One of the best episodes. “I don’t hear no bell”.

The question is which one of us will step up and play the role of Stan’s dad in that episode?

What is the actual solution here? People will always be able to fake injuries.

I think they need to go straight lottery so doesn’t matter if you are first team out or worse record in the league. Otherwise this will always happen

Might as well play Bilal, dude has worse offensive game than our 10 day players.

Why can’t these teams just let Pacers tank in peace

It’s crazy man, the love of the game is dead in favor of love for the money — and that’s how you address the problem. Have it hurt ownership’s pockets and player’s salaries.

Losing my mind in a phone booth

It was between the lowest seeds, real greaseball shit.

I think the only realistic thing he can do is shorten the season / remove b2bs and as everyone points out, you aren’t getting this done without the players agreeing to this, which they won’t.

I’m all for the Adam silver sucks train but I have no idea what people want him to do here. How do you literally “prove” a team is trying to lose/tanking? How do you quantify it?

You can’t punish teams because you “feel” like what they’re doing is uncompetitive.

It’s hard to regulate because top end talent is so important compared to other big sports. That being said, I don’t see how Silver can’t step in and fine or do something to the teams obviously trying to lose on purpose. It’s the most effective strategy so it makes sense to do, but it is not good for the league if every year 10-14 teams are in a race to the bottom. We do need to change the incentives, but also, we need a commish that isn’t scared to punish teams for trying to tank before the all-star game!

Teams can decide to tank before the season or at the trade deadline by trading away guys, but they shouldn’t be incentivized to sit their best players not even halfway through the season.

Honestly, they should just recognize there is nothing that can be done to prevent it, so manage it. Every player gets say, 4 load management rest games a year. Must be specified at least 2-3 weeks in advance. And then all these “soft injury” designations like ankle sprains, lower back soreness, tight hamstring, MUST be independently verified by a league sponsored doctor, or the penalty is massive fines ( thinking $500,00+ should do it). Obviously this won’t get rid of all load management cases, but it might drop the cases down a bit.

30-team unweighted lottery would be fun

At the very least, a 14-team unweighted lottery

Leagues making decisions based on what teams/owners/players want is often a mistake.

Why can’t they just put all 30 in the lottery with equal odds? Or are you saying that’s unrealistic?

I like the idea of removing pick protections.

Beyond that yeah it’s tough. You could try to craft some rules to make teams play their best players in whichever half of the B2B is the game people want to see, ie, the Spurs/Lakers last night. You’re not forced to play them B2B, but you can’t get the easy W against the lottery team and then throw the game against the better opponent.

Abolish back to back games B.S. Back when we didn’t have b2b, this shits didn’t happen.

Sitting the whole lineup off a back to back definitely isn’t the norm

It seeming normal is part of the issue. “Rest” is not the reason for sitting these guys. It’s to get a higher chance at a better pick. These dudes are in their mid 20s, and in better shape than 99% of humans. They do not need rest from a 48 minute basketball game they’re paid millions to play.

Forgot basketball players had the same conditioning as me. Upwards of 50m a year and they can’t play basketball 2 days in a row is concerning

We haven’t had a top 5 pick in like 30 years (pretty sure Mathurin was #6). Idk why people are hating on us when our best player is out for the year and one of our players just tore his ACL. What are we actually playing for this year?

I do think it’s funny that nobody cares that the Spurs have had more top 5 picks than the Jazz in the past two seasons, and that’s without even factoring in their generational first overall, Wemby.

We tanked for TWO FUCKING GAMES and apparently we were the worst thing to ever happen to basketball.

Don’t say that too loud they might do that as a way to tank even more

Best I can do is refund 2.83 %

Tanking is only okay if your GM trades away all your good players and your coach plays nobody but scrubs from the start. That’s how you show fans appreciation for spending their hard earned money!

I mean it does seem kind of genius, teams gotta face a completely different squad for a potential clutch quarter that they haven’t really prepared scouting reports for right? Right? That’s why my Heat lost.

(I’m coping)

I think it’s all around pathetic and ruins the integrity of the league but it’s worse to do what the jazz do. If you’re gonna sit players you at least have plausible deniability that they’re nursing an injury or they’re sore or whatever. But playing 3 quarters then sitting the rest? That’s blatantly throwing the game.

Kings you guys are shoe in for #1. You guys just suck. No shenanigans required

Exactly

Swear man. We’re bad enough most of the time, Idk why people go out of their way to throw some lies on us lmao

Fair enough. 

We were playing Claxton and Cam Johnson in back to backs all season last year and didn’t tank at all. Nba rewarded us with the 8th pick

I’ll take 2 after all these “culture wins”

Yeah it’s how it is for the wizards too. We legit never tanked with Beal, and got clowned for trying to make it work with him, then we finally move him and get clowned for tanking to try and rebuild.

They fear the good natured small market teams actually trying something for once.

That’s the funniest part of this to me. Nobody is watching this game regardless outside of die hard fans of the teams. And those die hards know damn well this was never gonna be a great game.

Brother we’ve been the most injured team this season. We were starting our G league team for a chunk of the season because everyone else was injured. We had to get, I believe, 2 injury exception from the league so we could sign guys and have enough bodies to play. And yeah now that most of our guys are healthyish we’re a solid team that’s 8-9 in our last 17 games. We have nothing to play for this season. We are 11 games behind the lowest seeded play in team. Our chances of getting there aren’t great. Any team in our position would take better odds of getting a top 4 pick in a stacked draft than fighting for a 10 seed and a late lotto pick that won’t get any minutes next year.

I have some really radical ones but the NBA would never do it. Just as they have the fine for teams benching players for national games, I think if teams routinely overtly tank they should be ineligible for a top 4 pick. But they should still hold the lottery. So a team could watch themselves win the #1 pick and then lose it.

Another option, if you don’t want to mess with the pick, is having offending teams lose any revenue sharing they would have gotten. You shouldn’t be able to get revenue from teams that are trying if you are blatantly tanking.

Every team who misses the playoffs gets the same lottery odds.

This is the team that lost their star player in heartbreaking fashion in game 7, when they were about to have months of no basketball. I wouldn’t blame them for not risking anything, especially if it just so happens to be beneficial for them

literally😭people complaining like they would’ve tuned into this bum ass matchup even if both teams were fully healthy