Jazz's Markkanen: Tanking is a failed concept

[Mamba81p]

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.

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

You can’t really have a salary cap with promotion-relegation, not if you don’t want to risk your most valuable teams going down. Europeans can talk about relegation, but without salary cap/revenue sharing, that is an abstract concept for teams like Real Madrid or Barcelona. Almost nobody would watch that league without those 2 teams.

NBA would fold if the LA/NY/SF teams would be replaced with teams in middle of nowhere

[Beethoven]

Why do we only complain about tanking in the NBA? The NFL tanking is just as obscene and they don't have a draft lotto so you are even more rewarded for doing so.

Tanking being an issue is so overrated.

Lauri only has Lauri to blame either way. Dude signed with the Bulls because he wanted to be paid. He could have gone anywhere he wanted in free agency.

We complain about tanking in NBA because there is tanking in NBA. This is an NBA board. Because NFL or other sports have tanking doesnt disqualify the merits of discussing tanking in the NBA here.

Lauri choosing the best place to go to, to get paid/look out for one's livelihood has no matter on his opinion of "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"

[meekrab]

As long as superstars are the only way to win a championship and losing more games improves your draft odds teams are gonna tank.

[Daddy 801]

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?

100% if there is a true hard cap. Players may want to play in LA but if going into the signing portion for the rookies LA only has 7 million in cap space and a team like the Pels, Char, Utah, etc have 30-50 million in cap space the best rookie is not going to sign with LA and leave tens of millions on the table. Tanking would become teams signing deals to have a ton of cap space at the end of the season. But the incentive to lose is gone even if you have a ton of players contracts expiring. Every team would want to make the playoffs for the extra revenue.

And if a team like LA has 30-50 million because a LeBron or Luka is expiring they are going to be forced to choose to pay the new superstar rookie (like a Wemby or Flagg) coming in and letting a superstar walk.

A open rookie free agent signing only works with a true hard cap.

[Scalabrine]

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.

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

I don't follow soccer enough to really know of the issues with relegation-promotion, but if you do, how often to relegated teams get re-promoted. How often do promoted teams actually become true contenders? I feel like that could be an issue. Teams just stay in the purgatory of fighting to stay out of relegation but don't have a realistic way to actually be contenders.

[ThunderBolt]

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

[sp6r=underrated]

Why do we only complain about tanking in the NBA? The NFL tanking is just as obscene and they don't have a draft lotto so you are even more rewarded for doing so.

Tanking being an issue is so overrated.

Tanking is much more of a problem in the NBA than the NFL because:
1. NBA superstars are more valuable than NFL QBs and way more valuable than everyone else.
2. Basketball is a much easier sport to scout than football.

Because of that teams have way greater incentives to tank.

Lauri only has Lauri to blame either way. Dude signed with the Bulls because he wanted to be paid. He could have gone anywhere he wanted in free agency.

1. He had a hobson's choice and a hobson's choice isn't a real choice.
2. Even if you think he had a real choice his critique of tanking stands on its own independent of his behavior.

[165bows]

Tanking sucks and the promotion/relegation model is far better and far more simple. Win or **** off. It is weird that America is much more capitalistic than Europe but when it comes to sport's team we reward losers and punish winners.

Nah, not really, it is just an uncomfortable necessity to keep the ball rolling on the sport, much like many other parts of life.

The purists world view is admirable but naive. Losers must exist so that winners exist. Constraints on the winners, and advantages for the losers, helps even the playing field to create competition, which is the ultimate goal. Without the other incentive / disincentives in place, the same teams, players and cities would win every year, and the sport would be god awful.

This is a first world complaint, and a dog who has no idea what would happen if he actually ended up catching the car.

Right plus if we are getting philosophical we can say why doesn’t he just come out and say it, it is not about the system but where he is at in it.

Ie I don’t think he cares about tanking other than he’s fed up with being on a tanking team but doesn’t want to come out and say it so blames the system.

[sp6r=underrated]

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.

[kodo]

Why do we only complain about tanking in the NBA? The NFL tanking is just as obscene and they don't have a draft lotto so you are even more rewarded for doing so.

Tanking being an issue is so overrated.

Lauri only has Lauri to blame either way. Dude signed with the Bulls because he wanted to be paid. He could have gone anywhere he wanted in free agency.

I've always wondered why people talk the draft it's some NBA specific concept, like the NFL or NHL doesn't have drafts.
And nobody was complaining about the draft when Jordan was drafted by a terrible Chicago team and turned it into one of the biggest driving forces of promoting the NBA globally.

[sp6r=underrated]

Tanking sucks and the promotion/relegation model is far better and far more simple. Win or **** off. It is weird that America is much more capitalistic than Europe but when it comes to sport's team we reward losers and punish winners.

Nah, not really, it is just an uncomfortable necessity to keep the ball rolling on the sport, much like many other parts of life.

The purists world view is admirable but naive. Losers must exist so that winners exist. Constraints on the winners, and advantages for the losers, helps even the playing field to create competition, which is the ultimate goal. Without the other incentive / disincentives in place, the same teams, players and cities would win every year, and the sport would be god awful.

This is a first world complaint, and a dog who has no idea what would happen if he actually ended up catching the car.

Right plus if we are getting philosophical we can say why doesn’t he just come out and say it, it is not about the system but where he is at in it.

Ie I don’t think he cares about tanking other than he’s fed up with being on a tanking team but doesn’t want to come out and say it so blames the system.

This is moronic. His critique is valid: tanking lowers the quality of talent in the NBA. It would be true if he was a non-tanking team.

Americans so deluded in loving tanks relative to promotion/relegation. Win or **** off.

[sp6r=underrated]

Why do we only complain about tanking in the NBA? The NFL tanking is just as obscene and they don't have a draft lotto so you are even more rewarded for doing so.

Tanking being an issue is so overrated.

Lauri only has Lauri to blame either way. Dude signed with the Bulls because he wanted to be paid. He could have gone anywhere he wanted in free agency.

I've always wondered why people talk the draft it's some NBA specific concept, like the NFL or NHL doesn't have drafts.
And nobody was complaining about the draft when Jordan was drafted by a terrible Chicago team and turned it into one of the biggest driving forces of promoting the NBA globally.

Unlike the NFL, basketball is a global game. Lots of NBA fans primarily follow european soccer leagues where tanking doesn't exist.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

The only potential issue is play-in teams might purposefully lose to avoid making the playoffs but I really really doubt any team decides to intentionally miss the playoffs for a 1/14 chance at the top pick.

Flat odds aren't a bad idea. My concern there is that it may incentivize teams near the playin to actually try to avoid those games to get a high pick. If that happened it would be even worse than bad teams becoming terrible teams. I like The Wheel too. Maybe even moreso.

Cut my quote to show my thoughts on this, I don't think any team would actually purposefully lose to avoid the playoffs just to gain a 1/14 chance at the #1 pick. The chance at it paying off is just too low to forego the benefits of making the playoffs.

Tanking is more birds eye view decisions anyways, rest players with minor injuries, avoid making competitive moves, ie stack the deck against them and then let the coach and players try their best anyways. If a team is pushing for the playoffs the players and the coach will still try and win that play-in game to keep their season alive.

It would, at the very worst, be a much smaller impact on the competitiveness of these teams than what we currently see.

[Bolivar]

I don't follow soccer enough to really know of the issues with relegation-promotion, but if you do, how often to relegated teams get re-promoted. How often do promoted teams actually become true contenders? I feel like that could be an issue. Teams just stay in the purgatory of fighting to stay out of relegation but don't have a realistic way to actually be contenders.

Sure there's teams that just go up and down all the time, I think the term is "elevator team" at least in some languages. One example is 1. FC Köln (Cologne/Germany): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1._FC_K%C3%B6ln_records_and_statistics
So if you look at the charts at the top, "1. Bundesliga" is the highest level and the 2-3 worst get relegated to "2. Bundesliga".

Sometimes this kind of teams win the whole thing. Kaiserslautern did it in 1998 in Germany (winning championship right after promotion to 1st league) and Leicester got a comparable championship in English Premier League. It's rare but that makes it more worthy and epic.

[Capn'O]

The only potential issue is play-in teams might purposefully lose to avoid making the playoffs but I really really doubt any team decides to intentionally miss the playoffs for a 1/14 chance at the top pick.

Flat odds aren't a bad idea. My concern there is that it may incentivize teams near the playin to actually try to avoid those games to get a high pick. If that happened it would be even worse than bad teams becoming terrible teams. I like The Wheel too. Maybe even moreso.

Cut my quote to show my thoughts on this, I don't think any team would actually purposefully lose to avoid the playoffs just to gain a 1/14 chance at the #1 pick. The chance at it paying off is just too low to forego the benefits of making the playoffs.

Tanking is more birds eye view decisions anyways, rest players with minor injuries, avoid making competitive moves, ie stack the deck against them and then let the coach and players try their best anyways. If a team is pushing for the playoffs the players and the coach will still try and win that play-in game to keep their season alive.

It would, at the very worst, be a much smaller impact on the competitiveness of these teams than what we currently see.

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. Bad teams that are trying to be better (ahem Blazers) would benefit from flat odds and I think that's good.

I really like The Wheel though. It just adds an element of certainty/planning that would cut the shenanigans entirely.

[ThunderBolt]

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.

[Dominator83]

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.

[sp6r=underrated]

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.

League record will be .500 with no tanking or tanking. It just redistributes talent to teams that aren't trying to win. It goes against the core of athletic competition.

And Lauri was given Hobson choice by the NBA CBA. Take a massive paycut or sign with a team that is wasting his career, he's right to be furious. it is a garbage system.

Read his quote, his critique isn't tanking doesn't improve teams, his critique is teams shouldn't be allowed to improve via losing:

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.

OKC's success is irrelevant to his critique.

[The Master]

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.

[ThunderBolt]

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.

League record will be .500 with no tanking or tanking. It just redistributes talent to teams that aren't trying to win. It goes against the core of athletic competition.

And Lauri was given Hobson choice by the NBA CBA. Take a massive paycut or sign with a team that is wasting his career, he's right to be furious. it is a garbage system.

Read his quote, his critique isn't tanking doesn't improve teams, his critique is teams shouldn't be allowed to improve via losing:

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.

OKC's success is irrelevant to his critique.

I'm not referring to the collective league record but individual teams all hovering around the same individual records.
Good teams are fun for the league. I loved the pre-Durant warriors. I don't have any major issues with how the Celtics and Cavs have built their current teams. Lebron and AD both wanting to play together in warm weather for a mismanaged franchise bothers me much more than the aforementioned teams.


A true superstar can alter a franchise for a decade or more. The players have to go somewhere. If not to the bad teams then where? Should the warriors and cavs have been getting the best picks the years they were on top?

Losing isn't fun and that's true in any sport for a competitor. I understand that Lauri would love to be getting the max amount of money possible while playing in the NBA finals as the lead guy. Just because every aspect in his career might not have gone how he wanted I'm not seeing him as a victim or the system as massively flawed. He didn't have to stay in Utah and probably still could have been able to feed his family.