for the nba as a business tanking is worse than teams being mid forever

Because the goal isn’t fairness or equality. The goal is to put on an entertaining product for people to watch. It’s not fun or exciting watching teams intentionally lose games.

Also, forgot to add the gambling aspect as well. If you’re going to have a league that not only allows gambling, but partners with major gambling organizations and advertises across all of their platforms, then competitive integrity is paramount. When some teams are intentionally losing, that integrity is lost.

Because tanking is just a euphemism everyone uses so they don’t have to call it what it is: “Throwing Games”

So they’re not really pretending, because teams throwing games IS worse than teams being mediocre.

So I guess the best follow-up question is: why are you cool with teams throwing games? Is it really so simple as giving it a different name that makes this act palatable & defendable? Does calling it “tanking” make it easier to pretend it’s not what it actually is?

Half the games right now are ~unwatchable because one team is actively trying to lose. It’s really bad for the product when teams have an incentive to lose, and that’s what we have currently. I think bad teams trying to win would be a much better product than what we currently have.

Tanking -> less fans going to games -> less money

Cause it’s worse

What teams have been in permanent purgatory in the last 20 years?

This will force owners to spend on FA, coaching and scouting, and player development rather than just hope to snag a franchise savior. Even Lebron couldn’t drag Cleveland to a chip. CP3, AD, Zion have all failed in NO but because of ownership, not because they couldn’t get good players.

Teams being in purgatory doesn’t impact the integrity of individual games.

Poor fucking pistons only had 3 straight top five picks after picking first overall, how is a team supposed to develop talent with that little opportunity.

And the nba prefers mid teams over tanking teams because one is infinitely more entertaining to watch and isn’t a farce of professional competition.

Edit: 3 straight after first, 4 including the first

Ironically, the worst thing that the NBA team did for smaller market teams is the super max without offering some sort of cap exceptions for them.

In the past, teams could just trade for a bunch of massive contracts and extend them through salary matching. This circumvented the cap restrictions because teams didn’t really care about the tax if it meant staying competitive (see the Warriors). Now, a supermax basically restricts you from ever acquiring any decent players unless you strike gold in the bottom half of the draft (if you haven’t already sold your draft picks to stay competitive).

The Bucks are the only small market team to have won a title with a star on a supermax. The Thunder could become the 2nd if they win a title this year since SGA just signed his, but even then, they still have all their players that same Presti had to masterfully tank and deal for.

Tanking for multiple years even when getting a top pick is the ONLY way around the super max restrictions because that’s what the Thunder did. It’s a symptom of the problem that they have yet to find a good fix for

Because to the league office, it is worse. Tanking is intentional.

A lot of teams that are in permanent purgatory are there because their ownership is some combination of stupid, doesn’t really care about building a contender, or can’t lay a decent roadmap out. Can’t get out of their own way.

Signed,

Lifelong Bobcats and Hornets 2.0 fan

P.S. There will always be teams stuck in purgatory in a 30 soon to be 32 team league. Happens in every league that size, it’s basic statistics at the end of the day

Adam Silver believes coaching and savvy roster construction is enough to get the job done. He is wrong.

The Bulls and Kings are in purgatory because of their inept front offices. 99% of franchise issues can be traced back to ownership and/or front office.

I eat cheese sticks in one bite

I think putting OKC in the tanking to succeed camp is a little disingenuous. They tanked for 2 years. They got their 3rd best player and the player that eventually got traded for a solid 6th man kind of player. Most of their players they either got through smart drafting or trading. They even specifically didn’t tank in 2023 despite easily being able to.

I never understood the permanent purgatory complaints. Like ya people who are championship or bust and watch at home would probably rather have a clear direction of contender now or roll the dice.

But a team that wins 50% of the time is objectively more fun to watch in person than a team that wins 20% of the time and the ticket sales show that. A team like the current Hawks or Heat probably aren’t winning shit but they keep the butts in the seats.

Here’s why: as a sports fan, my minimal expectation - and it really is minimal - is that when I buy a ticket or turn on the TV to watch a game, I’m going to see two teams competing and trying to win.

Also, as a fan of a team, I should be able to enjoy cheering for them to win every game I watch - and, say, take my kids to a game and have them get into cheering for that team along with everyone else - not be told it’s actually stupid to do so.

If that’s not the case - whether it’s because of gambling or a perverse league-sanctioned incentive to lose - something is very wrong and needs to be fixed.

The issue is that the NBA is struggling to get fans to think the regular season matters. They can barely get the players to care about the 82 games. When several teams are openly saying they don’t plan on winning in the regular season it just reinforces the idea that the regular season is a waste of time.

A team like the Bulls or the Heat who are trying to win all the time but can’t get more than 32 wins at least makes it seem like it matters. A team like the Jazz who are openly sitting guys in order to lose are telling fans that the product is worthless.

I think the biggest problem right now is officiating not tanking. probably not relevant to this discussion but tanking seems like a non issue to me.

Because its just is. Its a better viewing experience to see the elite teams have to fight against teams that are trying to steal a win as an underdog than it is to see mediocre teams mop up teams that want to lose. Its more fun on a single night to see your scrappy mediocre team give an elite team a run for their money than see them get blown out or try to out tank an equally shitty team.

The only reason that purgatory is such a bad word is that NBA media has hyperfocused on min-maxxing championship contendership. Whether or not its viable or smart (it isnt), having teams in purgatory is objectively much better for the product across the league than teams that are sitting young guys that need development because they might actually win a game

Kings had high picks, they had Bagley/Keegan/Fox/WCS/TRob/DMC/Reke.

At a certain point you have to understand that its your FO/player development/coaching/team chemistry. OKC doesn’t even have a player who was picked 1st and they made the right moves and won.

I haven’t watched a wizards game in 3 years because the team is embarrassingly terrible and isn’t worth my time. I certainly didn’t give them a dime of my money. When we had Wall and Beal and we were stuck in the 40-45 win purgatory, i watched probably 25% of games and even went to a couple of them. We weren’t a contender, but it was entertaining to watch on a night to night basis. That’s why

Being a mid perennial play-in team under the luxury tax can be profitable! - Jerry Reinsdorf

They hate the draft because it gives smaller markets a bigger chanse at being good which is bad for business. They don’t want parity, they want large markets to dominate because that brings in more money. Notice how tanking is only becoming a real problem when it’s teams like Indiana, Utah, Sacramento, Memphis, and Milwaukee leading the charge in one of the most hyped draft classes in recent years. If Miami and LA were in the tanking race I promise you there would be 0 talk about the issue of tanking.

Tanking isn’t a real problem. The league only cares so much because their number one priority is to appease their gambling partners and in turn their tv partners

as long as people are willing to fill arenas to see a first round exit, hopeless middling teams will be the NBA’s darling

Why is it hard for people to understand that teams throwing games is the opposite of entertainment?

Why would people buy tickets or tune in. It is a recipe for long term disaster. And needless.

This whole debate is idiotic.

Because mid teams win sometimes and therefore can be used by betting houses to parasite money out of parasocial gamblers, tanking teams deliberately try to lose so there’s only one outcome therefore its bad for betting houses.

Hope this helps more at 11.

Ecause tanking is about trying to play worse than your roster actually is.

If one team sits its best players, then that teams record, and therefore draft position will be worse than another team who actually tries to put on a good performance for the paying ticket holders.

they will effectively steal that “better” teams draft pick

thats bullshit

The only way teams stay in purgatory is if they are ran poorly. The Bulls and Kings might be the worst run teams in the league.

It doesn’t. That’s why the proposed solutions involve flattening tanking odds further and including 18-22 in the lottery. Now everyone who is not a contender has a chance at a top pick. The purgatory no longer exists.

Because teams shouldn’t be punished for not tanking. The whole league would be severely damaged if it were just be contending and tankers

teams like the bulls, Pelicans, bucks (if giannis had his way), raptors, and hawks help make the regular season matter while throwing their chance at a ring away.

If these teams didnt try to win the only games to watch would be contenders vs contenders. Ever since hinkie more and more teams are trying to lose, I cant see how this trend doesnt continue with time. The league needs to do something and theyre trying to address it here

Kings fans in their feelings over tanking today lmao. Tanking isn’t marketable “parity” is. Hope this helps 

The Knicks Charlotte game was a FANDUEL Network last night. Tanking is far from the issue with the league

You’re wrong about the Pistons, they were intentionally or out of incompetence (your choice)keeping bad players around Cade. 

Things turned around when they signed Tobias Harris(who everyone laughed at), as well as Beasley and THJ for peanuts. Then they put a real coach in there. 

It was incredibly obvious how to build around Cade, they just refused to do it until the front office was fired.

They could always just let certain teams bid on players right out of college and the highest bidder wins. Ofc they’d never do this because it makes it more difficult to control costs which is what this is really all about anyway. You can definitely build a contender with 3 top 15 picks but no one wants to do that because it’s so expensive

Let me introduce you to a little thing called “the gambling companies” 

¹⁄₃ of a professional sports league losing games on purpose is bad for business. 

what well run team that is actually trying to win games is in permanent purgatory?

To deflect from Aspiration and Gambling

You need stars to sell tickets. This is not headline news. NBA needs to eliminate teams, not expand.

I don’t think anybody is arguing that tanking isn’t good for the team’s future, if it wasn’t teams wouldn’t do it. I think people’s complaint is how it affects the NBA as an entertainment product.

Sports betting agencies don’t have control over a team throwing a game and maybe taking the kings to lose straight up is horrible odds but you could parley that with the other teams throwing and get much better odds. They have to be losing big money to whales for this to be popping up.

Also I do not blame teams at all for wanting to find a superstar in the draft. I went to a ton of twolves game my entire life, target center was legit like 10% full most nights. Since they’ve been good it’s packed and awesome and they were able to raise ticket prices by like 600% for some seats. The cheap ones went from \(5 to \)30. I was getting 4 rows from the court for like \(40 and now those tickets are closer to \)500, and they sell.

Our ownership transition went into arbitration because arod and lore legit made like $2B just by buying them at the original price.

This needed to be said!

The truth of the matter is that the NBA is not the only league with small market/not ideal player destinations. The difference is that a single great NBA player is worth multiple good-great players in other professional sports leagues. Hell, I’d argue a great NBA player is worth more than a star QB is to their team long term(Look at Burrow, Stafford in Det, Moon, Allen, Lamar-they keep their teams in the mix, but it takes way more good players AND good coaching to compete at the upper level).

Imo punishing NBA teams for sucking is not the answer. One thought I had was allowing teams that miss the playoffs  to operate in free agency outside of the normal cap rules. Allow them to utilize an uncapped/doesn’t count against the cap 1 year deal for any unrestricted fa allowing that player to instantly become eligible for super max the following year should they help their new team make the playoffs. Also allow them to counter a countered offer sheet on restricted free agents by offering draft compensation. The league wants to disincentivize the chase for draft picks, then empower these teams to look attractive to FA’s.

Because for ²⁹⁄₃₀ teams, it’s better if the 30th team doesn’t tank. Not having teams blatantly losing games helps the image of the league, and from a casual fan pov it makes random games in February/March more enjoyable to watch

The problem is that it’s been pretty well demonstrated that almost every team needs to tank in order to get the players/assets needed to truly compete for a championship, so that 30th team is going to tank if they’re thinking in their own self interest.

The kings and bulls were bad even when it was easier to tank. 

The system is difficult to manage because you need a mechanism for bad teams to get better but also not reward teams who are perpetually bad and bad on purpose. 

It’s dangerous for a league to allow games where the opponent is actively trying to lose (for the same reason why it’s bad that refs like Scott Foster are fixing games). You create a doubt that the competition is authentic. 

tanking is immoral

The war on tanking is the nba equivalent of the war on drugs. Adam Silver is putting a lot of attention on this to make it look like the league is doing something while ignoring the larger scandals actually affecting the league but is tied up in too much big money interest for anyone to do anything about it.

It’s not pretending. It is worse.

To me, it’s that there isn’t any other sport where there is any argument against the basic notion that a team should be doing everything possible to make the playoffs, even if you’re the last team in and a heavy underdog. Only in the NBA is it considered actually bad to be, say, the #4 seed (much less the #8 seed or a play-in team) without a superstar and they need to just tear it all down and start over or that teams should avoid making the bottom half of the playoff field altogether for lottery purposes. That would never be tolerated in the NFL, MLB or NHL or any other pro or college sport that I can think of, yet it’s just accepted in the NBA that it’s actually better not to make the playoffs as a midtier team to go into the lottery. That’s a terrible fan experience for far too large of a swath of the league. (And yes, I’m a scarred Bulls fan.)

How is tanking more pressing than the Clippers manipulating the cap for Kawahi? Or players sponsoring gambling sites? Do owners sign something to say they won’t do what’s in their best interest to get talent?

Maybe your team isn’t in purgatory due to NBA rules. Maybe your team is in purgatory because its a franchise run by idiots

The nba does not pretend that.

But they probably appreciate decent teams more than deliberately dogshit teams and that’s reasonable.

Because it is worse. Way worse. How is this even a discussion?

Because it is significantly worse. No such thing as tanking done right. When you have play-in teams winning the lottery, it’s not right. It’s absolutely terrible for the product of the league if you have a third of the teams actively not interested in winning games.

The approach of attacking tanking through the draft is misguided. They should implement structural incentives to make the playoffs.

I like the idea of providing teams that make the playoffs with additional cap relief. It penalizes teams for missing the playoffs and discourages them from rebuilding through the draft alone because if they continuously lose their players will leave.

This might result in more dynasties but I think the draft evens the odds on that.