVitale]

His opinion is not hypocritical. Your premises about him are based on personal assumption. Thanks.

Why didn't he take a low deal to help his team have more resources to help win games?

Why did he agree to sit out games?

He is just wrong, everyone is "trying to win", but just not all at the same time, because there are constraints in this system.

Your Welcome.

Criticism in the middle makes sense but the part about Markkanen himself is a logical fallacy, a version of ad hominem but even worse IMO. I still try to get good health insurance for myself even though I don't like the health insurance system, millions of people use things like Walmart, Google, etc even though they have valid criticims of them and would prefer sometihng else, etc.

It's not a valid criticism to say that, unless you're being personally extreme and doing all you can to take down a system, you cannot criticize that system or have any opinion about it.

Doesn't mean Markkanen is right but he's not automatically logically or theoretically wrong because he's not costing himself millions to disrupt or personally (and uselessly/symbolically) protesting that system.

[Ducklett]

His opinion is not hypocritical. Your premises about him are based on personal assumption. Thanks.

Why didn't he take a low deal to help his team have more resources to help win games?

Why did he agree to sit out games?

He is just wrong, everyone is "trying to win", but just not all at the same time, because there are constraints in this system.

Your Welcome.

Logical fallacy, a version of ad hominem but even worse IMO. I still try to get good health insurance for myself even though I don't like the health insurance system, millions of people use things like Walmart, Google, etc even though they have valid criticims of them and would prefer sometihng else, etc.

It's not a valid criticism to say that, unless you're being personally extreme and doing all you can to take down a system, you cannot criticize that system or have any opinion about it.

Why are you telling someone why they cant be critical of how someone is critical? LOL

[HotelVitale]

Why didn't he take a low deal to help his team have more resources to help win games?

Why did he agree to sit out games?

He is just wrong, everyone is "trying to win", but just not all at the same time, because there are constraints in this system.

Your Welcome.

Logical fallacy, a version of ad hominem but even worse IMO. I still try to get good health insurance for myself even though I don't like the health insurance system, millions of people use things like Walmart, Google, etc even though they have valid criticims of them and would prefer sometihng else, etc.

It's not a valid criticism to say that, unless you're being personally extreme and doing all you can to take down a system, you cannot criticize that system or have any opinion about it.

Why are you telling someone why they cant be critical of how someone is critical? LOL

Just following the plot. Lars said 'Markkanen's opinion is wrong' and then talked about stuff Markkanen did rather than the opinion or position itself. Not hard to see why that's a fallacy or dodge of the actual topic, just the response I had to reading the comment.

If you're asking why anyone ever talks about logical fallacies or argumentation/rhetoric or whatever, it's a) cuz it helps everyone get better at thinking and talking about things in general and b) cuz it saves lots of times if people can identify those things and not have to argue in circles about them. People taught me these things at some point and I've appreciated that.

[ConSarnit]

I think the new lottery system has incentivized tanking even more so. The bottom teams were always going to tank but now you have more incentive to tank to 6th because your odds of moving up have increased. Instead of being incentivized to be a bottom 3 team you now have incentive to be a bottom 6-7 team.

It might seem counter productive but I think the old lotto system was better for dissuading tanking. You’ll still have really bad teams at the bottom (this is unavoidable imo) but the volume of overall tanking should be less.

They should also change pick protection rules in trades. It should either be top 4 or lotto protected with nothing in between. This would de-incentivize teams trying to tank to retain their top 8 protected draft pick.

Make the like the NFL. Condoms are banned! If you trade a pick, you trade a pick. End of story.

I don’t think I would go that far. Forbidding protections would really hurt the trade activity (which I feel is one of the more interesting aspects of the NBA). Make it restrictive enough that teams like the Sixers would have been more incentivized to push for the play-in than tank to keep their pick.

[YogurtProducer]

Tanking will exist until the league has a hard cap and no draft.

Let well managed teams be rewarded, and let players decide where they want to go. Easy solution but it won’t happen because the players want to go over the cap, and the big city team fans would bitch they can’t just bankroll a winning team. But it is the solution.

You can fix the problem without a hard cap and still have a draft.

Flatten the odds for all, limit the # of picks you can move up to 13, and pick the top 5. Why would anyone tank to get the 6th pick?

[Beethoven]

His opinion is not hypocritical. Your premises about him are based on personal assumption. Thanks.

Why didn't he take a low deal to help his team have more resources to help win games?

Why did he agree to sit out games?

He is just wrong, everyone is "trying to win", but just not all at the same time, because there are constraints in this system.

Your Welcome.

Criticism in the middle makes sense but the part about Markkanen himself is a logical fallacy, a version of ad hominem but even worse IMO. I still try to get good health insurance for myself even though I don't like the health insurance system, millions of people use things like Walmart, Google, etc even though they have valid criticims of them and would prefer sometihng else, etc.

It's not a valid criticism to say that, unless you're being personally extreme and doing all you can to take down a system, you cannot criticize that system or have any opinion about it.

Doesn't mean Markkanen is right but he's not automatically logically or theoretically wrong because he's not costing himself millions to disrupt or personally (and uselessly/symbolically) protesting that system.

[TFJava]

Lauri Markkanen is 100 percent correct.

[HotelVitale]

I think the new lottery system has incentivized tanking even more so. The bottom teams were always going to tank but now you have more incentive to tank to 6th because your odds of moving up have increased. Instead of being incentivized to be a bottom 3 team you now have incentive to be a bottom 6-7 team.

It might seem counter productive but I think the old lotto system was better for dissuading tanking. You’ll still have really bad teams at the bottom (this is unavoidable imo) but the volume of overall tanking should be less.

They should also change pick protection rules in trades. It should either be top 4 or lotto protected with nothing in between. This would de-incentivize teams trying to tank to retain their top 8 protected draft pick.

Make the like the NFL. Condoms are banned! If you trade a pick, you trade a pick. End of story.

I don’t think I would go that far. Forbidding protections would really hurt the trade activity (which I feel is one of the more interesting aspects of the NBA). Make it restrictive enough that teams like the Sixers would have been more incentivized to push for the play-in than tank to keep their pick.

I'm indifferent to that as a fan but I think it's an instance of the remedy creating a bigger problem than the illness is. First, it's pretty rare that teams are tanking only because of pick protections, happens once every couple years at most it seems like. The vast majority of tanking isn't those type of situations, it's teams who plan to be bad being bad and having nothing to win in a given season except a draft pick (and maybe some young player development).

Second, in the examples I can remember the teams weren't going to be a play-in team. Play in teams were around .500 this year and the Sixers were like 10 games below that when they went full tank--having no pick to lose would've just made them a regular bad team not worth watching rather than a really bad team not worth watching. The Warriors tanking for the pick that became Harrison Barnes was same situation (and before play-in).

It also could be pretty damaging for teams to have weird unlucky situations and lose high picks. Don't like the idea of punishing a team because their stars were injured or their decent plan for winning went to pot. My heart's not breaking about that and again I wouldn't care that much if it happened but in general I like trades and think they're exciting, and this would make them less likely to happen.

[manlisten]

Tanking is basically the team equivalent of an individual player making sacrifices and not drinking, smoking, partying and chasing vaginas until they make the league. Then once they get drafted all bets are off.

[Catchall]

Jazz's FRP next year is top-8 protected. So you could see something of a repeat next season. Meanwhile, teams are probably going to keep making trade calls on Lauri.

[ConSarnit]

Make the like the NFL. Condoms are banned! If you trade a pick, you trade a pick. End of story.

I don’t think I would go that far. Forbidding protections would really hurt the trade activity (which I feel is one of the more interesting aspects of the NBA). Make it restrictive enough that teams like the Sixers would have been more incentivized to push for the play-in than tank to keep their pick.

I'm indifferent to that as a fan but I think it's an instance of the remedy creating a bigger problem than the illness is. First, it's pretty rare that teams are tanking only because of pick protections, happens once every couple years at most it seems like. The vast majority of tanking isn't those type of situations, it's teams who plan to be bad being bad and having nothing to win in a given season except a draft pick (and maybe some young player development).

Second, in the examples I can remember the teams weren't going to be a play-in team. Play in teams were around .500 this year and the Sixers were like 10 games below that when they went full tank--having no pick to lose would've just made them a regular bad team not worth watching rather than a really bad team not worth watching. The Warriors tanking for the pick that became Harrison Barnes was same situation (and before play-in).

It also could be pretty damaging for teams to have weird unlucky situations and lose high picks. Don't like the idea of punishing a team because their stars were injured or their decent plan for winning went to pot. My heart's not breaking about that and again I wouldn't care that much if it happened but in general I like trades and think they're exciting, and this would make them less likely to happen.

How many opportunities has there been for teams to tank to keep their pick? We are just now reaching the point where teams that have traded their lightly protected picks are having give them up. In the past there was not near the prevalence of top 10 protected picks floating around. I contend that we could see more ‘25 Sixers or ‘24 Raptors tanking teams in the future as more traded picks become due.

I agree that I don’t think it’s a major issue but I think it could mitigate some tanking. We have not had the chance to see what direction teams would take under the old lotto system if the play-in existed. I think any incentive to stop any team from tanking could be helpful.

[DukeLecker]

What’s one of relegation-promotion problems , name me one ?

Massively unpredictable revenues.

Not our problem.

[DaddyCool19]

Isn't he making more than a max contract player? His 4 year extension is 4,5M below what he could've gotten, if he left for another team thos offseason. But if you add the 24M raise for this year, he really got paid paid.

[madmaxmedia]

His opinion is not hypocritical. Your premises about him are based on personal assumption. Thanks.

Why didn't he take a low deal to help his team have more resources to help win games?

Why did he agree to sit out games?

He is just wrong, everyone is "trying to win", but just not all at the same time, because there are constraints in this system.

Your Welcome.

Criticism in the middle makes sense but the part about Markkanen himself is a logical fallacy, a version of ad hominem but even worse IMO. I still try to get good health insurance for myself even though I don't like the health insurance system, millions of people use things like Walmart, Google, etc even though they have valid criticims of them and would prefer sometihng else, etc.

It's not a valid criticism to say that, unless you're being personally extreme and doing all you can to take down a system, you cannot criticize that system or have any opinion about it.

Doesn't mean Markkanen is right but he's not automatically logically or theoretically wrong because he's not costing himself millions to disrupt or personally (and uselessly/symbolically) protesting that system.

They should all play for free to help their teams win.

[madmaxmedia]

Tanking is basically the team equivalent of an individual player making sacrifices and not drinking, smoking, partying and chasing vaginas until they make the league. Then once they get drafted all bets are off.

Congratulations, you've made tanking seem even less fun that it did before.

[Capn'O]

I don't think it would be common if it happened at all which is why I find flat odds preferable to the current race for the bottom scenario.

Really? Imagine you are Atlanta Hawks and your choice is either 1st round exit or 36% for top5 pick. Every year some mid-level team would tank, probably, with flat lottery odds. That's terrible idea, it would fix lack of tanking of the worst teams but create tanking of mid-level teams. It wouldn't be that apparent, but the consequences (parity) would be even bigger. Especially in the seasons with strong draft classes where 50% of chances for top7 pick would be really encouraging.

There are minor changes that should be discussed: preference for teams waiting longer for a 1st draft picks, no back-to-back top3 picks, etc. Pelicans, Sixers, Nets or Wizards wouldn't have had chances for Flagg in the first scenario (Jazz or Hornets and Raptors are waiting longer for a 1st pick), so they wouldn't be so incentivized in tanking for Flagg. I think you can decrease frequency of tanking while keeping the main purpose of draft and lottery quite easily.

What does that look like though? Sitting players on the last day with a chance to make the playoffs? I don't think it happens a lot. But it could happen.

[MGB8]

I think the new lottery system has incentivized tanking even more so. The bottom teams were always going to tank but now you have more incentive to tank to 6th because your odds of moving up have increased. Instead of being incentivized to be a bottom 3 team you now have incentive to be a bottom 6-7 team.

It might seem counter productive but I think the old lotto system was better for dissuading tanking. You’ll still have really bad teams at the bottom (this is unavoidable imo) but the volume of overall tanking should be less.

They should also change pick protection rules in trades. It should either be top 4 or lotto protected with nothing in between. This would de-incentivize teams trying to tank to retain their top 8 protected draft pick.

Agreed. They should revert back to the old system - but to offset, teams that don’t make the play in should lose all revenue sharing, including from luxury tax - and possibly have to pay a penalty from their own revenue as bad teams hurt NBAs overall revenue *particularly if let’s say revenue misses certain levels or paid attendance below certain threshold). Make it hurt THE OWNERS to tank - and tanking ends.

Though if players on teams who make the playoffs lost 5% of their salary, that would be another incentive…