ESPN On Tanking, Using GSW As A Case Study

[Inigo Montoya]

The article's description at ESPN's NBA page:

The Trouble With Tanking

Tanking to land Harrison Barnes marked a new low. Ethan Sherwood Strauss has a big idea on how to end it all.

The full article:

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/58437/protected-picks-encourage-tanking

[floppymoose]

viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1250629

[Inigo Montoya]

read the article first please.

[floppymoose]

I did. I can't take it very seriously. He says that trading Ellis for Bogut was to screw the Jazz. That's just laughable. Warriors make that trade regardless of the pick situation.

Meanwhile the irony of a "Tank for Wiggins" thread remains.

[Inigo Montoya]

i don't think the GSW traded ellis for for bogut just to screw the jazz. he is a very good player when healthy and i'm sure the warriors liked what he could bring to the table when healthy, but i do think his health status at that point served their purpose to lose games rather than try to win.

either way, we had a discussion specifically about the warriors tanking in a separate thread, so i'm not going to rehash it here again. i brought up this article since i think it is well written and expresses a lot of what many fans feel, in this forum and overall, not just regarding the GSW but about tanking as a whole. but it does criticize a very specific way in which the GSW chose to tank, which is not at all suggested in the "tank for wiggins" thread that you find so ironic, and it also criticizes the decision to tank for a 7th pick just to get a starter, not a potentially franchise changing player who is regarded as the best prospect since LBJ.

[king everything]

I did. I can't take it very seriously. He says that trading Ellis for Bogut was to screw the Jazz. That's just laughable. Warriors make that trade regardless of the pick situation.

Meanwhile the irony of a "Tank for Wiggins" thread remains.

Read that thread too.

NOWHERE in my thread was sitting players out, trading for injured players or any other deliberate tanking suggested. All I said was play the young guys, don't sign anyone that hinders them and see where they take us. If they sitink, we get a crack at a star. If they take us to the promised land, well then we don't need one.

[StocktonShorts]

Nothing new in that article. It concludes with what I thought we had all agreed on: protecting picks can lead to tanking.

[mct]

That the draft order is tied to record provides incentive for bad basketball. Some of these bottom feeders are capable of playing decent basketball, but they can't afford to and still have the hope of one day riding a superstar to the finals.

I do love the draft, but the NBA needs to fix it (pardon the pun). Here are some options:

1) Give even lotto odds to every team in the NBA. While it would suck to watch the Heat land the #1 pick, it sucks even worse watching the Heat beat up on bad teams 1/3 of the time. At least it would prevent teams from actively avoiding decency. (Mediocrity wouldn't be so bad anymore.)

2) No lottery. Teams just rotate. Every thirty years your team gets the #1 pick! Okay, so this could be a disaster. Teams would go through really dry spells followed by a set of years where they get picks 1-5 to build a contender. Kinda stupid, but it leads me to the idea I like best.

3) Assign each division to a slot in the draft order and rotate each year. One division gets picks 1-5, the next division gets picks 6-10, and so on. Then, within each division, teams have even odds of drafting first or fifth. Every six years your team has a chance at the #1 pick, and, even if you lose, pick 5 isn't so bad.

Right now it's pathetic that there is actually a valid reason for organizations not to put the best team possible on the floor each season. Any of these ideas would end the embarrassment, but I highly doubt the owners will ever do anything about it. The current system gives them an out after a bad season. They can say, "Hey, at least we're getting a superstar prospect out of it!"

And at worst they can tap their nose and wink and imply to their fans that all this losing is actually part of some master plan to win big. By losing we're actually winning! At least we're not stuck in mediocrity like Bucks! We're better than that godawful franchise because we're better at losing than them!

If we really want more parity in the league, more honest competition, we really need to stop buying such lies.

[QuantumMacgyver]

Hahahaha Floppy Moose is hilarious. Like a kid with cookie crumbs on his face... "what... I didn't eat the cookies. They must've fallen into my mouth." "We didn't TRY to lose games, we were just legitimately the worst team in the league after the deadline."

[StocktonShorts]

Hahahaha Floppy Moose is hilarious. Like a kid with cookie crumbs on his face... "what... I didn't eat the cookies. They must've fallen into my mouth." "We didn't TRY to lose games, we were just legitimately the worst team in the league after the deadline."

[erudite23]

As long as elite players can have as much of an impact on the game as they currently do, there will be nothing anyone can do about this problem. Any attempt to 'fix' it will just produce even worse consequences. When the lottery was started, it wasn't weighted as much towards the worst teams. Then Orlando won Shaq and Webber (whom they traded for Penny and 3 1sts) in consecutive seasons, despite barely missing the playoffs the second year. That launched a mini dynasty all by itself.

No, the way we're doing it right now is the best way. Its a result of one of the main problems with basketball as a sport. The best few guys are way too important to the league and the teams they occupy. If we're going to fix it, we'd have to get really radical, and any attempt to even it out will result in the gap between the haves and have nots really growing. For some teams, their only shot at getting out of the basement is to get a franchise savior.

[floppymoose]

I did. I can't take it very seriously. He says that trading Ellis for Bogut was to screw the Jazz. That's just laughable. Warriors make that trade regardless of the pick situation.

Meanwhile the irony of a "Tank for Wiggins" thread remains.

Read that thread too.

NOWHERE in my thread was sitting players out, trading for injured players or any other deliberate tanking suggested.

GS sat one player out the last two games. It was the craptastic Richard Jefferson.

Trading for an injured player is not applicable. GS would have made that trade regardless of any pick considerations. And they could not have got Bogut for Ellis if Bogut hadn't been injured.

Deliberate tanking is in the eye of the beholder. If that other thread isn't about deliberate tanking, than neither was GS's season.

Anyway, good luck in the draft. You've got two 1st round picks so that's two chances at a real steal.

[king everything]

I guess the perception of the league, the fans and espn are just totally off base. Our collective bad.

[russnumber3]

As long as elite players can have as much of an impact on the game as they currently do, there will be nothing anyone can do about this problem. Any attempt to 'fix' it will just produce even worse consequences. When the lottery was started, it wasn't weighted as much towards the worst teams. Then Orlando won Shaq and Webber (whom they traded for Penny and 3 1sts) in consecutive seasons, despite barely missing the playoffs the second year. That launched a mini dynasty all by itself.

No, the way we're doing it right now is the best way. Its a result of one of the main problems with basketball as a sport. The best few guys are way too important to the league and the teams they occupy. If we're going to fix it, we'd have to get really radical, and any attempt to even it out will result in the gap between the haves and have nots really growing. For some teams, their only shot at getting out of the basement is to get a franchise savior.

I think it is fixable, but I also think the league is already on the right track. It just needs to be taken a little further. Allow me to explain: currently any team that decides to tank, takes a pretty substantial risk that they won't even improve their draft position. I think we need to make it even less of a "sure thing" that sucking horribly will land you a top 3 pick. There's incentive for teams to win games to maintain fan support. (as well as other reasons) The league just needs to ensure that these incentive outweigh the incentive to tank - which I think they are close to doing.

[QuantumMacgyver]

I did. I can't take it very seriously. He says that trading Ellis for Bogut was to screw the Jazz. That's just laughable. Warriors make that trade regardless of the pick situation.

Meanwhile the irony of a "Tank for Wiggins" thread remains.

Read that thread too.

NOWHERE in my thread was sitting players out, trading for injured players or any other deliberate tanking suggested.

GS sat one player out the last two games. It was the craptastic Richard Jefferson.

Trading for an injured player is not applicable. GS would have made that trade regardless of any pick considerations. And they could not have got Bogut for Ellis if Bogut hadn't been injured.

Deliberate tanking is in the eye of the beholder. If that other thread isn't about deliberate tanking, than neither was GS's season.

Anyway, good luck in the draft. You've got two 1st round picks so that's two chances at a real steal.

I'm not saying that the other post isn't about tanking. I am just saying that we should call a spade a spade. Everyone knows that the Dubs tanked. I am not a fan of it and would be bummed if the Jazz did the same. However, I am not saying that the Dubs were wrong in doing so. They are definitely a better team with Barnes than without. But lets all be real here... the Dubs tanked. I know it, you know, everyone knows it. Whether it was wrong is another argument, but no one can make a legitimate case to say that the Dubs did not tank last year to retain their pick. So, just admit that they tanked and are better this year for it.

The problem with you denying their tanking is that you actually make some solid points, but they are hard to take seriously when the solid points are preceded by, or followed with, the words "Warriors", "Tanking" and "Did not".


The problem I see with tanking is that when you teach players to lose and be ok with it, then it is awfully difficult to teach them the value of winning. Case in point would be the huge leads that the Dubs blew against the Spurs. That is going to be a difficult stain to wash out of the players mental fabric.

[floppymoose]

But lets all be real here... the Dubs tanked. I know it, you know, everyone knows it.

The last two games you can argue they tanked, by actually sitting a healthy RJeff. Before that, it was a crapstorm of injuries. The injuries were real. For most of them, I saw them happen. For others, players had surgeries on the injuries in the offseason.

Mark Jackson sat a healthy RJeff the last two games of the season to reward Chris Singleton, who had patiently sat on the bench all year.

There wasn't any real choice in the matter. People "know" they tanked because their record went horrendously south and that led to them keeping their pick. If the pick had been unprotected GS would have had the same players out there. It wouldn't have changed anything, other than perhaps Jackson calling a timeout near the end of the final game.

3rd to last game of the season, with every loss critical if GS was to keep the pick:

"Jenkins had 24 points and nine assists to rally the Warriors from a 21-point deficit to beat the Timberwolves, 93-88, on Sunday night. [...] The performance may have hurt the Warriors (23-41) in the long run. Utah holds their pick this year as part of a previous trade, and the only way the Warriors keep it is if they finish in the bottom seven of the league after the draft lottery. Golden State is in eighth with two games to play."

There is no difference between the GS "tank" and the tank proposed in the other thread.

[babyjax13]

Apparently it was the right decision. I don't see why people get so worked up about it. I'd be ecstatic if we just traded away all of our veterans for picks, etc. Even if it was for a package like GSW got with an injured Bogut. They were shrewd last year and made the right choices. I'd do the same thing were I not in a position to make the playoffs, make trades that hurt your record now but improve it down the road and shut down anyone struggling through injuries until they are COMPLETELY healed, not just 'game ready.'

[Inigo Montoya]

Mark Jackson sat a healthy RJeff the last two games of the season to reward Chris Singleton, who had patiently sat on the bench all year.

Did you mean Chris Wright? Chris Singleton plays for Washington...

[QuantumMacgyver]

Mark Jackson sat a healthy RJeff the last two games of the season to reward Chris Singleton, who had patiently sat on the bench all year.

Did you mean Chris Wright? Chris Singleton plays for Washington...

Mark Jackson sitting healthy players to reward another teams patient bench.... I'll buy it. Makes about as much sense as anything else Floppy Moose said.

[Inigo Montoya]

Mark Jackson sitting healthy players to reward another teams patient bench.... I'll buy it. Makes about as much sense as anything else Floppy Moose said.