Austin Ainge in June 2025 on manipulating draft lottery odds: “You won’t see that this year”
They thought the team would be bad enough to not worry about manipulating lottery odds.
Keyonte George being a borderline all star obstructed those plans though
I think it was much more Pelicans-like
I think they thought they would be good lol
Doubt it
Traded away John Collins for basically nothing, he was good for them last year
Traded away Sexton for Nurkic, Nurkic probably would’ve gotten bought out if Kessler didn’t get injured so quickly
Didn’t bring back Clarkson either
It’s just difficult to believe a team who gave up 3 of their best 5 scorers for virtually nothing believed they’d be much better. That’s why their over/under was 18.5.
With OKC owning their top8 protected pick in one of the best draft class? No way lmao
No they didn’t lol they aren’t the lakers 🤣
I feel for him. Flagg was supposed to be a Jazz last year if it wasn’t for Nico
Only a total dumb ass or gambling degenerate would count on a 14% chance as an outcome that was “supposed to be”.
Only a total dumb ass or gambling degenerate
Tbf, vast majority of r/nba is at least one of the above, if not both
I’m proud to be a total dumb ass, I even usually stay in lane too
Only a dumbass, gambling degens know odds at least
But morons screaming rigged are legit brain dead
every time i point out that when the trade happened, the mavs werent even in the lottery to begin with to have a 1 percent chance at the 1 pick, they just conveniently ignore it. nobody, including the mavs and nba, expected them to freefall in the standings like they did to even get in that position.
It literally doesn’t matter what happened, people see a huge move and think it’s rigged
It’s just brain dead idiots very simple you can explain all you want
This same rigged league has allowed Knicks to be ass cheeks for 20+ years, could have given them no 1 picks many times during that, could have given the Lakers no 1 picks too when Lakers were tanking, could have given Chicago no 1 picks but no they rigged it for Dallas
It wasn’t rigged, but it was 1.4%, not 14% FYI. Still, easier to win than to actually rig it, with Ernst and Young who has x5 times the revenue of the NBA overseeing it, 15 executives, 6 NBA officials, and a bunch of other people watching then the lottery is done.
Nico is just dumb luck.
Utah had a 14% shot at the #1 pick. Dallas had a 1.8% chance.
Oh my bad, I misinterpreted your comment with the previous one mentioning Nico and people saying it’s a conspiracy.
Supposed to be on the Jazz? Or the Hornets? Or the Wizards? They all had the same odds. Or was he supposed to be on none of those teams since that was a greater chance than landing on one of them?
They flattened the lottery odds. No one is entitled to a top 4 pick.
That makes no fucking sense. I swear more than half this sub is stupid
Nico’s “vision” destroyed theirs.
Again, teams have doing this since I was born, I have no idea what the weird obsession with the Jazz, specifically, doing it this year is. Again, the semantics don’t matter, there is no such thing as ethical tanking, if a FO is building a roster with the intention of trying to lose, if they’re benching players, if they are doing anything at all with the objective of making the team worse and trying to lose games, it goes against the spirit of the game. Everyone on here gets so caught up in the semantics that they genuinely believe their favorite team has never tanked. I’ve seen thunder and spurs fans try to claim they’ve never tanked. They have. Doesn’t matter how or why or what leadership level is orchestrating it. A tank is a tank and shouldn’t happen. But 90% of the league does it so who gives a shit.
Well said. To me if I’m a Jazz fan I would rather see real talent play for 3 quarters and then go tank mode in the 4th vs a poorly constructed roster from day 1 with the intention of losing. It’s like people forget that fans spend their money to go watch teams live and it’s just bad to put out a roster every night that has no intention of winning
As a Jazz fan, I do prefer this. It’s a lot more fun getting to see Lauri play for 3 quarters compared to not at all. Would I love to see their best players play the whole game? Of course. But if it’s between me getting to watch them play for 3 quarters or not at all, I’ll choose watching them play every day
I don’t have a problem with the Jazz. More just Austin Ainge.
Austin Ainge just going on camera, lied, then went around THROWING basketball games. I know a lot of stuff is normalized these days, with Giannis investing in Kalshi and all.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t also criticize it when it happens. This is not okay.
What are you supposed to say? Yea we’re going to purposely throw games? I just don’t understand why anyone would take Ainge’s statement at face value. You saw the team trade away John Collins for Kevin Love and Georges Niang during a generational draft year and thought they were going to be trying to have a winning record?
He’s obviously not going to publicly admit it, that hasn’t exactly turned out well for people. If you trust anything that ever comes out of team executives mouths, I don’t know how to help you. Pelinka is lying almost every time he gets in front of microphone. That’s what the position is. You can criticize whatever you want, no one in this thread or anywhere else is going to stop you, but you’re beating a dead horse, there’s been like 20 threads that have been on the top few posts on the front page of this sub over the past two weeks. That’s why I said I don’t know why people’s obsession with the Jazz specifically is. Nobody was this critical when Spurs, Thunder, etc were doing it.
the spurs and thunder weren’t throwing games
didn’t they both unnecessarily shut players down for the last few months of the Season?
I honestly can’t believe this topic has legs. Teams have been blatantly tanking for years. Utah is blatantly tanking but so have OKC, so have the Spurs, so have any number of other teams. If it’s unacceptable make rules to prevent it, otherwise who gives a shit that’s the way it’s set up.
I think there is more talent in the league than even a few years ago. So even the worst teams have players who can win them games, and they’ve needed to be more egregious about resting them.
When the nets went 12-70 they did not need to sit guys lol. They were just that bad.
But also I think The Process reduced the stigma and the Thunder’s success has increased the appeal
Yeah the Kings are that way this year. Don’t get me wrong I think it sucks, there’s just 15 posts about it every day with literally nothing constructive being discussed. Implement some rules to make it unappealing or the punishments harsh enough to mean something. With the current system it’s literally stupid for Utah not to tank. Oh no take a fine oh no lose one of the bazillion 2nd round picks oh well we get to keep our lottery pick in a stacked draft.
Bro tf? Utah has taken it to another level, but you should hate when every team does it. Of course I want to change the system
Where was the outrage the last 10 years when teams have been doing it constantly? It sucks, I’m all for changing the rules. But Utah is literally not doing anything that other teams haven’t been doing for years.
I was outraged then…I feel like you and other jazz fans are so worried about being singled out that you’re defending an embarrassing system. I hated when the hawks tanked
But also the process sixers actually played who was available. Can’t say the same about the jazz
There weren’t 15 posts about it every day. I don’t like it, but these posts are just the same shit every day with nothing constructive. Then there’s another 15 posts of someone saying “I figured out how to fix tanking” with some dumbass idea. The league is going to have to do something but the only power to do anything they seem to have now don’t actually matter.
Fair enough but I think it’s a good thing there’s a push. I’ve seen a lot of ideas both good and bad. But even the bad ideas are way better than a system incentivizing teams to lose. Talk about the complete opposite of what sports stand for
I can’t argue with that. I should probably not sort /r/nba by new, it’s just exhausting seeing the same post every day.
I used to ref hs basketball so I totally get that. Just had to stop looking at some of those posts lol. Sorry for getting worked up, I just really hate the horrible position of having to root for ping pong balls rather than your team. I think the jazz are a good young team too which makes it even more apparent they’re not even trying to make the play-in
But I guess it is don’t hate the player hate the game
I think with the Jazz specifically it makes tanking make more sense. They have this draft pick. They could be bad this year. The draft class this year is really good. They have good players. They do not have a great player. If they get Darryn Peterson or AJ Dybantsa and that player works out, …holy shit they could be really good in two years. If they push for the play-in, finish 9th, don’t get a draft pick – how are they supposed to get the star they need to contend? Utah has had a lot of seasons of being really good. Jazz fans have seen a bunch of second-round playoff basketball in the last four decades. They have to think about how to get over the hump.
I can’t believe the fact that a quarter of teams in a professional sports league are trying to lose has legs…this sub defending tanking is insane
If anything, I think flattening the odds has made tanking more accessible to teams that are just on the playoff cusp. Instead of maybe 6 teams tanking we may just have 3 or 2.
There’s definitely some anti Utah thing with it which is weird. People cared about tanking before but not like this.
I agree tanking has been going on for a long time now, but when you publicly state you ARE NOT going to tank, and then you do, people should be able to bring it up
OKC got a ton of hate and were called the black eye of the league or something like that. Sixers gm got removed by the nba for it.
I think this story was used to distract fans from the obvious cap circumventing done by LAC, host of the all-star game.
Yeah maybe so. Like I’m not arguing that tanking is shit, watching Jazz games has been shit for 2.5 years, it’s just like….not a new thing.
If people believed him, that’s on them. He was never going to answer the question “of course we’re tanking again”.
I do think trying to compete was on the table though, but Kessler’s injury put a stop to that pretty quickly. Then George breaking out mad it hard to tank fully either
the Bronny of NBA front offices
Of course I lied - it’s poker, Phil!
Also what was he expected to say? “We are tanking the hell out of it this year.”
Nose up and cocky for a bum
Terrible poker face
Did you want him to say “Yeah, expect Lauri to get the flu for 2 weeks and lose 10 pounds to barely play in January, Keyonte to get foot sprains, and us to trade for Jaren and have him get surgery to remove a minor tumor to have him rest post all star break”
No front office member or governor will never admit to tanking because if they admit to it, they’d be banned from the league. If Austin, Danny, Justin, or Ryan are asked this same question next year, the answer will be truthful this time because they traded away their first round pick next season
Also, Walker Kessler had labrum surgery and is out for the year, causing their defense to massively suck.
Hinkie got fired for much less, 2.5 years into his tank job.
Jazz are on the 4th year of a multiyear tank where they blew up a #1 seed, with nothing to show for it.
Hinkie got fired because he admitted to the public he was trying to lose games. Not because he rebuilt.
Ainge basically admitted it in this clip. He didn’t deny it when the reporter brought it up in the question.
Also, he was just fined $500k for being caught red handed trying to lose games.
Yeah because for the 2023 and 2024 draft they wanted to be ethical and not tank. They didn’t get rewarded, so last season and this they are going all in to tank properly
Ace, Key, and Cody are honestly not players that I’d consider to be “nothing
The Jazz blew up a number 1 seed because the Wolves at the time gave a can’t decline trade offer for Gobert, and Mitchell gave a silent trade request
Doesn’t change the fact that the Ainge’s are stone cold liars who should be banished from the NBA.
Good GMs have to be liars and snakes to be successful at their job
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No, they only won rings after they got rid of Danny and undid a lot of his atrocities.
For example, Danny was obsessed with defensive liability point guards like IT, Kyrie, Kemba, etc.
They only saw success when Brad Stevens dumped their asses and brought in guys like Derrick White and Jrue Holiday. Likewise, Brad Stevens had to re-acquire Al Horford.
Danny Ainge has the same number of rings as a GM as Rob Pelinka, let’s not get too excited
Mitchell’s trade request was pretty loud IMO. Visibly quitting on defense in a playoff series is not subtle.
He got sacked because his tanking fucked with the owners money.
I believe the official story is that they are being extremely careful with injuries from their star players to protect their future and they are also giving extended minutes to their young players to help their development.
He should be banned from the league
Don’t hate the player, hate the game. They’re just doing what they have to.
Edit: What kind of snowflake do you have to be to block me just for this comment, smh.
I have enough hate for both
Nobody ‘has’ to throw games. It’s pathetic this is where we are in sports
Hating Utah for doing something pretty much every team has done is stupid. No one is getting banned cause this shit is regular as hell.
Mark Cuban once again the only ethical person in the NBA who straight up said we were tanking!
I mean in fairness it was just two games. I’m not sure he makes that statement if they were throwing games for 2 straight seasons.
Hinkie said it too and look what happened to him. The lesson seems to be to unethically tank if you want to stick around!