Jazz's Markkanen: Tanking is a failed concept

[Upperclass]

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.

So you would prefer the Lakers have their pick of which rookies to sign and which ones to move off of every year and win 50 straight chips?

[ROballer]

Maybe Lauri should focus on playing in a single playoff game before commenting on tanking.

Maybe the Jazz shouldn't have sat him, Collins, Sexton and Kessler routinely with bogus injury reports since DECEMBER.

The tanking job the Jazz did this year is the most disgraceful one in NBA history. Most teams wait until the ASB at least, these guys started it not even two months from the beginning of the season.

Oh please, The Sixers tank job was far worse

Hope they get a top 3 pick just to annoy you (rooting for the Wizards to win the Lottery)

The Sixers started their tank after Embiid was shutdown, late in the season. Kind of what I was talking about.

The Jazz were sitting the players I mentioned since December. Especially John Collins, who was killing it. Dude was sitting 8-9 games in a row without an injury update, play one game and the sit another 5-6 in row. Ridiculous.

You had Collins/Kessler/Markkanen on the mend and the likes of Filipowski/Micah Potter/Eubanks before the trade and Tshiebwe after playing before the season even hit the halfway mark.

Plus in the backourt, Clarkson and Sexton. A disaster.

[littlerock2277]

If the jazz or wizards win the lottery this year, expect many teams to continue to do this.

[Whateva]

The nba the only competition in the world where this bs happens

[Nate505]

Rewarding losing in the NBA allows us to have championship-level teams in Cleveland or Oklahoma, this is by far a better product than any league without salary cap and draft.

Yeah, it would be soooooooo cool to see all the talent in the world playing for the Lakers and the Knicks.

the NBA regular season is not a better product, at all.
just, with so many games, fans can ignore those teams who aren't even trying.

People bring up the European Soccer system being better/more equal, whence in fact its the same rich clubs dominating the major European comps and Champions League's comp year in, year out (frankly it's a miracle my German League Team Bayer Leverkusen stopped Bayern Munich's stranglehold on the Bundesliga last season)

Yeah, I haven't looked at the tables at all this year, but I'm guessing Real Madrid or Barcelona are going to win La Liga this year. I know, crazy guess.

[djsunyc]

ainge worse than hinkie at this point - and that's like really bad.

[ejftw]

Tanking only exists in Amurrican sports. Nowhere else and Lauri is absolutely right on point here. (And I mean consistent tanking, not a game or two a year)

Maybe Lauri should focus on playing in a single playoff game before commenting on tanking.

If only his team had an All Star like Reed Sheppard, he might

[Special_Puppy]

He signed with them

[walk with me]

The nba is dumb…. Teams have taken tanking way too far. They should adjust how the lottery is done.

Teams that don’t make the play in should have to enter a ncaa style tournament for the lotto odds.

[ejftw]

the NBA regular season is not a better product, at all.
just, with so many games, fans can ignore those teams who aren't even trying.

People bring up the European Soccer system being better/more equal, whence in fact its the same rich clubs dominating the major European comps and Champions League's comp year in, year out (frankly it's a miracle my German League Team Bayer Leverkusen stopped Bayern Munich's stranglehold on the Bundesliga last season)

Yeah, I haven't looked at the tables at all this year, but I'm guessing Real Madrid or Barcelona are going to win La Liga this year. I know, crazy guess.

Would you have guessed Nottingham Forest is third in the Premier League? Newcastle fourth? While Brentford, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth are miles ahead of ManU? Or Lazio and Bologna ahead of AC Milan?

[Myth]

I’d love to see a player like Lauri just publicly or directly to the league office be a whistleblower. Just say “Hey, I can play, others can play, we were asked not to.” If it is public, it could become the type of story the NBA wants to avoid. If the league really wants to stop tanking via sitting players, they should also penalize teams via reducing lottery options rather than a chump change fine that is not enough to deter teams. All this said, I don’t hate bad teams tanking, but I don’t blame players for being frustrated.

[meekrab]

ainge worse than hinkie at this point - and that's like really bad.

When you can't rely on Billy King's team to tank for you it's gonna get ugly.

[Beethoven]

Maybe Lauri should focus on playing in a single playoff game before commenting on tanking.

A person can have an opinion about something (a valid opinion at that) whether that person actually belongs in that subset of something or have not gotten there yet. In other words, why open your mouth on anything, you do it all the time and you arent there in a myriad of things in this world/life. Thanks.

[sp6r=underrated]

Utah Jazz's Lauri Markkanen spoke to the finnish broadcaster Yle saying that tanking is a failed concept.

Generally speaking, it (tanking) is a concept that's gone awry. Losing is rewarded. Losing intentionally is not part of sports, or especially professional sports. Everyone should be trying to win. I think this is may be a wrong direction for the business.

Full article in finnish
Machine translation

I agree. Sports is about winning, about finding out who is the very best. But the thing is, the major sports leagues and teams are, first and foremost, entertainment business entitites. Sports is just the vehicle for generating revenue, and I guess in that context rewarding losing makes sense.

Markkanen has no solution to offer, and neither do I. European have relegation - promotion -system, which has it's own inherent problems, but personally I find rewarding losing to such an anti-sports concept that I prefer the problems of relegation - promotion. But introducing something similar to the NBA would change the league so profoundly I can't see that happening.

However, I believe rewarding losing in sports entertainment makes for a worse product than relegation - promotion -system.

I agree with him. Promotion/relegation is better but there is no way to get there.

Pro-tank fans should at least acknowledge that tanking wastes the careers of players stunk on tanking system. The Jazz are harming Lauri Markkanen. He's not being allowed to play as much as he is capable of because the Jazz want to lose basketball games.

[zero rings]

There are 30 teams in the NBA, and of those teams only about 7 committed to the tank this year. That leaves us with 23 teams that are trying to win.

Do you guys really have enough time to follow more than 23 teams in a season? I don’t. It doesn’t matter to me that the Jazz threw some games by resting their best players. They weren’t going to be very good anyways, and getting good players in the draft is their only chance of getting out of NBA purgatory. With a little luck they can vault themselves into contention with a short tank, just like we’ve seen from OKC, Cleveland, and Houston.

Tanking is a complete non-issue. The NFL rewards tanking more than anybody, and it’s the most valuable sports league in the world, with arguably the most parity. NBA “fans” are just curmudgeons who like to complain about everything.

[Nate505]

People bring up the European Soccer system being better/more equal, whence in fact its the same rich clubs dominating the major European comps and Champions League's comp year in, year out (frankly it's a miracle my German League Team Bayer Leverkusen stopped Bayern Munich's stranglehold on the Bundesliga last season)

Yeah, I haven't looked at the tables at all this year, but I'm guessing Real Madrid or Barcelona are going to win La Liga this year. I know, crazy guess.

Would you have guessed Nottingham Forest is third in the Premier League? Newcastle fourth? While Brentford, Crystal Palace and Bournemouth are miles ahead of ManU? Or Lazio and Bologna ahead of AC Milan?

No. That said, I rarely pay attention ever to who finishes 3rd or 4th.

Still, looking at the big 4 currently it's Barcelona (big shock), Inter Milan (big shock), Bayern Munich (big shock), and Liverpool (actually kind of a shock all things considered).

In the past 10 years, Barcelona has won 5 of the 10 championships, Inter Milan has won 2 of the 10, Bayern has won 9 of the 10, and Liverpool has one 1 of 10. And honestly, this year is a bit refreshing for Euro soccer all things considered. It could have been the Big 4 of Real Madrid/Juventes/Bayern/Manchester City again.

[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.

[ConSarnit]

Utah Jazz's Lauri Markkanen spoke to the finnish broadcaster Yle saying that tanking is a failed concept.

Generally speaking, it (tanking) is a concept that's gone awry. Losing is rewarded. Losing intentionally is not part of sports, or especially professional sports. Everyone should be trying to win. I think this is may be a wrong direction for the business.

Full article in finnish
Machine translation

I agree. Sports is about winning, about finding out who is the very best. But the thing is, the major sports leagues and teams are, first and foremost, entertainment business entitites. Sports is just the vehicle for generating revenue, and I guess in that context rewarding losing makes sense.

Markkanen has no solution to offer, and neither do I. European have relegation - promotion -system, which has it's own inherent problems, but personally I find rewarding losing to such an anti-sports concept that I prefer the problems of relegation - promotion. But introducing something similar to the NBA would change the league so profoundly I can't see that happening.

However, I believe rewarding losing in sports entertainment makes for a worse product than relegation - promotion -system.

I agree with him. Promotion/relegation is better but there is no way to get there.

Pro-tank fans should at least acknowledge that tanking wastes the careers of players stunk on tanking system. The Jazz are harming Lauri Markkanen. He's not being allowed to play as much as he is capable of because the Jazz want to lose basketball games.

Markannen signed an extension in August 2024. If he didn’t want to participate in a tank he could have said “if we don’t start winning I’m leaving as a free agent”. He took the money knowing full well what was going to happen this season.

I don’t feel any sympathy for Markannen. He had leverage and he gave it away.

[Nate505]

All this whining about the Jazz tanking is hilarious, and I am anti-tanking.

Since the Jazz have been in Utah, how many times have they had the #1 pick? Oh yeah, none. They are one of six teams in the NBA to never get a #1 pick. How many times have they got a Top 3 pick in the lottery? Oh yeah, once (yeah, Deron Williams was a top 3 pick, but they had to trade up to it). That's it, once. But they sure made out like bandits with Enes Kanter, er, Freedom. How many times have they had a Top 5 pick? Oh yeah, twice, and got the legendary Dante Exum with the other pick.

How often do people make stupid jokes about "dur, they's should be the Utah Mormons lol no jazz in Utah lol, duh"? Oh yeah, all the time. How often do the Jazz get bashed for being a poor free agent destination? Oh yeah, all the time. So yeah, even though tanking sucks this is where the Jazz are. They are not a free agent destination (not only that, they have been kind of an anti-free agent destination) and when they do draft and develop good players, they often want to leave like Donovan Mitchell did.

[zero rings]

Tanking only exists in Amurrican sports. Nowhere else and Lauri is absolutely right on point here. (And I mean consistent tanking, not a game or two a year)

Maybe Lauri should focus on playing in a single playoff game before commenting on tanking.

If only his team had an All Star like Reed Sheppard, he might

Competitive 30 team leagues also only exist in America, unlike the Euro leagues where the same 2-3 clubs compete for the championship every year, while the rest are perpetual bottom feeders.

If that’s your alternative, I’ll stick with the draft system and the inevitable tanking that comes with it.