You Can Tank Us Later
To tank? Or not to tank? That is the question.
It is about half way through the NBA season, and there are a bunch of teams who are seemingly pondering that question every time they take the floor.
By teams, it should be noted that I am not saying that the players who are playing are trying to lose games. I don’t think they are. They only get paid as professionals and their jobs ride on whether or not they are perceived as being good enough to be an NBA player. They, in a sense, are always playing hard for “their next job.” But, that doesn’t mean the “process of tanking,” or of management and coaching “allowing” their teams to lose the right amount of games to ensure such things as high draft picks, isn’t taking place in some form or another.
Because at this point of the season, there are teams who are IN the race for the playoffs, others who are still fighting to be in the race to be in the playoffs, and the teams who are OUT of it already.
The glamorous teams are the league’s elite teams, the ones who are always on TV, the ones who will be the playoff teams, the real contenders, of which we know that one of them WILL be the eventual champion of the NBA. The Warriors, Clippers, Spurs, Trailblazers, Grizzlies, Rockets, Mavericks and Phoenix of the West. As well as the Bulls, Raptors, Hawks, Wizards, Cavs and Bucks of the East. With variations of the other teams (Miami, Denver, Oklahoma City, to name a few) still just a few games behind these leaders in each conference still battling to make those playoffs.
This article ain’t about them.
It’s about the OTHER teams, the ones who are already, if not officially, then at least “unofficially,” playing games pretty much knowing that they have been eliminated from playoff contention. (Knicks, T-Wolves, Sixers, etc.) They have to show up at the arena every night and they have to play their games, but, (although their bodies are still out there playing) they do it in a way where the people watching the games know that their hearts really aren’t actually in it.
Management of teams in this El Stinko category LIKE the fact that their teams are doing lousy, because the nature of the NBA draft is that the truly elite, franchise-making players, are often found in the first five or six picks. Some years there are more than six, some years less than two or three, but those players that can really make a quick and powerful impact on a team are usually well known by all of the GM’s, and picked amongst the earliest (thus the term “lottery pick”). There have been MANY cases where a team has turned around and gotten really good by its acquisition of a great lottery pick star player or two (see teams from above such as Toronto, Washington, Portland, Golden State, etc.).
By the way, that same management that LIKES it when their team is losing these games and earning that high draft pick are NOT necessarily thinking that the players accomplishing that task are good company men who are doing their duty by tanking games and losing. No, they think that these players are accomplishing this task of losing because they just flat out stink (yeah, there are also injuries factoring in, but, you know what I’m saying). Management doesn’t want people to think it was bad management causing the problem. They want people to know that it was bad players. So, those players who are “doing good” by playing lousy and causing the losing are also likely to be “doing their whatever” somewhere else the next season.
One such team in this very unique category is the L.A. Lakers. They have a situation where they retain their number one draft pick if they finish with the fifth worst record (or worse) in the league. But they have to give it to the Phoenix Suns if the record is sixth worse or better (thanks to an ill-advised, “conditional” trade for now injury prone and washed up, although formerly great, point guard Steve Nash). Currently, they have the fourth worst record, with several teams only a game or two ahead of them. The team is truly “rewarded” the lousier they play, and penalized the better they play. Do those L.A. fans have a dilemma, or what?
They are left to wonder, “should I root for us to win games” and feel good for the short term, but have the results be lousy for the health of our team in the long term?” Or, do they wonder, “should I root for us to lose” and feel lousy about the now, but maybe that would give us hope for the future of the team?” This, of course, is a team that used to be basketball royalty.
Every fan, when they watch their own team play, wants them to do well and win. It is natural. But, at the same time, they (at least L.A. Laker fans) must wonder, what good does this one win do us, if it will screw us out of a top five draft pick? And they also wonder, “exactly how hard are these guys playing for the money I am paying to watch them play?” NBA tickets are not cheap. To see a star player like Kobe Bryant not even dress for many, many games so he can “get rested” is really just another way of an ownership “massaging” the standings to get the outcomes they want.
Such is the NBA and their draft lottery system and the effect it has on the actual play between teams going in opposite directions. You the fan can pay your hard earned money and watch some teams really play hard. Or, you can watch other teams going through the motions and losing a high percentage of their games. Some people call that the long, hard grind of the NBA season. Others call it tanking games.
One thing can be certain. If a team does lousy one year, but drafts a franchise changing player with that high draft pick, and gets really good the next year, fans aren’t going to remember how bad they were the previous year. Only how good they are now. And ownership can make statements that they were just doing their best to put a good product out there for their fan base. But what they’re really doing is winking knowingly and implying, “You Can Tank Us Later.”
