continue reading http://nba-basketballs.blogspot.com/2014/12/nba-commish-silver-tanking-what-tanking.html
The topic of tanking in the NBA has been alive and well for years, but it’s really become en vogue with the rebuilding strategy of Philadelphia 76ers‘ general manager Sam Hinkie. When Hinkie took over the Sixers, he started a process of gutting the roster that took about a year before almost the entire squad started to resemble a D-League roster as opposed to a team full of NBA players. While that can appear to be harsh and unfair to the guys in the Sixers’ roster, it’s definitely the perception amongst teams, fans, and pundits.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver told Andy Katz of ESPN that he doesn’t believe any team is trying to lose because players aren’t out there to lose. He cites Philadelphia and says their strategy has been reduced to a headline, but really this is turning into a game of semantics, isn’t it? From ESPN.com:
“I absolutely don’t think any team is trying to lose,” Silver said in an interview with ESPN’s Andy Katz for “Outside the Lines.”
“No player is going out there to lose,” Silver continued. “In terms of management, I think there’s an absolute legitimate rebuilding process that goes on. It’s so hard to win in this league, and it’s so complex.
“I think what’s happened in the case of Philadelphia — their strategy has been reduced into a tweet. This notion ‘be bad to be good.’ … When it gets reduced into a headline, I understand the reaction.”
Nobody actually believes that Michael Carter-Williams and Nerlens Noel are throwing games or not trying their hardest in order to secure the chance to play with Karl Towns, Stanley Johnson, or any of the other highly touted prospects in college basketball. The players and coaches on the Sixers are trying everything they can to secure wins on a nightly basis. The issue isn’t with effort or intent of the players and coaches involved; the issue is with the intent of Sixers’ management.
Under the current system, it behooves bad teams to not put the best product possible on the floor in order to acquire the best lottery odds. Those odds aren’t necessarily all that good in the grand scheme of things, but an advantage in the lottery is still believed to give you the necessary chances to secure a high draft selection. If you’re the worst team in the NBA and lose the lottery completely by not getting a top 3 pick, you’re still guaranteed to slot in at No. 4 in the draft. It’s a straw man argument for the commissioner or anybody to say tanking isn’t happening because players aren’t trying to lose games.
It’s not that the Sixers are actively trying to lose games; the organization just doesn’t care about winning games this season. It was an accusation last season prior to Philadelphia dealing away Evan Turner and Spencer Hawes. After moving Thaddeus Young for a draft pick, selecting two lottery players that won’t play this season, and coming in at around $20 million under the salary cap and $14 million under the salary floor, can Adam Silver honestly say it looks like the Sixers are trying to win games as an organization?
The funny thing about this is there isn’t anything wrong with the team building strategy. It’s a risk to the business of the team because most fans don’t want to pay money to see a team this bad. The Sixers’ reported attendance is about 69 percent of what’s possible in the arena. And if the Sixers’ draft picks over these years of rebuilding and intentionally putting a subpar product on the floor turn out to be great players or key contributors, Philadelphia will be home to some spectacular basketball in a couple of years. But in the interim, we should be honest about the way we phrase what Hinkie and his team are doing.
Not trying to lose is not the same as not trying to win and as we’ve seen with plenty of organizations over decades of the NBA, the front office trying to win games is just as important if not more important than the players on the court wanting to win. The Sixers are singled out in this discussion not because they’re the only team doing it. There are going to be several teams that start sitting players or trying out young guys in order to help them develop while coincidentally dropping some games in the process. It’s a long-term approach that can yield spectacular results when executed properly.
It’s just that the Sixers are the most transparent about this entire process, making them an easy focus of the discussion. Unless the NBA is willing to fix the system by unweighting the lottery or finding an alternative solution to deter “tanking,” some organization is always going to get an accusation of implementing some form of this strategy throughout the rebuilding process. Whichever alternatives are bandied about will undoubtedly bring about slippery slope rebuttals, which are typically time-wasters in the discussion as opposed to actual topics of debate.
I’m with the commissioner on no player actively trying to lose games. The NBA doesn’t have that problem by any means. But do they have 30 organizations trying to win as many games possible this season? Not by the looks of the rosters around the association. That’s fine under the current system, as long as we’re phrasing it in proper context and transparent about the rebuilding process in general.
continue reading http://nba-basketballs.blogspot.com/2014/12/nba-commish-silver-tanking-what-tanking.html
nba basketball 