The argument for Tanking: Why it works, and you just don't remember

[cjbulls]

So we have 3 successful examples (some of which are a bit dubious) and 384 unsuccessful examples.

Actually by "we" you mean the Bulls which only have 1 example and they tanked which got them Michael Jordan.

I haven't followed the Bulls during those times. So can't tell Rod Thorn was tanking to land Hakeem Olajuwon (who was the no. 1 player on his list). But that was pre-lottery, it was the coin flip era if I'm not wrong, I don't know how it works.

A little article from Sam Smith on that season. Bulls filed a protest to overturn a loss the Bulls had to Houston. Odd way of tanking.

https://www.nba.com/bulls/history/flip-coin-helped-bulls-land-jordan

[cjbulls]

Again, as I noted in the OP, I think the majority of the world would consider tanking to be losing purposefully in the short term for a better long term outlook. If you don’t agree with that definition, then that’s fine, but many do.

Your definition is too broad. Almost every team is tanking then.

Teams don't always sacrifice wins in one particular season in favor of long-term winning and waiting for young players to improve. Easiest example, most of the teams not trading for Harden are tanking according to you. Boston, Denver etc. would all be better off with Harden now over MPJ or Brown.

You also have to keep your assets churning. Sometimes that means you take steps back. If you have Lauri who is ready to be an overpaid RFA and you trade him for some good assets before having to pay him, that isn't tanking.

And sometimes value is just too good to pass up. Was NO tanking by trading Jrue Holiday? Or were they smart to cash in on a player when his value was at its peak?

My definition isn’t too broad. If the Bulls are a middling team led by OPJ and Lavine in a month, and trade those two players away for future draft capital, and then suck (because they will), 100% of the sports world will call it tanking.

I said it would be different if they were a .500 team. And that's not going to happen if they are .500.

[League Circles]

Again, as I noted in the OP, I think the majority of the world would consider tanking to be losing purposefully in the short term for a better long term outlook. If you don’t agree with that definition, then that’s fine, but many do.

Your definition is too broad. Almost every team is tanking then.

Teams don't always sacrifice wins in one particular season in favor of long-term winning and waiting for young players to improve. Easiest example, most of the teams not trading for Harden are tanking according to you. Boston, Denver etc. would all be better off with Harden now over MPJ or Brown.

You also have to keep your assets churning. Sometimes that means you take steps back. If you have Lauri who is ready to be an overpaid RFA and you trade him for some good assets before having to pay him, that isn't tanking.

And sometimes value is just too good to pass up. Was NO tanking by trading Jrue Holiday? Or were they smart to cash in on a player when his value was at its peak?

My definition isn’t too broad. If the Bulls are a middling team led by OPJ and Lavine in a month, and trade those two players away for future draft capital, and then suck (because they will), 100% of the sports world will call it tanking.

No, they certainly won't. Porter is expiring and we just drafted a #4 pick who is starting over him, and Lavine, while improving and on the verge of being a real good okayer, has no track record of winning ball and expires in a year. Just because you might get worse in the immediate aftermath of a trade doesn't mean you're doing it for that reason to draft higher. More often as has been said it's just asset management.

[Chicago-Bull-E]

Your definition is too broad. Almost every team is tanking then.

Teams don't always sacrifice wins in one particular season in favor of long-term winning and waiting for young players to improve. Easiest example, most of the teams not trading for Harden are tanking according to you. Boston, Denver etc. would all be better off with Harden now over MPJ or Brown.

You also have to keep your assets churning. Sometimes that means you take steps back. If you have Lauri who is ready to be an overpaid RFA and you trade him for some good assets before having to pay him, that isn't tanking.

And sometimes value is just too good to pass up. Was NO tanking by trading Jrue Holiday? Or were they smart to cash in on a player when his value was at its peak?

My definition isn’t too broad. If the Bulls are a middling team led by OPJ and Lavine in a month, and trade those two players away for future draft capital, and then suck (because they will), 100% of the sports world will call it tanking.

I said it would be different if they were a .500 team. And that's not going to happen if they are .500.

One can certainly hope it does.

[Chicago-Bull-E]

Actually by "we" you mean the Bulls which only have 1 example and they tanked which got them Michael Jordan.

I haven't followed the Bulls during those times. So can't tell Rod Thorn was tanking to land Hakeem Olajuwon (who was the no. 1 player on his list). But that was pre-lottery, it was the coin flip era if I'm not wrong, I don't know how it works.

A little article from Sam Smith on that season. Bulls filed a protest to overturn a loss the Bulls had to Houston. Odd way of tanking.

https://www.nba.com/bulls/history/flip-coin-helped-bulls-land-jordan

A lot of people are citing the Bulls as an example of why not to tank, and I agree with you, they haven’t been tanking. They are another example of teams not tanking that still fail miserably. Heck, they threw a ton of money at vets last year, and it got them nowhere. Because they don’t have that core talent required to make the next step.

[gardenofsound]

High draft picks are lucrative assets. They can be used and developed. They can be used in trade. They are cost controlled.

To me, they are simply more useful and valuable than a 4 and out playoff series with a non-promising core not already in place. There’s nothing promising about our core... yet.

To me, the Bulls are doing what they need to do. Showcase the vets for trade value boosts, while still giving the keys to the young players to see what they can do. Maybe they show us something.

I hope that OPJ, Thad, and Sato can build their value up and allow the Bulls to gather future assets. If the right offers come for LaVine or Lauri they, they evaluate them methodically.

[FriedRise]

Tanking as a strategy in the NBA is dead. Outside of maybe OKC who we all assume is tanking because of all their draft picks (tho 2-3 record so far), I can’t identify any other teams who are trying to lose on purpose.

I think even the tiers are more flattened now. You have the super elite teams where the top players are (Milwaukee, Lakers, Clippers). Then a boatload of solid to good teams which make up the vast majority of the league. And then the young up-and-comers who haven’t proven anything yet which is where the Bulls, Knicks, Hawks, Hornets, Pelicans, Kings, Thunder, etc. are. None of these teams is trying to lose.

[sco]

I will say that there is definitely skill involved in team building and not one path to success. The two keys that seem to be prevalent in building champions:

1) Get a boatload of picks from a team in exchange for a late-prime star who goes to a team that becomes bad where those picks become unexpectedly valuable.

2) Find a superstar after pick 15 in the draft.

I am firmly of the belief that tanking causes long-term losing as bad teams want to play their high picks, but it takes years for those guys to develop into complete enough players to win games.

[bullsnewdynasty]

They probably would have picked the wrong guy anyway. It's not like a Chicago team has never had a top 3 pick with 2 hall of fame caliber players to choose from and whiffing.

[PlayerUp]

They probably would have picked the wrong guy anyway. It's not like a Chicago team has never had a top 3 pick with 2 hall of fame caliber players to choose from and whiffing.

Gar/Pax wasted picks no doubt about it. They were on a role from 2007 to 2011 but beyond that they made so many mistakes. Good picks require good scouting, and good smart people in your front office that can properly evaluate talent and see what they can become with proper player development. Problem is Gar/Pax didn't have proper player development as well. They cut the budget everywhere from coaching to scouts to player development everything with this team was slashed to save $ to maximize the Bulls profits. Keep the staff budget as low as possible.

I know alot of other front offices get alot of criticism but Gar/Pax were the worst. Every aspect of how they were running this team was so poorly done. It's one thing for small franchises to do this but big franchises spend to compete. Of course the Reinsdorfs ultimately allowed this to happen and refused to change the front office for 17 years. Lets hope the Reinsdorfs learned from this and don't make us wait when AKME run their course which will eventually happen.

[The Box Office]

Tanking does NOT work. Losing, on purpose, to get high draft picks. That doesn't work nowadays with the new odds. Never speak of this again.

[fleet]

Who knows what works what doesn’t work. But I firmly believe the Bulls need a top talent out of this next draft for a chance to win anything in the future. They won’t be able to do a player trade for the talent, nor sign a free agent for the talent. No need to overthink it.

[Leslie Forman]

Since the Bulls last title there have been 9 different teams to win the title. Only 1 (San Antonio), did so driven by a top 3 pick they they drafted and stayed on the team. Most teams win titles with superstars picked in the middle of the draft or was acquired through free agency or trade.

Just as a reminder, Duncan was selected in 1996. Basically, it has been 25 years since a team got a top 3 pick and won a title with him. The Bulls and Houston got their guy in 1984 so you can probably move the goalposts back further and say "since 1984, only 3 teams used a top 3 pick to win a title."

The way many recent title teams were built are kind of an anomaly compared to everything that happened before then, though. And I'm not sure why the Cavs don't count. Even if you don't want to count LeBron, they obviously don't have a chance without Kyrie.

Before that, you had a whole crapton of titles thanks to:
MJ
Hakeem
Isiah
McHale
Magic/Worthy
Unseld
Walton
Barry
Kareem
West
Russell/Cousy

And besides the Spurs, were it not for a cheap bastard of an owner, Oklahoma (or Seattle if they did not have said cheap bastard owner) might also have something like five titles right now. Tanking worked out incredibly well for them at getting the actual talent to form a dynasty type of team.

I mean, if you want to just look at recent title winner building strategies, the solution is to go and sign your LeBron James or Kevin Durant. I don't think that's a bankable strategy for anybody except a very few franchises.

[RedBulls23]

Tanking made more sense under the old odds. Seeing the lottery order play out the last 2 years makes it less appealing to really bottom out your roster.

The comps in the op are apples and oranges to the current situation.

[ThreeMileAllan]

National mentality had been going to championship or bust mentality over the past ten years. But locally the Cubs winning in 2016 has infected Chicago with a tank mentality across all the sports.

I hate it. We don't have Theo running our team.

If I could go back and undo the Butler trade I would happily do so.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[logical_art]

There's no formula for building a winning organization. But one way to increase the probability of winning is to get a great player. Great players are usually drafted high in drafts. Great players aren't available in every draft. So there's a lot uncertainty, but the fact remains that having higher draft picks give you a better chance at landing a great player and having great players give you a better chance of having a great team. I don't think this is disputable.

[Axolotl]

Sports is supposed to be about winning, not losing on purpose to maybe, but likely not, win in the future.

The draft system is essentially anti-sports - you lose to maybe win this shadow game where you get a lottery ticket with a higher chance to win if you suck badly at the actual game.

Relegation system just would make so much more sense sportswise - but I guess not business- and entertainmentwise. Although it baffles me that there are incentives in place to put out a bad product.

[troza]

Relegation system just would make so much more sense sportswise - but I guess not business- and entertainmentwise. Although it baffles me that there are incentives in place to put out a bad product.

It is all about hope and giving the fans a reason to watch bad teams. A team with no assets and with every player wanting to go for the Lakers... I don't know how it works on football (soccer)... maybe because the tradition from those teams is too old, or just the champion's league format works but I find the american sports model way more interesting for the bad teams than in a system with relegation and so on.



On the other hand, is this really a thing? Tank working vs tank not working? I would say that you need cards to play in the NBA and it is all about how you play them. And tanking or high draft picks is one of the cards you have to play and a valuable one.

Even if it doesn't give you a all time great, multiple teams got into good trades and got the talent they needed through draft picks.

I admit that tanking as a long term strategy or just tanking for a long period of time is usually not the best strategy and the problem for us has been that. Tanking should be used as a moment in time. GSW did that last year... in a season they would get nothing, they got assets. Let's see if they play the cards well now.

And if we look at the top teams, they all used their draft picks well (even if it was just on trades) to reach the point where they are (maybe not the Nets, but the Lakers, Clippers, Bucks, Celtics, Mavs...)

[fleet]

There's no formula for building a winning organization. But one way to increase the probability of winning is to get a great player. Great players are usually drafted high in drafts. Great players aren't available in every draft. So there's a lot uncertainty, but the fact remains that having higher draft picks give you a better chance at landing a great player and having great players give you a better chance of having a great team. I don't think this is disputable.

When people go, this doesn’t work, that doesn’t work, they are right. Nothing works. Nothing but somehow landing that big stud. Maybe he walks to the team like Shaq or Kareem to LA. Maybe you draft him. But to say tanking doesn’t work is kind of misleading. What will not work in Chicago in all likelihood is waiting for the big stud to walk on over. Especially with the new max contract system. Maybe you can trade for a Jimmy Butler to come close. That’s as unlikely to happen as anything, probably moreso. The worst plan is to try and convince a rival GM to give you a title winner in a trade. The Bulls are gonna have to draft somebody. I don’t think it matters if we tank into that guy or not. It’s going to be harder with the new odds.

[fleet]

Tanking made more sense under the old odds. Seeing the lottery order play out the last 2 years makes it less appealing to really bottom out your roster.

The comps in the op are apples and oranges to the current situation.

You didn’t say anything untruthful. If Dallas wins a title some day with high lotto Luka, that would classify as a successful draft, and drafting the stud is the way most teams have success. Especially if you are not a California franchise. I can guess with confidence that what won’t work for Chicago to win a title or multiple titles will be getting back onto the lower playoffs seed ride. This city will have to draft the talent with a lottery pick most likely. Being a playoffs opponent is good for ticket sales, but not much else in terms of making history. But for a lot of people that’s ok. And for teams, that is all they will do at best for their existing days. Like I said earlier, nothing works if you didn’t luck into the studs. That includes any team building tactic you would like to name, not just tanking. Some folks hate tanking, so they like to single it out. Because its not very fun to watch.