Jazz's Markkanen: Tanking is a failed concept

[sp6r=underrated]

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

He is focusing on playing in the playoffs by opposing his team's tank.

[LarsV8]

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 aren't there in a myriad of things in this world/life. Thanks.

Sure, everyone can have opinions, even incredibly hypocritical ones.

Tanking exists because every team, every person, every GM is acting in the way that most benefits themselves.

Lauri is vocal about people losing their way and sports not being about winning.

When Lauri was sitting around last offseason, was he thinking, boy, how can I help a team win as many games as possible next season? Nope. He got his money from a team that was actively trying NOT to win. So in short, he can STFU, until he practices what he preaches.

And in the Macro sense, I see zero issues with tanking. Tanking offers something that every team must have for the sport to continue, which is HOPE. I hope the pain from all this losing has a big reward at the end.

I spent the last four years actively following the Rockets, despite being in the toilet, because I could see the vision, I was afforded HOPE. I was actively upset when we won games we shouldn't have, I was IN on the process. I was heavy into the draft process, prospects, trades that hurt short term, but benefited long term. I was ENGAGED as a fan, because my team took the right approach to a rebuild. And now, four years later, we have built something incredible, something built for short and long term success.

Tanking, and the lottery system, is a good thing.

[firedavidkahn]

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

Hard to be in the play offs when your team is tanking

[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 aren't there in a myriad of things in this world/life. Thanks.

Sure, everyone can have opinions, even incredibly hypocritical ones.

Tanking exists because every team, every person, every GM is acting in the way that most benefits themselves.

Lauri is vocal about people losing their way and sports not being about winning.

When Lauri was sitting around last offseason, was he thinking, boy, how can I help a team win as many games as possible next season? Nope. He got his money from a team that was actively trying NOT to win. So in short, he can STFU, until he practices what he preaches.

And in the Macro sense, I see zero issues with tanking. Tanking offers something that every team must have for the sport to continue, which is HOPE. I hope the pain from all this losing has a big reward at the end.

I spent the last four years actively following the Rockets, despite being in the toilet, because I could see the vision, I was afforded HOPE. I was actively upset when we won games we shouldn't have, I was IN on the process. I was heavy into the draft process, prospects, trades that hurt short term, but benefited long term. I was ENGAGED as a fan, because my team took the right approach to a rebuild. And now, four years later, we have built something incredible, something built for short and long term success.

Tanking, and the lottery system, is a good thing.

His opinion is not hypocritical. His belief/opinion about the system and his effort/work involved within the system he is in, are separated, they are not associated. Your premises about him are based on personal assumption. Thanks.

[LarsV8]

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.

[Slacktard]

Tanking is because the NBA is a broken salary system. You have a handful of cities/franchises players want to go to and the rest have no ability to entice a star because of max contracts.

No max salaries. Let the free market determine the max salary.

No more multiple bird exceptions. Teams get ONE Bird exception and only applicable to a player who only has played for that team their entire career.

[Worm Guts]

Tanking is because there is a draft. But the draft is almost as fun as the season, and it’s not going anywhere.

[Bolivar]

It was obvious to everyone when he signed the 2024 contract that this team will continue to suck hard. Maybe it was partly unclear how much actual tanking there would be involved, but he chose money over competitive basketball. Could have taken a bit less and signed in some actual basketball team, there's quite many of those.

[sp6r=underrated]

Markkanen comes from Europe where tanking,as in we're gonna intentionally suck for a whole season,simply doesn't exist.This is a player in his prime who wasted a whole year away,of course he's not gonna be happy.Tbh as a european myself, seeing fans of NBA teams actually wanting their teams to lose and getting angry when they win is one of my least favorite ascpects of the league.

It is the worst part of American sports culture. We're obsessed with sending the best young players to terrible teams in the pursuit of parity that we create tons of unwatachable teams every year.

[sp6r=underrated]

It was obvious to everyone when he signed the 2024 contract that this team will continue to suck hard. Maybe it was partly unclear how much actual tanking there would be involved, but he chose money over competitive basketball. Could have taken a bit less and signed in some actual basketball team, there's quite many of those.

That's a hobson's choice. He has to accept a massive paycut or support a tank. Hobson's choices aren't real choices so I'm fine with him bashing the **** out of Utah.

[sp6r=underrated]

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 aren't there in a myriad of things in this world/life. Thanks.

Sure, everyone can have opinions, even incredibly hypocritical ones.

Tanking exists because every team, every person, every GM is acting in the way that most benefits themselves.

Lauri is vocal about people losing their way and sports not being about winning.

When Lauri was sitting around last offseason, was he thinking, boy, how can I help a team win as many games as possible next season? Nope. He got his money from a team that was actively trying NOT to win. So in short, he can STFU, until he practices what he preaches.

And in the Macro sense, I see zero issues with tanking. Tanking offers something that every team must have for the sport to continue, which is HOPE. I hope the pain from all this losing has a big reward at the end.

I spent the last four years actively following the Rockets, despite being in the toilet, because I could see the vision, I was afforded HOPE. I was actively upset when we won games we shouldn't have, I was IN on the process. I was heavy into the draft process, prospects, trades that hurt short term, but benefited long term. I was ENGAGED as a fan, because my team took the right approach to a rebuild. And now, four years later, we have built something incredible, something built for short and long term success.

Tanking, and the lottery system, is a good thing.

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.

[LarsV8]

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.

[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.

Europe has promotion/relegation is exists and it is better. The NCAA doesn't have a draft and people love NCAA sports. The loser culture of American sports league blows and is not the norm around the world.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

Flat lottery odds is the best cure for tanking. There will be zero point to tank then, either you make the playoffs or you get the same chance as anyone else.

I don't get this idea we need to coddle bad teams with extra rewards. There are lots of ways to improve without getting a top draft pick. Mid lotto picks go on to be great players all the time, free agency and trades are available. Do your own work instead of relying on a handout.

Over time this will bring the bottom of the league up, which will also improve the situation for top young stars to join teams that aren't gutted and 3 years away from making noise. When there is no reward for being last teams will actually fight to avoid last place. It is a simple fix that eliminates the problem. 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.

I see it on the Blazer board, fans are upset at players playing well and competitive late season games. It's so sad the league sets up a situation where fans are mad at their team for doing well. It makes no sense and just hurts their product for no real reason. Tanking doesn't help bad teams get good, it just causes teams to choose to be bad.

[The Master]

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.

Yeah. And also - in (European) football, even when you are a mid- or low-level team, there's additional incentive - you can sell players on the market. So, you're let's say Brighton club (Premier League), and there's a chance you'll never win a championship, but AT LEAST you can farm and then sell talented young players to top clubs for millions of dollars. That's why the whole system of rich top clubs and the rest can function: top clubs have crazy net negative transfer spendings, but the rest obviously has positive one.

People went crazy because Mavs traded Luka to Lakers for AD and Christie, so just imagine Steve Ballmer buying Luka Doncic on the market for nothing. That's literally European football, where teams are paid for getting weak(er). So it's not only the NBA and American sport in general where losing is beneficial, just on different level.

[Capn'O]

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.

I hate hate hate when teams sit healthy players for tanking position when the games still mean something. Wouldn't mind seeing more aggressive pursuit of this policy.

[Capn'O]

There will always be some bad teams but the incentive to be very bad if you're not very good is still too high. As evidenced by teams sitting healthy star players early in the season. That's a bad outcome for the fans, who come to watch good players.

Flat lottery odds is the best cure for tanking. There will be zero point to tank then, either you make the playoffs or you get the same chance as anyone else.

I don't get this idea we need to coddle bad teams with extra rewards. There are lots of ways to improve without getting a top draft pick. Mid lotto picks go on to be great players all the time, free agency and trades are available. Do your own work instead of relying on a handout.

Over time this will bring the bottom of the league up, which will also improve the situation for top young stars to join teams that aren't gutted and 3 years away from making noise. When there is no reward for being last teams will actually fight to avoid last place. It is a simple fix that eliminates the problem. 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.

I see it on the Blazer board, fans are upset at players playing well and competitive late season games. It's so sad the league sets up a situation where fans are mad at their team for doing well. It makes no sense and just hurts their product for no real reason. Tanking doesn't help bad teams get good, it just causes teams to choose to be bad.

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.

[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

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.

True, but let's take it further and go with the MLS system, where winning is penalized just in the name of parity!

Sorry, I don't view any league that rewards losing as one that's competitive. That's as idiotic as giving every child a trophy just because they decide to play.

And also true that it's only in America, as the Serie A in Brazil is among the most competitive on the planet.

[Ducklett]

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.

[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.

the only thing that real stop tanking is a relegation system.
you might remove the incentives to lose, but still there would be no incentive to win. both n terms of team building and to avoid injuries in the second part of the season.

There is no incentive to lose if the draft is gone. Plus it allow rookies to sign where they want to play which means less player dissatisfaction and less player movement.