When does rooting for your team to lose not become fun anymore?

[MrGoat]

It's never fun to root for your team to lose.

The best that you can do is just accept the fact that sometimes losing is what's best for business.

But it's NEVER EVER fun to lose.

I've seen fans on here get PISSED OFF because their team WON a game!

Been there. We started 2017-18 with a stranglehold on the worst record in the league which would have guaranteed a top 4 pick, at that point you want nothing but Ls unless you can afford to win and still have the worst record. But we won too many and finished tied for third worst record, lost the tiebreaker with Atlanta and ended up with the #5 pick and had to give a lottery pick to Atlanta to trade up for our guy.

Funny thing is that's when Cuban got the fine for publicly stating we were tanking yet we couldn't even tank properly

[Baddy Chuck]

It's never fun to root for your team to lose.

The best that you can do is just accept the fact that sometimes losing is what's best for business.

But it's NEVER EVER fun to lose.

I've seen fans on here get PISSED OFF because their team WON a game!

Spoken like someone who has never lived through the thrill of Spencer Hawes nailing a fadeaway corner three to send a game to overtime and set the tone for a historically bad season to come.

Watch on YouTube

We may have drafted Jabari Parker and Philly may have gotten an all-timer, but we'll never forget that glorious night!

[theforumblue]

when it's tanking season i might watch some games in the beginning but don't bother from about halfway point of the season.

[Perishable517]

It's never fun.

Never.

[QingJames]

It becomes not fun when your front office reveals themselves to be incompetent and employing bad scouts. If your team has a good drafting track record, I think it’s probably fine to root for a tank season or two. If your team is like the Kings or Philly on draft night, I don’t know how you could possibly root for more losses.

[Dominator83]

Doesnt become fun when you waste a whole season away only to draft Frank Nittlekina and Kevin Knox

Wasting 2 years for Wendell Carter and Coby White wasn't much better

[Dominator83]

It's never fun to root for your team to lose.

The best that you can do is just accept the fact that sometimes losing is what's best for business.

But it's NEVER EVER fun to lose.

I've seen fans on here get PISSED OFF because their team WON a game!

Been there. We started 2017-18 with a stranglehold on the worst record in the league which would have guaranteed a top 4 pick, at that point you want nothing but Ls unless you can afford to win and still have the worst record. But we won too many and finished tied for third worst record, lost the tiebreaker with Atlanta and ended up with the #5 pick and had to give a lottery pick to Atlanta to trade up for our guy.

Funny thing is that's when Cuban got the fine for publicly stating we were tanking yet we couldn't even tank properly

You guys were pretty creative though. Used reverse analytics to play your WORST 5 man unit in 4th quarters. Also, I remember a game i was at that season (Bulls vs Mavs) and you guys got T-d up for having too FEW men on the court!! Didn't even know that was such a thing until that night!

[Galloisdaman]

I do not like a bunch of mercenaries or ring chasers. I'm fine with some free agents and trades but at some point nowadays it gets silly.

[The Real Dalic]

I've only ever rooted for my team (Magic) to lose for one year. That was this season that just passed. We were dealing with season-ending injuries and an aging core.

This draft was also incredibly deep on paper. Especially at the very top of the draft. So I definitely wanted to try to get into that top 4 this season.

There was no reason to win this season at all. Maybe if Kelle and Isaac were healthy just to see them play more meaningful minutes in the playoffs. But once Markelle went down there was no longer any point trying to compete.

From here on out. I will not be cheering for the Magic to lose though. I'll be cheering for wins, while accepting losses.

The Magic are very likely to finish 13th-15th in the East this season. So I won't be expecting many wins, and that's fine. But I'll definitely be cheering them on and hoping for success this season.

This season for them will be all about player development anyway, so it'll be much easier to swallow the losses.

[JonFromVA]

I don't root for my team to lose, but I'm also fine with them playing to the level of their young talent.

We used to have this archaic term we called rebuilding ...

[Effigy]

It's never fun to root for your team to lose.

The best that you can do is just accept the fact that sometimes losing is what's best for business.

But it's NEVER EVER fun to lose.

I disagree. When my team is bad and I want them to lose, I find the games much more enjoyable. I can watch the young players just develop instead of the pressure of expectations. I had WAY more fun watching the rookie year of Roy and Aldridge than I do now watching Portland, for instance.

[cupcakesnake]

I think it's no fun when you aren't excited about many of the young players, and/or you don't enjoy the playstyle. I honestly haven't enjoyed watching the Wolves much because they don't play defense, and a lot of our young guys just clearly weren't building blocks (Culver, Bates-Diop, even Tyus Jones and Okogie god love him). Building around Wiggins and Lavine for a couple years sucked, just because we were so low-iq on the perimeter. The Thibs years were brutal, and a big part of that was watching Jeff Teague.

I can get excited about a rebuild when the team's future is exciting, or the style of play is nice to watch. Sometimes even just having a low-key crunch time hero is enough to keep me going, because there will be exciting games even if we lose.

[tidho]

When it stops making sense to lose.

CLE has been horrible, has added some nice young talent but still doesn't seem to have 'the guy' on their roster. So while it will be nice to see them winning a little bit more frequently this year it still makes far more sense to hope they continue to lose enough to have a shot at a difference maker in the next draft.

[madmaxmedia]

It's never fun, it's only ever purely 'business'. When one of my teams is so bad all there literally is left is to root for them to lose for draft position, I'm not generally watching games live or on TV. But usually there's at least a couple of young guys that you might enjoy watching develop, so you're watching for that and not just to actively root for your team to lose.

I don't get mad about the occasional wins in a tank season, at least in the NBA since there's a lottery. If you know your team is a 25 win team, it's going to be 25 give or take maybe 3 games. OTOH it's brutal in the NFL, if there's a consensus #1 QB on the draft board and you're hoping to land him.

[chicago paxsons]

For me, arbitrarily i admit, i say three years. A team should tank as hard as they can for three years by stockpiling picks and young assets and taking on shorter term bad contracts to get more picks and assets. On top of that, they should bolster their scouting department to get as many eyes on young prospects as possible.

I say three years because after that it starts to feel like the long term plan is tanking until a team lucks into a superstar, which almost never happens for most teams. After three years it starts to feel like constant losing and not trying to be competitive is just the culture of the team instead of the "plan". Eventually the league as a whole becomes aware of the new culture, which makes getting players on value contracts even harder when you do decide to be competitive.

The only players that will to come to your team do because you're massively overpaying them compared to their talent level, not because they think they can win with your team. Then, when you overpay players, it makes it harder to add other good players and depth because you overpaid on one or two guys and you stay bad because having one or two good players rarely makes a good team.