this tanking discourse is gonna lead to some rules that small market teams about to hate i just know it

The tank race might be more competitive than the playoffs this year Silver’s walking into a minefield.

Silver probably focuses on tanking to take away attention from the much more serious Ballmer / Kawhi shit.

I wish the day would come to where NBA fans realize that you can’t solve tanking and in fact alot of these solutions (Like flattening the lottery odds) just makes things worse

Media suddenly see Kings or Pacers tanking, ohhh this is travesty this is unethical. But if Spurs do it media goes ohh nice timing

Oh man, this is exciting. He’s going to “broach the topic”.

Tanking doesn’t even work anymore, The worst team has never won the lottery since the odds were flattened.

I don’t expect anything to actually change

It’s really such an amazing draft class lol

Like it’s a shame the tanking discussion is taking away from the actual college hoops/prospect discussion

It bothers me that people weren’t saying anything when the Spurs were tanking but now when the Jazz want to do it it’s an issue

Do not understand the public outcry about tanking in games that people already were not going to watch.

Tanking will never be gone unless there is real consequences for finishing bottom. Instead you currently get rewarded with a top pick.

I’m not saying it works better or is perfect, but other domestic soccer and basketball leagues have teams compete to win every game, because if they lose they get relegated to a 2nd division with less broadcast money and other consequences.

Sports in America are ran socialistically, everyone equal, lots of parity, but no real competition. Some teams just coast and make money every year even if they suck. In fact, you are actaully rewarded if you suck with the best player coming into the league, in your opinion.

Sports abroad are ran in a capitalism structure, you have to compete in the system as best as you can to stay at the top, if you fail you get sent down until you work your way back up. Yes it means the rich teams will always win, but it also means every team will compete tooth and nail to win every game they can.

Not trying to make it political, just trying to explain how i understand it’s built in a high level.

The problem is less tanking for draft picks, the problem is more it just makes a farce of the competitiveness of games.

Like - does anyone really care if the Jazz want to jockey for an extra 3% chance of the #1 draft pick? No.

But what fans do care about is the Jazz not even trying to win games against playoff teams, as that can drastically impact seeding for other teams.

So if there is a solution, it lies somewhere within not penalizing bad teams for winning games. Like - snapshot the lottery odds at the trade deadline maybe, or even earlier? We already know who the truly bad teams in the league are by mid-season. And anybody tanking by that point was all in on tanking from the start of the season. So why even have this tankathon in the last two months? Just call it a wrap and let the bad teams go try to actually be competitive. If anybody gets super hot and goes on a run and makes the playoffs from a bottom 5 pick we can figure something out, but that almost never happens.

Adam Silver is gonna fucking BAN big market teams

All because people who don’t even watch the tanking teams complaining . The Jazz Wizards, Nets, and Pels aren’t driving ratings. Casual fans aren’t tuning in for them.

Just like they arent tuning in for the Bulls or Kings who are not tanking but just bad

There is no perfect system. Yeahh, looks rough when 9 or 10 teams of 30 gonna tank hard last 50 days of season, but it is really generational draft. Silver on clock

Wtf is wrong with the Pelicans. How can they be tied with teams actively trying to lose. 

I’ll pay for a subscription to the news service or website of whatever reporter asks Silver about Kawhai/ Ballmer/ Aspiration. But I’ve got a feeling that my money will be staying in my pocket.  

Just give the first overall pick to the Bulls then it would be fair. We have an alliance with Sacramento anyway, I don’t think they would mind.

You’ve got billionaire team owners actively circumventing the NBA’s salary cap rules and ruining the integrity of the league. By all means, though, let’s focus on solving tanking.

7 teams are now openly tanking, almost 23% of the league, which means on any given night for the next 2 months, almost half of the games played are entirely pointless:

Kings, Nets, Mavs, Wizards, Jazz, Grizzlies, Bulls

Pacers have begun selectively-tanking and are sure to join the pack soon (their odds did not drop ‘dramatically’ after beating the Nets last night, their odds dropped 4%).

The Bucks could decide to join the tankers at any moment, but probably not for a bit.

Flattening the odds HAS worked from a technical perspective. The worst teams haven’t won the lottery in the majority of the years, and yet teams still choose to actively tank. I don’t know how much more the NBA can actually do, like maybe bar teams from getting a top 3 pick in consecutive years? Ban or significantly limit protections on picks?

Protected picks needs to go. At the core of most of the most egregious examples, its because they outright lose their pick otherwise.

Can’t wait til they flatten the odds more or remove protections, only making things worse. Tanking will always exist in the NBA, it will never go away, unless you remove the draft.

The real easy solution is fewer games but we all know the ultra rich dickbags won’t allow that.

Why not just have the lottery be equal odds for every non-playoff team? Solves the issue right there. The only time a team might tank is when they lose the last few games in the season to avoid the play-in but at that point no one would care.

Big fan of how women’s hockey is handling draft order.

Once you’re mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, your season essentially starts over. Draft order is set by most wins after their reset.

So there is still some opportunity to tank. Bad teams would be motivated to get eliminated quicker. But at least, at the end of the season, everyone is trying to win.

And if a bad team goes on a tear, and misses the play in by a game, they’re rewarded with a high pick. Not the worst of both worlds like they currently would.

This feels exactly like the “too many threes” hand-wringing from last season, and it’s just as contrived. It’s the same cycle: pundits talking about how this issue affects the integrity of the game and the quality of the product. This leads to the same people (that don’t actually watch any of these teams actually play basketball games) parroting the supposed severity of this issue and flooding this subreddit with their inane solutions.

It’s also baffling how so many have decided Utah is doing something unprecedented and threatening to the game’s integrity. Did everyone just collectively delete the memory of Daryl Morey trading an All-Star Jrue Holiday for scraps to field a roster of G-Leaguers? Those were historically un-competitive teams created to improve their draft chances(they went 10-72 in 2015-16!) WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE THINK THE PROCESS WAS??? The selective outrage is exhausting and weird especially in a subreddit that regularly celebrates their own team’s tanking on a down year.

“Will address the media and say nothing of substance”

Make the tanking teams play for their draft spot!

Quick perusal of the rules looks like a team can forfeit a game by refusing to start playing or by having fewer than 8 active players and it will be recorded as a 20-0 loss with no other listed penalty. (I doubt they ever fathomed a team doing it on purpose) 

Doesn’t look like that rule is governed by the CBA but instead falls under the league rules which grant the commish much more extensive powers to deal with and I imagine he would respond severely if a team tried it.  

Given how far Utah has already gone this year by sitting everyone to blow fourth quarter leads, how far are we from a team testing him on the forfeiture rules? Can’t imagine anyone would stoop that low right?

Can’t wait for absolutely nothing to change

That’s a huge difference in pre game tanking, such as sitting out starters etc and then there’s what the Jazz have been doing, in game tanking by resting starters in 4th quarter, not calling time outs at the end of games etc.

Nets, Pacers and Wizards have been resting guys, some teams will rest all the starters, but in game the coach is still coaching to win. The jazz are the only team that blatantly are not coaching to win

Give all teams the same lottery odds regardless of how they finished.

Solved

Adam Silver is bald

Tanking isn’t an easy solution issue; the problem is that these small market teams will say the only Chance they have is to hit on a superstar in the draft and then he can attract a star in free agency. IE Giannis with the Bucks and they can build around him.

Unfortunately, teams have to do it in order to try to build something. I do think there should be rules regarding consecutive years tanking because teams that draft very well, play the young players and they are doing well and then you sit them out bec they are winning is so dumb.

I think the load management concept needs to be addressed more than tanking. Thats affecting the major market money maker teams for the league. For fans to go in person to see stars play, pay a lot of money for tickets and then get there and watch the backups play without having any idea is awful. I think teams should have to send a schedule for when they plan on sitting players out at the start of the year and the NBA can either approve or decline it, and that process will have rules too like 2 stars can’t sit out same game ext.

Man he’s going to dance around the subject and not even answer any questions. He will make zero helpful statements or insights on the problem and the only thing he will pretty much say after 20 or so minutes is “tanking bad, need fix”

I mean, he rigs the lottery anyways 

Man honestly who cares. This just feels like people are bored because of the mid february part of the season with not many stories going around. Teams are tanking, it’s a great draft class. Respectfully I’m not gonna watch Utah Jazz or Washington Wizards games anyways and i’d imagine most people aren’t either.

Why do we need daddy silver to step in and make some sort of rule that’s just gonna have worse side effects which we’ll complain even more about down the line? Just let the straggling teams tank. They’re already taking a financial risk with the tanking when it comes to decreased ticket sales and fan hype. Let it work itself out.

I wanna know why tanking is even an issue without someone just doing their best Coach Carter impersonation.

You ever think some of these teams just fucking suck?

Nice. No mention of Memphis. Just as planned.

That Pacers pick trade to the Clippers would stress me the fuck out if I were a Pacers fan.

I don’t really rate Zubac so the cost of a high pick would bother me endlessly.

Silver needs to go. He’s ruined the product.

So many doomers. I love watching NBA right now and there is a lot of parity at the top. Some initiatives have not worked, but the league has attempted to improve upon issues over the last decade with flattening of the lottery, adding play-in, in-season tournament, some rule changes to dangerous fouls, adding coaches challenges, load management is somewhat less frequent now. As soon as something gets better (“small market teams will NEVER win the finals!”), y’all find something new to bitch about and act like the league is in shambles. It’s not perfect, but this belief that tanking is considerably worse than it was a decade ago or that the ability to “fix” a game is new just because of legalization is unfounded. Sure, advocate for change - there is always something to improve and change by itself adds excitement - but don’t let the imperfections keep you from seeing good. Become a fan of a team in the East and the West to make the down periods for your teams shorter. Idk, if you can’t find ways to enjoy the product then maybe it’s a sign you gotta find something else to get fulfillment from.

the more egregious issue is the intersection of gambling (giannis) and illicit funds (kawhi) being sent to superstar players. let’s focus on that, adam

I’m more concerned about uncle Dennis

Somewhat related: at these press conferences, Silver always gets questions from the same group of people. Tim Reynolds, Tim Bontemps, Joe Vardon, Tania Ganguli, Vince Goodwill and Marc Spears. Maybe Dan Woike sometimes gets a question but it’s always the same few people. They will give him some softball questions.

This dude isn’t gonna do anything. He’s only good at making the owners more money in the TV deal. He’s trash at everything else.

He’s gonna shorten the games of teams missing the playoffs to just highlight games. 10 minutes tops, 5 second shot clock

He’s not going to do crap about it 

“I’m thrilled to be here,  in front of you all,  and I’m here as a fan, like most of you. We’re all fans. What an exciting weekend to celebrate this game. You know when I was a child,  I would activate synergies in my bedroom among my toys. The one toy that got along with everyone? The toy tank.  My love for that tank is what inspired by passion for the tank game we are celebrating today. So many of our teams in this league actively showcase their love of tank unabashedly in today’s game, and if that is my lasting legacy, then pew pew pow, back to my home planet I go.”- Adam Silver

Problem for Silver is that he just looks like a hypocrite talking about the integrity of the game, while allowing gambling to do its thing, with players owning stakes in gambling companies that bet on the games they themselves play in.

Garbage commissioner

Kings “star” player forces shitty trade to San Antonio and then shuts down with Wemby for remainder of season and receive #2 overall pick.

Resulting Kings nightmare is clearly the worst team in the league, every national reporter calls them stupid, but they’re tanking and now it’s a problem even though this organization has never come close to tanking in years, which is why they always pick 7-12 and rarely land top talent from the draft.

Adam Silver is clearly NOT the right guy to be commissioner of the NBA.

The owners picked such an obviously strange, easy to blame, easy to be suspicious of, easy to dislike guy, to direct the hatred away from themselves, onto the commissioner.

Silver cannot socially, psychologically, morally, or realistically continue harming the product with his shortsightedness, and feigned “solutions”, many of which, are intended to solve problems that either don’t exist, or problems to which the “solutions” don’t apply.

This league deserves a competent, connected, moral, sharp, relevant commissioner, whom cannot be such an easy target for blame, so we can focus our efforts on the real problem with the league: disgusting, delusional, demanding ownership, which respects neither their players, or their fans. There of course, are some exceptions, but not nearly enough.