To Tank or Not to Tank
In addition to the playoff race heating up as winning teams are trying to lock up their best seed possible for home court in the playoffs in the NBA, there is a lot of talk these days about tanking. It can also be described as losing on purpose to get the best draft pick or simply put, throwing games. These include the non-potential playoff teams like the Kings, Bulls, Mavs, basically the bottom of the barrel. This past week, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver released the following statement about tanking on a memo with USA Today Sports:
“We have been careful to distinguish between efforts teams may make to rebuild their rosters, including through personnel changes over the course of several seasons, and circumstances in which players or coaches on the floor take steps to lose games…
"The former can be a legitimate strategy to construct a successful team within the confines of league rules; the latter -- which we have not found and hope never to see in the NBA -- has no place in our game. If we ever received evidence that players or coaches were attempting to lose or otherwise taking steps to cause any game to result otherwise than on its competitive merits, that conduct would be met with the swiftest and harshest response possible from the league office."
So, Tankers (let’s refer to them that way now) are now on alert. The integrity of the game is being questioned by teams putting out losing rosters to get into the race for prized rookies like DeAndre Ayton (Arizona), Michael Porter, Jr. (Missouri), or Luka Doncic (Europe). So, what should losing teams do that want to be relevant again and draft a potential star?
Before we explore what teams and the NBA should do, let’s ask the most basic question, Is tanking a viable strategy? Sure, you can make the case that last year’s Rookie of the Year was a late 2nd round pick by the Bucks (Malcom Brogdon, 36th pick in the draft). Blake Griffin, Karl Anthony-Towns, and Ben Simmons (Clippers, Timberwolves, and Sixers respectively), were the first pick in their draft and these players turned the franchise around. The anti-tankers can look at Steph Curry, one of the biggest impact players to turn a franchise around and say he was picked 7th, hence having a lower pick helps. If you look at the NBA in the last ten years, the average rookie of the year was picked third. Tankers know that losing can help you get the franchise back to prominence by securing a top pick. Remember, LeBron was the number one pick in his draft. Can you imagine if the Cavs picked second and drafted Darko Milicic that year ( http://bit.ly/1J7xzGG) ?
Teams that want to win know that intentionally losing is their best way out of purgatory. So how do you solve this problem? Adam Silver can fine teams but there could be a backlash from owners, Plus, how do you really enforce this? Some of this is obvious with a team like the Bulls who are sitting 2 starters right now but what about the Kings? Do they get fined for every game for having a mediocre product? What if a player is really injured and a team gets fined? It could get ugly.
The solution is a simple one in my opinion. The NBA should employ an NIT style tournament for the non-playoff teams. The best records play the worst teams (this would encourage winning) in a single elimination game like March Madness. The winner of the Tankathon (we can come up with a better name), gets the 1st pick.
However, what if a team like the Pistons that is a borderline playoff teams gets the top pick and ends up winning the tournament. Is that fair? Not really, but at least teams will have an incentive to play hard. And instead of a lucky ping-pong ball bounce, the top pick will get decided by winning. And if I am a fan, I can get excited about that. More importantly, the integrity of the game is restored.