[Bobby Marks] I think what Utah is doing right now is messing around with the integrity of the NBA.
wow ESPN can talk about integrity and not mention all the gamblings/prediction market scandals ?!
Before or after they announce the segment is brought to us by DraftKings?
And get your parlays in now for Marks talks about betting scandals or *Marks talks about teams tanking*…
integrity only matters until it messes with the sponsorships
Amazing how much sports betting advertising there was during the superbowl. Plus the constant advertising for it during the regular seasons of major sports.
All that ad money comes from you the gambler.
You think you can beat the system but millions upon millions in ad spend tells me you aren’t beating the system and the house still always wins in the end.
This integrity thing is going to look real funny in the light after this Clippers/Ballmer investigation wraps up.
All I know is there’s no smoking gun. Therefore I believe the billionaire acted ethically and within the rules.
And when the smoking gun is presented all you know is that there is a smoking gun, but you don’t know Ballmer pulled the trigger. Merely that it’s his gun, it’s smoking, has his fingerprints on it, and ballistics confirmed it was the gun being used. But until you have video evidence of Ballmer signing a contract with a notary present stating “I, Steve Ballmer, owner of the LA Clippers, have used this gun to circumvent the salary cap, an act I know to be against the bylaws.”
I mean, without even that much evidence, how could we EVER assume a billionaire would even have the gumption to even think about cheating the system to siphon money to someone.
It’s not even a real legal investigation.
It’s just subterfuge from the league.
Yea they hired the biggest law firm in the world for stuff like this just to play pretend. They said they wouldn’t have an announcement until after all star break, it’s not after yet, why are we crying
We’re more likely to see the result as a betting option on Kalshi than actual punishment.
ABAB - All Billionaires Are Bad
You don’t get a billion by being ethical and following the rules. Someone or something is exploited for their gain.
Or the clippers
Yeah, Silver has a big problem on his hands. If he doesn’t get this under control, there will be irreparable damage done to the league.
Just so we’re up to date. Ballmer obviously used a third party to circumvent the cap rules wit Kawhi Leonard. Chauncey Billups and others were involved in a mob connected gambling scam. The Hornets knew Terry Rozier was being investigated by the FBI when they traded him to Miami. And now we have teams losing on purpose? And that doesn’t even address the stars sitting out nationally televised games.
These are just the scandals I can think of off the top of my head. I’m sure I’m forgetting something.
The only reason the league got these big TV contracts was because all the streaming platforms and networks know their subscriptions and possibly survival depend on live sports. Eventually, they will consolidate. When they do, the NBA will be FUCKED!
“This segment on integrity has been brought to you by DraftKings.”
Actually yes. If the public knows teams might hit a wall and literally try to lose on purpose, that greatly impacts willingness to bet on individual games or long term team records and things of that nature.
Who will think of the poor owners of DraftFuel and FanKings?
Based on the insane amount they spend on ads, those guys are really struggling to make ends meet with their job of exploiting gamblers.
I have league pass and somewhere around half of the league shows their games on the “FanDuel sports network” the gambling sites are so deeply embedded in the sport that they own the home networks for half the league…
This is almost certainly why they are going after the Jazz and the other tanking teams so hard this year when there has almost always been tanking teams in the NBA
Lmao right, since when do the Utah jazz and the wizards get the number 1 pick. From my recent memory it’s the mavericks, the spurs etc that get them
Wiz got 2nd just last year and managed to get the best player of the draft so far.
Their last bad era before that, their lottery resulted with Wall and Beal.
Before that they got a first pick, just took Kwame…
Jazz are historically a winning team, They only have two sub 25 win seasons. The 2nd of which happened last year and the first of which happened when they were in NO.
The Jazz are a historically a winning team despite NOT having good draft luck.
“Jazz, how dare you want to have good draft odds! You should continue to win (but no chips) against the odds!”
Teams that are usually good but have 1 or 2 down years and not the actual bad teams
I wonder why that is honestly, it’s almost as if the draft is a lottery.
not the actual bad teams
In the past 25 years. Cleveland and New Orleans share 11 top 5 picks and 6 1st picks.
Cavs made 5 Finals and won 1 championship in that time. New Orleans has made the 2nd round twice.
Jazz are not one of the actual bad teams though. Historically always winning. And the Wizards end up with top picks during their bad years too. It’s how they got Wall and Beal.
Jazz are the 6th highest winning percentage iirc
Lol, good point.
I don’t know if it was a global ad but my recent The Hoop Collective episode had a Kalshi advertisement segment at the very end.
ESPN is literally taking their money.
Are the Jazz bad for the NBA? DraftKings odds are…
Yeahhh I’d say the NBA has much bigger fish to fry in the integrity department
Miami said not on our watch
The real MVP 💪
What are you doing there Brittney?
Leave Brittney alone!
(If you get the reference, I’m sorry to tell you, you’re old.)
HA! I was already old when that video first went viral. You can’t make me feel any older than my knees and back already do!
miami always crashes the party and does it loud
Honestly these outcomes are going to happen. 3rd stringers are fired up and the first stringers are tough to motivate and in a no win situation - you either beat a bunch of third stringers (which is nothing to brag about) or you lose to third stringers (which is worse)
Taking one for the team
That was Riley’s way of sticking it to Ainge. Fml
They at least play 3 Qs why is Jazz targeted while other teams sit out their whole team?, if I am buying a ticket, I would much prefer watching Jazz than Wizards.
It’s absurd to call out one team… or really any team at all.
When you allow teams to trade protected picks, this is the result. It’s one thing if it’s about chasing ping pong balls for the top pick. That’s still not a sure thing.
If you know you need to finish at a certain low threshold in the standings to keep your pick at all, it would be bad management to finish just above that threshold.
It’s not complicated.
“It’s a simple game.”
“It’s only game, why you heif to be mad”
“I’m afraid of bear. But, bear in the forest.”
It’s like the difference between what teams are doing in college basketball with euro pros and former draft picks who never played cbb or singed nba deals, and what Alabama did with a guy who played cbb and signed multiple nba deals. If you disagree with what NIL has done to the sport, that’s fine, but it would be silly to act like bama wasn’t blatantly breaking the rules. You’re never going to solve tanking unless you change the draft entirely, but there’s a difference between sitting players for entire games, and pulling them after 25 minutes to try and lose
I’d argue sitting them the whole game is worse. Losing by 20-30 points benefits no one. The players aren’t trying that hard, the fans don’t get to see the players they want to see, your bench unit is usually guys you know have no chance in the league.
Playing the starters and pulling them if it’s close is a far better game viewing experience. The bench guys that the Jazz are playing are all rotation guys. And when they get in the game they are trying hard to prove they deserve a spot in the rotation next year.
I’d argue from a purely entertainment factor, the jazz way is significantly better.
In traditional tank fashion, fans don’t get to see their favorite players at all. Additionally, the game is often a blowout from the jump.
The last 2 jazz have gone to the wire. It’s way more entertaining watching Brice Sensabaugh playing in the clutch compared to the effort we see from guys like that down 30.
g the starters and pulling them if it’s close is a far better game viewing experience. The bench guys that the Jazz are playing are al
last 3 down the wire hawks, orlando and miami all down to the wire. only game not going down to the wirte was the baltant tanking by pacers by sitting siakam
Based on the current standing and the current talent on the roster, do we think that Utah could actually make it to around the 12-14 slot – i.e., far above the threshold? I get your point about being at the margin of the threshold. I think pushback here is coming from sitting a two-time all-star who is healthy. Utah, as currently constructed, has a ton of talent on their roster. Certainly, it’s a better team than Sac/Wash/Pels/Wash/Dallas/Memphis/Milwaukee.
I think if Utah didn’t start tanking in January they would be in the play-in right now. I think they could conceivably be in the 7⁄8 spot now with JJJ. As you said, they actually have a really good roster. That objectively makes this more egregious than the pretty talent-deficient Kings and Nets sitting guys.
But ultimately that is the incentive! Pick protection rules need to be reworked. If Utah didn’t have their pick or fully controlled it, I think they would be the West’s version of the Hornets. But ultimately, they aren’t so good that they should give up their pick to chase the play in.
Yep exactly.
Last year the jazz did this too.
They sat Klay Thompson and Daniel Gafford in the 2nd half of games in order to increase their lottery odds and got rewarded by jumping to the first pick…
All I’m saying is that teams’ actions are based on the incentive structures that exist.
The present day incentive structures in the NBA are the reason teams do what they do. They aren’t doing it for the hell of it.
It’s up to the NBA to change the incentive structures. If you just try to shame teams into “doing the right thing” then some will, some won’t… and those that do, will be putting themselves at a disadvantage.
This concept applies to society as a whole, not just the NBA.
100% right but when loopholes exist they always close when someone egregiously abuses it. Think the Jazz right now with two healthy all-stars are abusing it to a degree that it’ll be changed now
it’s absurd to call out anyone. Tanking is great for the game and should stay /s
100 percent. We absolutely should call out the worst actors.
I agree pick protections make teams more incentivized to do some shady things, like the Mavs did the year you all didn’t want to give a pick to the Knicks that ended up being Lively, though I think one potential unintended consequence of doing this is that it might make trades less likely. Teams might get gun-shy without being able to have protection for a low probability terrible scenario.
Not saying that’s enough reason to not get rid of them, just that that, combined with all the apron nonsense, might makes things a little more boring.
I will admit that the Pacers pick protection in the Zubac trade is actually kind of fun to follow, but ultimately, there probably shouldnt be pick protections at all, and if there are protections it should just be lotto or not.
What the Wizards and Jazz are doing is despicable and I hope they are fined heavily for it. They deserve to be penalized further than that, but they are technically playing within the rules, so it’s hard to really come down too hard probably.
100%, the protections is a huge element that I don’t think enough people are talking about. It basically nullifies the theoretical anti-tanking benefit of the flattened odds and if anything does the opposite by increasing the range in which teams feel they need to tank down to or tank down from. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that us and the Wizards, maybe the two most egregious offenders rn, have the exact same 1-8 protections.
When teams own their own pick they’re more okay with not chasing the highest percentage odds so the tanking is much softer. Lotto pick vs lotto pick with slightly worse chances is kinda whatever, you’ll at least have some opportunity to add talent, even if it’s in the later portion of the draft. And if you don’t own your pick then really who cares lol, even if you’re bad you might as well try and win.
But when it’s having a pick vs not having a pick at all the consequences become so much more dire. With 1-8 protection the 6th-9th zone flips it from like a 4% chance of losing the pick to an 80% chance of losing the pick, you’d be a moron for not tanking as much as you can get away with. And especially with the financial rules and the way teams are being built now, young draft talent becomes doubly important, specifically in terms of timing when they come in and how they align with the timeline of your existing stars. A high lotto for Utah this year vs not having any easy opportunity to add young talent for cheap could genuinely be the single difference between being a legit contender and being stuck in purgatory.
It wouldn’t solve the problem in its entirety and it’d probably create other issues, but it’d be interesting if they didn’t allow for protected picks. I’m almost certain it’d have a positive impact on the tanking problem.
Ban pick protections
Yeah. In addition to the tanking nonsense, it also lowered the skill cap on being a GM.
You can just protect your picks and guarantee you never make a big mistake.
Get rid of protections and make GM’s have to play to win rather than play scared.
Don’t care about skill cap or whatever. Just think this year proves that pick protections provide too much incentive to be bad. Trade the pick and try to be good in the year you traded it, or don’t, tough luck if you get injured.
I think tanking is fine to some degree but it’s always limited by the flattened lottery odds and that there’s only room for a few truly horrible teams at one time. With pick protections even the teams that aren’t truly horrible might care about like a top 8 pick, and it drew more teams into the contest at the bottom.
just prevent picks from being traded 3 years instead of 7 years in the future
If you’re going to argue that pick protections decrease the skill cap, couldn’t you similarly argue that the lottery system massively increases the difficulty in being a gm, and pick protections are an easy way to offset that uncertainty?
Honestly I think you could even argue it increases the skill cap, but at least with pick protections both sodes can evaluate the protections and assign them a level of value. The lottery is literally a game of chance.
The lottery is where they cheat though!
For real though, the NFL draft makes so much more sense than the NBAs
If the NBA was like the NFL’s draft, 20 teams would of tried to tank if it guaranteed a Wembyama.
The NBA is not like the NFL. The impact a NBA player can have on your franchise is nothing like the NFL
How fucking stupid are people to upvote this. If it was that easy to protect your pick in a trade, any moron on reddit like you could be a GM. Protections are negotiated just as hard, if not more hard, as picks in general. Even if they should be banned for league integrity (which is a legit argument, but not one you made), as it stands good GMs come out with favorable protections more than bad ones do, which means it doesn’t lower the ‘skill cap’ of being a GM, if anything it’s the fucking opposite.
Never heard of them
The Pelicans only do ethical trades
The Joe Dumars special
Picks should be rawdogged just as God intended.
I wouldn’t mind that at all.
This is the real solution. I absolutely think Jazz go for the play in if they didn’t lose their pick doing it.
Make them hire a Colangelo
That is a normal tanking team. Move on, find a new slant.
Nice. A deep cut.
Easily my favourite NBA scandal. Never forget
I’ll never forget Collargate.
I hated the Colangelo era but I loved the memes. RealGM was at its peak.
Unreal how Hinkie got publicly shamed.
Yet Presti could lose by 60 every game when they were tanking and now Ainge can sit every above average caliber player and neither face any ramifications.
Adam Silver’s NBA is a disgrace to competitive sports.
Yeah frfr they shit on us and put that goof as gm when hinkie did it
That’s too far man
Edit to cite source: me, a Raptors fan
A fate worse than slipping in the Lottery.
Utah is not the first, and wont be the last team to tank. We all forgetting Thunder and Spurs tanked, and are now contenders?
Teams have and always will tank. I don’t remember any games where teams played starters for 3 quarters and then pull them to try and lose. Thats not tanking
Yeah, it’s a very obvious and very important distinction IMHO.
It’s one thing to tank via roster contstruction. Nobody can force a team to sign “good”players, and sometimes putting together a weak roster that’s gonna struggle to win games is simply the best thing for a team.
But trying to actively manipulate the outcome of a game like this is WAY more egregious.
How different is that from just not playing your starters at all? The Wizards are just having Trae and AD not play at all this year. Last year the Raptors traded for BI and he didn’t play until this year.
Cuz they made rules to stop teams from doing that and now the jazz r finding a way around it
What rules did they make? Other than issues with lying about injuries, you can’t really make rules to stop tanking without completely screwing over truly bad teams.
You get fined if an all star from the past 3 years is healthy and doesn’t play in a national TV game.
Yeah nothing this egregious, but the Thunder were pioneers of “let’s shut down our mostly healthy players for the rest of the year” move everybody does now. They did it with Shai.
Except in the season they shut down Shai with a planter fascia injury, he proceeded to be unable to participate fully in team Canada activities, because he was legitimately injured. And everyone knew he was out, nobody spent time game planning for him, nobody placed any bets on him
Sat healthy horford a chunk of the season for being “old” then he wins a championship as a starting player contributing massively one season later. Yeah, that’s withholding a healthy player to rig losses and cheat the draft if I’ve ever seen it.
It’s mind blowing to me that everyone is more upset about guys playing 25 minutes vs if they played 0.
Is that really worse than just sitting shai to lose games?
The only team that has been significantly punished for tanking is the sixers. This is because they were open about it and preferred to play and try out young players who might make it vs paying washed vets for a few extra wins.
Ironically the sixers process teams played super hard and were pretty fun to watch, they were just lacking in talent. That idea though found players like TJ McConnell, Grant and Robert Covington who went on to real careers.
And the league freaked out, changed the rules, and then teams eventually found different ways to bend the rules.
I don’t know that there is a good solution, but when the difference between drafting 1st and 5th could change your entire franchise for a decade it’s obvious why teams do it.
It bothers me that honesty to your fans is the biggest issue. It’s always happened and will always happen.
Process Sixers biggest issue, was not even bothering to field an actual NBA team.
Being so open about it, definitely hurt. But Sixers had seasons where they didn’t even meet the minimum pay floor… which is something I’d never seen before that.
Sixers are also a massive eastern market and I imagine there was more pressure than usual.
Yes because they gave playing time to a bunch of young guys who might become something instead of wasting money on random vets. It’s a totally sensible and logical choice that gave multiple players, who won’t have gotten a shot, careers. If they’re under the floor they make it up anyway as per the rules. There are rules because it was considered.
Also again what exactly would have changed if they paid some vet to be miserable there? Who cares?
Edit and let’s be clear the lakers tanked harder the exact same period to keep their pick they owed the sixers top 3 protected. The lakers had a similar record over several years and no one cared in the slightest. I think the lakers market is bigger.
Let the record show that a good amount of those players signed by the Process Sixers actually turned out to be solid nba guys eventually too. Tj McConnell, Robert Covington, Jerami Grant, Ish Smith (who didn’t start getting serious nba minutes until after Philly), and Richaun Holmes all were younger players who Philly gave rotational minutes to and most of them eventually became solid nba players.
Thunder and spurs did it the exact same way
Yeah but they didn’t get their gm removed to be replaced by a tool who fucked up the entire thing and then starting leaking medical info on a burner twitter account due to beef with the players.
Funny that.
The Spurs tanked by trading their good players and becoming a legitimately bad team. We were sellers at the deadline not buyers like the Jazz or Wizards. Our best player on the 2022-2023 team was Keldon Johnson who is now the 6th man…
Your team started Sochan at PG with the full intention of not competing in games.
Wizards bought injured players who will not play for the season. That is basically selling.
I understand people being very skeptical if Trae never plays for us this season. But considering how much he gets clowned on for being fragile, I don’t think AD getting shut down to heal his lingering injuries should be that controversial.
Spurs were just not good. When Keldon Johnson is your leading scorer (who is a fine player in the right role) your team is going to lose a lot of games even with full effort.
Wembanyama is not the first generational big man San Antonio has tanked for
Call me insane, aren’t teams competing for what’s best for them? If you make it so that winning games is actually detrimental to them… what did you expect?
Bingo, tanking is the only rational option for teams like the Jazz. This is a league problem not a team one.
As a Sixers fan I’ve been saying this for YEARS but nba fans in general are finally catching. ROLL EYES
“Show me the incentives Ill show you the outcome.” Applies to basically everything in life.
A pretty interesting system is the “Gold Plan”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Plan_(sports)
Basically, once a team is mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, they start earning “draft ranking points” for wins from that point on. Then draft points determine draft order (with still potential draft lotteries for the top picks). The idea being:
For awhile it was just a proposal, but the PWHL is actually using it now. More leagues should implement it IMO, it does fix the incentives. You could still be incentivized to lose earlier in the season, but most teams aren’t ready to throw in the towel from game 1, it tends to be more of a “giving up” once the season seems hopeless. And later in the season, all teams are incentivized to win no matter what.
So teams that realize they’re not gonna win the chip are just gonna tank extra hard in the beginning of the season to get out of playoff contention ASAP?
I guess at least you’ll have teams trying in the latter half of the season. But tanking is still tanking
Yeah, it doesn’t fully eliminate it, but lessens it. And I do think teams are generally more hesitant to tank early on, as there’s always some hope you could be a playoff team most seasons, until it’s proven you suck. For example at the start of the year most pundits were predicting Boston, Toronto and Charlotte to suck this year.
There’s also how things like the Play-Ins ultimately aren’t truly rewarding for perpetually mediocre treadmill teams, either. A lower-end lottery position if they lose, and if they win they lose the lottery placement altogether just to be rolled by the top teams of their conference in the 1st-Round anyways. Not every team’s the Zombie Heat.
NBA has way too many playoff teams already, play-ins was a terrible idea created ad hoc to get the Lakers in, and now its just a money grab.
We need relegation
what integrity?
I’m sure that segment was brought to us by draftkings.
you talkin bout tegridy?
so tanking ruined the league but draftkings, whatever the fuck giannis is endorsing now, ballys, fanduel, selling th mavs to a fucking casino, all that fine?
fuck you
It’s funny because the Sixers got absolutely reamed for tanking and basically became the face of the entire problem.
But never once did Brett Brown coach not to win. He took whoever was given to him and tried to win every single game. A lot of players that would never have had a chance to develop at that level so quickly made names for themselves and we still lost enough games to get the multiple “bites at the apple” that Hinkie wanted.
I understand resting players, but idk if I’ve ever seen a team simply sit their best guys for the entire fourth quarter not even at the ASB.
Maybe I’m just a salty Sixers fan, but I don’t see that same energy here. Or when the Thunder did something much more similar to what the Sixers did.
Yeah, the Process Sixers had an awful roster, Utah actually has a pretty solid team when healthy.
76ers got fucked since they were the first to really blow everything up to “tank” but nowadays teams with actual rosters sit out their players to tank, which is way worse imo
Yup this is correct. The people saying that tanking during the 76ers process time and now are similar didn’t actually watch games then. The 6ers had a terrible team but at no point did they not play hard or purposely bench their players.
The NBA doesn’t have integrity.
this post was brought to you by draftkings
Yes it’s the one team blatantly tanking not the multiple players taking ownership stakes in gambling companies while there are active investigations into players manipulating performances for gambling.
Don’t hate the player, hate the game. This is what the NBA has created. The Jazz are just following the incentives.
Pacers were in the Finals last year. You’re telling me that 1 player goes down and now they are the 2nd worst in the league?
Not just 1 Player. Pacers no longer have Turner, Bryant, Johnson, Mathurin, Jackson, etc. Toppin had surgery and Furphy just tore his ACL against the Raptors. It’s not the same roster.
Also Mconnell and Nembhard missed time, Walker started off slow and the Pacers have sent out numerous randoms on 10 day contracts
This segment is brought to you by Draft Kings
I don’t really see why Utah should be singled out here. Numerous franchises are doing some variation of the same thing.
There’s about 7 teams I’d say that are actively tanking this season and that’s 25% of the teams in the NBA. It’s unsustainable.
The Thunder literally did this multiple years in a row with Shai on the team. Seems like we get another forced fed article about how genius Thunder management is once a month. But don’t let the Jazz do it, straight to jail.
The reason they are being singled out is the degree of the point shaving they are engaged in.
The Nets will hold out MPJ to let Danny Wolf start. That’s typical “tanking behavior” right?
The Jazz have two all-stars (one of which is a former DPOY) and a rising YOUNG star in Keyonte George that are all getting benched from the 6 minute mark of the 3rd. The coach is not calling timeouts. The game agaisnt Atlanta (IMO), they literally drew up plays to lose the game
Im not sure if anyone here remembers this, the Clippers once really had to lose a game and drew up 40 straight post ups for their 7th string center. Basically every Utah game is like that as soon as you hit halfway through the third.
The closest team doing what Utah is doing is Washington, but at least there I watched AD and Trae get hurt. Utah is openly point shaving WITHIN THE GAME.
Nets can hold out MPJ because they won’t get fined since he’s not been an all-star the last three years.
The Jazz can’t do that with Lauri and JJJ or they will be fined every game.
Utah isn’t “tanking” — they are throwing games.
Utah is not trying to win the game with even the guys who are suiting up for the game.
There is a real and significant difference between holding top talents out of a game (which is frustrating) and having your coach literally try to lose the game by benching top talents to lose a lead.
People shit on Jazz because Lauri is a more well known star, he was all-star in 2023. There was also trade rumor back then, because Lauri was playing well and Jazz were not. So some people are annoyed when Jazz didn’t trade him and they not playing him either. At least part of the reason Jazz are getting more attention than other teams tanking.
I think it’s more that they already got fined for this last season. Then their GM came out and said that they weren’t going to tank anymore after they dropped in the lottery last season. Then lo and behold they started sitting guys in January this season. What they’ve been doing is just more high profile
The literally got fined for sitting a player out during a televised game. It is a rule, not a vibe. They aren’t doing that now. They are breaking no rules and are going out of their way to avoid the issue they had last year.
I wonder if any other teams got fined for tanking last year…
Grow some balls, Adam Silver!
and some hair too
And maybe a nice pair of knockers
Simple solution is just remove protections on picks. What the Jazz are doing is shameful but it’s in their best interest so they don’t lose their picks. It’s funny because this shit happens every year there is a loaded draft class or a generational talent level player.
The simple solution is to get rid of the lottery and let teams actually get better because they get good picks. If Wemby was on the wizards and cooper Flagg was in Utah, maybe they wouldn’t suck shit and need to tank anymore
This is so performative lmao. There’s always been bad teams throughout the history of the league. Do they think the perfect scenario is every team having between 30-40 wins?
There’s a whole group of tanking teams, why call out one specifically?
There are players partnering with gambling/prediction companies. Every single ad during the game is for gambling. There are gambling logos literally everywhere. Kawhi taking money under the table only to be an all star selected by the commissioner. You want to talk about integrity, really… someone made a post here saying this was the beginning of the end and I really think so. How can we have faith in any of it with all the aforementioned
FFS I am in the minority of Jazz fans who hate the tank, but this organization is far from the only team do have ever done this.
I don’t blame Utah one bit. They are looking for their tier 1. We know that, unless some super Mormon becomes a superstar on another team, Utah will never straight up sign a tier 1/S tier type. They have to get it through the draft, and sadly, sabotaging themselves gets them that type of player.
And now a word from our sponsor, DraftKings
Lol, faking injuries and keeping players out for an entire game = acceptable
Limiting players to 20-25 mpg = messing with the integrity of the game
Tellin u. It’s about the protections
See, the trick is to get blown out in the first half. Then you can bench your starters no questions asked!
don’t put this on Utah, this is soft-as-baby shit-Silver’s fault
The NBA gives obvious preferential treatment to superstars, and teams that make them lots of money.
But yeah, let’s complain about the bad teams being bad. That’s where the integrity goes out the window.
It’s not the Sixers so Adam won’t do anything about it
Just fix the tanking by making all lottery teams have the same % of getting the top picks
Then there’s outrage when a 14th seed gets a generational talent.
Only thing that will ever solve tanking is the only thing that will never happen in American sports.
Promotion and relegation
Yeah, then we can have the Mavs fiasco every other draft rather than once in a while
It’s fucked up that we’re at this point in time, but I wonder if the NBA is starting to feel any pressure from sports betting companies.
They’re setting player lines and odds and whatnot, at what point does Utah randomly pulling their starters in the 3rd or early 4th quarter start to piss off gambling companies, forcing the NBA to step in to at least make it to where the Jazz aren’t being blatant about their tanking.
this is exactly why folks are talking about it now.
This is an absurd idea but what if the draft order was decided by how badly a team needs a good pick instead of just by record or lottery? For example, I’d argue that Sacramento is in much more need of a #1 pick than we (the Jazz) are. But the thunder are stacked, they could pick last. I want parity over dynasties.
wtf who decides who needs it the most?
I could do it
There’s integrity in the NBA?
Teams have been doing this for years
No they haven’t dude
They literally changed how the lottery works in 2019 because teams were tanking like crazy.
I know 2019 sounds like it wasn’t that long ago, but that’s 7 years ago– because teams have been tanking since before 7 years ago.
This -has- been happening, for -years-.
How’s the kalshi on Adam Silver addressing this lookin
What Utah is doing right now is the NBA. Like it or not, this is what basketball is now. Tanking, load managing, flopping, foul baiting, and parlays.
LOL bruh, the entire league is sponsored by DraftKings. I don’t like tanking, but at least it’s clear what they’re doing. Players are literally out here buying ownership stakes in gambling companies. Bobby Marks is out here trying to make sure the windows on the North Tower are clean while everything’s on fire.
NBA don’t have a leg to stand on concerning integrity.
Clippers are circumventing the cap and will most likely face no punishment and Giannis is literally part owner of a gambling company.
Both Utah and us have top 8 protections on our picks. It’s the main reason we’re doing it even though our deadline moves clearly indicate we’re both trying to compete next season. Simplify or outright ban protections and you won’t see this level of tanking.
Yeah, I think legal gambling is a much bigger scandal than tanking.
“The Integrity of the NBA.” Ha! He said that with a straight face too.
Don’t they know you’re supposed to just declare guys out for the season with fake injuries. That’s how you tank with INTEGRITY!
I’m sure Adam silver will take care of it immediately 🙄
None of it matters because even if Utah has the worst record the league isn’t gonna give them a pick better than 4
NBA has become the least serious sport out of the major 4. Tanking, all star game Is a joke, non calls, foul baiting not a watching product. Only good for highlights
League has never had more talent and has never been as unwatchable as it is right now. Silver is awful
Not the Clippers, not Milwaukee, but Utah.
Fuck, thank you detective Bobby Marks!
Fuck Utah but Utah is not the main culprit in this. This started with multiple better teams tanking below Utah. Utah is just following suit. Weighted lottery needs to end. Straight lottery for non playoff teams needs to begin.
The solution is simple to me. Draft lottery is held at All Star weekend. Adds to the theatrics, it’s late enough in the season that we already know who the worst teams are, plus those teams are actually incentivised to try and win with their best players out on the court
You will never see comment sections on any sports reddit like you see on this sub. NBA fans are truly insane. They’ll gladly eat whatever shit this league and its players feed them, and ask for more with a smile on their face.
Whole league should just start throwing away 4qt with them. 😏 pick protection has nothing to do w this thought process
Give the best odds to the best team to miss the playoffs. Scrub teams will be fighting for every win.
Adam Silver sold the NBA to gambling, don’t even talk about integrity.
one of the few times im glad the kings get no media attention, cuz theyve been doing the same thing 😂
A lot of deflection and whataboutism in here. The Jazz are being more brazen about it than most. It’s fine to call them out, even if the system is broken and at fault.
Why are they still going on about this? The pick is top 8-protected because of Derrick Favors and OKC gets another addition to the infinity gauntlet otherwise, they have no choice but to tank.
On a side note.. Utah looks like it’s going to the playoffs next season. Roster looks more than solid and will only get better with a few moves.
This stuff has to come to a head at some point, right? Guys gambling on themselves, coaches betting on games, teams egregiously tanking, Clippers paying Kawhi under the table, Giannis’s Kalshi shit, like at some point there has to be a response right?
Tonight, we discuss the integrity of The Draft Kings League on SportsCenter, presented by PrizePicks
I think what ESPN is doing right now is messing around with the integrity of journalism.
Sponsored by DraftKings
i mean i don’t necessarily disagree, but i do feel like this is at worst the third biggest threat to the integrity of the league that’s happening right now
We all know the lottery is rigged anyway, so it don’t matter.
Owners paying players under the table, Coaches, refs and players all betting on games, NBA: I sleep
UTAH playing G-leaguers in the NBA: Real shit!