Daddy 801 wrote:toooskies wrote:garrick wrote:
Why should the league get rid of tanking?
It's obvious the league wants parity so it's in their best interest to not let franchises languish so stopping stupid owners from mortgaging their future for short term relief should be a priority for Silver.
The league should get rid of tanking because basketball games played by tanking teams are unwatchable. The overall product is more important than encouraging a rebuilding strategy that rarely if ever actually works.
I was quite happy watching Jazz games past two years. What I found less desirable was watching the two previous years when the Jazz weren’t tanking. Poll after poll and asking anyone I knew that was a Jazz fan they felt the same. Tanking gave hope and a direction. Being middle of the road with no path is the worst. So how about you worry about your team and the fans of other teams can worry about their team.
Quite honestly I find it to be a bit of fake outrage and what it really comes down to is jealousy from one fan base that another fan base has a good management structure that is actually doing the things necessary to become a better team. And on top of that I think people know it works and they hate their team isn’t doing it and other teams are.
All tanking is, is the time value of winning. Placing the value of future wins over present day wins. And you take away that ability of a GM you take away their main ability to improve the roster. It’s silly. Taking it to its extreme we shouldn’t allow trades because the best tanking GM of all time (Presti) traded away win now players for players that he hoped would bring future wins. If tanking isn’t allowed that shouldn’t be either. And if we take away all tanking efforts we would be left with a draft that is 100% fair (the wheel) and no team should be allowed to make trades of players and picks because in every trade their is a perceived better player going out for lesser talent. And you just have to live with the results of who you got lucky enough to draft and develop. I’ll pass on that idea.
It’s a sports league and suppose to be competitive. That includes ownership and management. We just keep trying to take away that aspect of the game. We have the league trying to dictate player time on the court, now they want to be able to just move draft picks around, etc. It’s absurd. Bad management needs to be allowed because it’s part of the competitive nature of the long term strategy of the game.
The perspective of a tanking team's fans is worth including-- yes, it feels better if there's more long-term hope. And that losing does benefit your team. But I'll guess that the two years of limbo after the teardown trades felt bad because tanking was the most optimal choice for that situation then-- the organization was not doing what it should've directionally been doing, possibly because Ainge's Celtics only had one losing season after the KG/Pierce trade by finding a small scoring guard who could carry an offense. He probably thought Sexton was his next Isaiah Thomas. He thought the picks he got back would be enough to carry the team going forward, the way the Brooklyn picks delivered Tatum and Kyrie.
But fine, I'll worry about my team. Games my team plays against teams not putting forth an honest effort are much less watchable than games against teams trying to win. Games against tanking teams barely affect season narratives. Games against tanking teams feel like they shouldn't even count. Part of the reason the Cavs might've had a hard time playing their best basketball in the playoffs is that they only had a handful of games against non-tanking teams after the trade deadline when they rebuilt their roster. More than half the games, the other team didn't even try.
But the NBA isn't going to expand by marketing local games-- in fact, local TV revenue is dropping off a ton while national and international TV revenue is where the business is expanding. No one in North Dakota or England or wherever is sticking with a team through their tanking phase. They'll pick a different team, or tune out basketball altogether.
I don't think players always become who they were supposed to be regardless of where they land-- that a successful draft is an outcome of luck and not at all related to environment. For the most part there is a consensus about the quality of player talent at draft day, and even big deviations from the consensus are rarely wrong by more than ~10 spots. I think the coaching and development staff of the team and the player matters almost as much to the player's long-term success as the talent level, and the draft lottery has no effect on that. In fact, I think the lottery itself influences people to believe that luck matters more for team-building than anything else.
The Celtics have only drafted at #1 once ever, in the 1950s. They're not necessarily a big market (9th according to Google). They run a successful organization that is really good at identifying and developing talent. Ainge didn't bring his organization with him to Utah. Boston keeps turning average NBA players into stars and nobodies into solid role players.
San Antonio's dynasty was partly built with #1 picks in Robinson and Duncan but also on effective draft strategy in finding Parker and Ginobili and Kawhi, and a development staff that ended up spreading to organizations across the NBA.
