RunDogGun wrote:SSOL wrote:RunDogGun wrote:We go through this every year with fans. "Tanking" has negative connotations with an intent to lose. From what I've seen in this league, it's very rare to see a player do it, and even rarer to see a coach do it. As for players who have dogged it, or purposely didn't play their best, it wasn't so the team could get a better draft position.
We have injuries to key players, and should be in player evaluation mode, where we are playing guys that normally would be deeper bench guys.
What I would be extremely pissed about, would be the league looking into our losses, and determining that we were being dishonest, and strip us of our draft picks. I really wish fans would just stfu about "tanking". If a fan enjoys us losing, then be happy, for we are. Many will say, well Philly has been doing it, why would the league look into us? Same reason they decided that Duncan walking six feet onto the court after Jones undercut Elson, was not a suspendable act, but Diaw and Amare moving towards Nash, was escalating one.
It is perfectly within the rules to lose. Players do not lose on purpose but there is a reason the rotations are what they are and there is a reason they change game to game. If you think for a second that the front office is rooting for wins at this stage, you are foolish. Further, the league would not "strip a team of picks." Nothing will change until the Board of Govenors approves an evening of odds between 1-4.
It's not in the rules to lose on purpose. Whether the FO is rooting for us not to win is irrelevant. It would be dishonest if they were telling players or coaches to lose on purpose. Any evidence to that, would cause the league to make an example, and we all know that with our "luck", we'd be the team they make an example of. Our rotations are what they are, and often we are giving big minutes to both super young and our older players. Their inconsistency (which they have had all season) and injuries, causes these rotations, not any desire to lose on purpose.
The league is not out to get us. This repeated nonsense about "our luck" or stripping draft picks isn't going to happen. No one is going to prove anything even if it did happen, which I highly doubt it did, particularly in our case.
It might behoove us to go young and give a guy like Archie more minutes and start over Price if developing young guys is the priority at this point anyway, and that likely gives us a better chance to lose anyway.