My NBA anti-tanking proposal

[freshinthehouse]

I don't understand why tanking is a problem for people.

I've thought about something similar in baseball, where the draft isn't particularly meaningful, and teams don't tank for picks. 

In baseball teams tank to save money, which you would think would have all the anti-tanking crusaders even more up in arms.  Every year in baseball you see bad teams jettison their quality vets for prospects that may never see the field.  At least in basketball the bad team has take back a similar amount of salary.

[LooseCannon]

I don't understand why tanking is a problem for people.

If you are season ticket holder it is a major problem.

for a season or two, and then you get, in theory, a much better team.

Look at OKC.  They clearly tanked.  For a two plus year period, every move they made was about getting worse.  They traded every single veteran on the team for draft picks.  They made no moves to help the short term.  They accumulated 10 first round picks in a four year period.  If not for Durant's injury this year, they would have been a real contender for six straight years. 

That is what a tank job is supposed to do. 

As a season ticket holder wouldn't you rather have two or three seasons of 25ish wins, if it meant ten straight years of 50+ wins including at least one Finals appearance.

Shelling out $7k a year to keep my seats for a proposal of completely unwatchable basketball for at least a year, if not 2 or 3, on the hopes and theory of tanking is a major problem for most, if not all, people of modest incomes.

Feel like the very definition of #FirstWorldProblems.

[freshinthehouse]

I do think that the Warriors rebuild gets under reported as a tank job. They openly lost games, we're terrible forever and finally gelled a young core. But it wasn't a straight line process.

Yup.  The Warriors totally tanked the 2nd half of the 11-12 season in order to keep their pick.  I think they lost the pick if it was outside of the top 8.  So once it was clear they wouldn't make they playoffs, they deep sixed that season.

[PhoSita]

I do think that the Warriors rebuild gets under reported as a tank job. They openly lost games, we're terrible forever and finally gelled a young core. But it wasn't a straight line process.

Yup.  The Warriors totally tanked the 2nd half of the 11-12 season in order to keep their pick.  I think they lost the pick if it was outside of the top 8.  So once it was clear they wouldn't make they playoffs, they deep sixed that season.

That example of tanking is an argument against allowing teams to put protections on picks.


Take this upcoming season, for example.  If Dallas has a tough start and looks like they'll miss the playoffs, they will have a lot of incentive to have a fire sale and tank the second half of the season so they end up in the top 8 and don't have to surrender their pick to the Celts.

Meanwhile, the Nets failed to place protections on their picks, and now have no incentive to be bad in any of the next three seasons.

[Moranis]

I don't understand why tanking is a problem for people.

Because the point of sports is to win.  There shouldn't be rules built into the sport that make the fans question whether the teams are actually trying to do so.  If that happens the sport loses credibility.  Why would anyone want to watch?  Why would sponsors want to buy ads on the broadcasts of teams few people are watching?  Why would players want to play on a team whose executives have clearly tried to lose? 

I like the idea the OP put out there.  I've thought about something similar in baseball, where the draft isn't particularly meaningful, and teams don't tank for picks.  However, there are owners who purposefully maintain horrible teams with low payrolls for years and rake in revenue sharing and TV revenue, while giving their fan base an awful product.  The last ownership team in Tampa Bay was a great example of this.  They had the worst team in the majors, the worst stadium in the majors, and did nothing to improve either.  They alienated the fan base so badly that even when the new ownership team came on board and upgraded the team to the point that they were one of the best teams in the league and were regularly making the playoffs, their attendance was still horrible.

My idea on this was more direct than what the OP suggested but in a similar vein...force owners whose teams finish in last place in their division for more than X seasons to sell.  This should appeal to all the owners, as it makes the overall league product better, and therefore better able to generate larger TV contracts and gate receipts.  It isn't too harsh a punishment if you make that number at least three years, as that gets you outside the impact of a major injury or one bad signing.  While this wouldn't stop one year tank jobs like the Lakers did this year after Kobe got hurt, it would prevent the Philly-style multi-year tank job that alienates fans.

I think there should be a provision to prevent the single-year tank job too, but not sure what that should be.  I liked the 'wheel' idea that was kicking around before this season.  Another thing that could be done is to base draft position on a three-year rolling average (e.g. you take the overall record for the last three years and average it).  That would prevent what happened the year the Spurs landed Duncan, when they stunk for one year based on an injury to a star player, and would ensure that the bad teams get better picks than the team that just has, whether by circumstance or on purpose, one bad season.   I like the idea that was proposed in this thread of expanding the lottery to more than just the top three slots too, as that adds more risk for a tanking team. 

On the question of season ticket holders, it's not that easy.  There are often multi-year waiting lists to get them for good teams.  If you give up your tickets every time the team is bad, you risk not being able to get them back when the team is good, or getting much worse seats than you had.  Also, season tickets are somewhat of an investment.  Unless you plan to attend every home game yourself, you can sell some of your tickets on an exchange and make your money back.  If the team is doing well, you obviously get a lot more money for each ticket than you do if the team is obviously trying to lose every game. 

Anyway, my $.02

-V

The point to sports is to win CHAMPIONSHIPS, not to win a few extra meaningless regular season games.  If your team is not a contender and doesn't have the players that could realistically be in the core of a contender then you are just wasting time.   Winning a few extra games here and there, doesn't solve that fundamental problem, but losing a few extra games might actually give the team an asset that could be a core piece.

I mean the St. Louis Rams missed out on Andrew Luck by kicking a meaningless FG with under 8 minutes left in the 4th quarter to beat the Cleveland Browns 13-12.  That same year the Colts nearly lost the opportunity to draft Andrew Luck by winning their 14th and 15th games, and almost winning their 16th game.   Losing sucks, but losing correctly can yield much greater results than winning meaningless games.  It isn't just basketball that this idea works.  It works in all sports, you just see the greatest effect in basketball because of the nature of the game.

[PhoSita]

I guess the simplest way to put it, Moranis, is that people would like "strategic losing" to have a much smaller role in the pursuit of winning CHAMPIONSHIPS.

[D.o.s.]

I would much rather watch a 50 win team for 10 years that never made it past the ECF than a team that spent 5 years tanking only to make it to the Finals.

[loco_91]

I made a proposal last year that I still like better than anything else. The basic idea is for bad teams to swap picks before the beginning of the season, so that then they can only benefit another team by tanking.

-Prior to season, teams may trade first-round picks with each other (other assets may also be included)
-When season begins, any team that hasn't traded its pick is ineligable for the lottery (so they can pick 4th at best), and they also become ineligable if they trade to get back their own pick

Bad teams will trade with bad teams, thus getting high picks. So this doesn't solve front-office tanking prior to the beginning of the season, as you can trade away your good players and increase the trade value of your pick. But it does solve tanking during the season; gone will be the days of fans rooting for their team to lose, instead you get to root for some other team to bottom out.

[D.o.s.]

Hmmmmmmmmm.

So you're still doing the seeding of the picks normally (sorry if I don't follow I'm working on like 3 hours of sleep) beyond the lottery, but the actual percentages of the top three change towards teams that have swapped first rounders.

I think I like it?

[danglertx]

As to why tanking is bad, you can't have ten teams trying to win, ten teams trying to lose, and ten in the middle.  That makes for a horrible league.  It hurts the game, it hurts the league, it hurts the fans.  Maybe six years down the road the 76ers compete for a title, but more likely they don't and they have alienated a large part of that regions NBA fan base.   You don't just get that back because now you finally drafted a superstar.

Eventually, if it keeps up, it is going to become a Washington Senators/Harlem Globetrotters kind of deal.

[D.o.s.]

As to why tanking is bad, you can't have ten teams trying to win, ten teams trying to lose, and ten in the middle.  That makes for a horrible league.  It hurts the game, it hurts the league, it hurts the fans.  Maybe six years down the road the 76ers compete for a title, but more likely they don't and they have alienated a large part of that regions NBA fan base.   You don't just get that back because now you finally drafted a superstar.

Eventually, if it keeps up, it is going to become a Washington Senators/Harlem Globetrotters kind of deal.

The problem is, though, that the binary that exists in professional basketball (aka winners and losers) isn't one that can be divided from the equation of "this is tanking, and this is not," so most anti-tanking measures that are proposed serve to punish bad teams, which makes them worse, which actually does create the Generals/'Trotters phenomenon you're suggesting.

[PhoSita]

I would much rather watch a 50 win team for 10 years that never made it past the ECF than a team that spent 5 years tanking only to make it to the Finals.

Call it the "LA Dodgers vs Boston Red Sox" distinction.

[PhoSita]

The problem is, though, that the binary that exists in professional basketball (aka winners and losers) isn't one that can be divided from the equation of "this is tanking, and this is not," so most anti-tanking measures that are proposed serve to punish bad teams, which makes them worse, which actually does create the Generals/'Trotters phenomenon you're suggesting.

Right.  Which is why, instead of punishing teams for tanking, you provide more incentive to be decent and less incentive to be bad.

The last thing the league should do is punish teams for being decent but not great, which is what the current system does, though it does it inadvertently. 


Why, for example, did the Thunder get to pick ahead of the Celtics in this past draft?  Why did the Thunder get rewarded for missing the playoffs?  Not a big deal, obviously, but the question remains.

[Finkelskyhook]

The best idea I've heard came from Mike Greenburg.

Give the first pick to the best finishing non-playoff team and give the second to the second-best finishing non-playoff team.  etc. 

Tanking is such a gross disservice to fans.  Tickets cost far too much to have the continued  overt dog-and-pony shows by the sixers, knicks, and other tanking teams.

[D.o.s.]

I would much rather watch a 50 win team for 10 years that never made it past the ECF than a team that spent 5 years tanking only to make it to the Finals.

Call it the "LA Dodgers vs Boston Red Sox" distinction.

Nah I don't think any basketball team has the regional cache that the Red Sox do to Boston.