To this point I've been an observer of this thread, not a participant.
At this juncture, the only outstanding issue regarding tanking is whether the Commissioner will do something about it and, if so, what? Stern himself has tacitly admitted that tanking is a concern by repeatedly referencing "competitiveness issues" evident at the end of the season and noting his intention to look at the draft lottery and consider changes.
See below:
Yes, they do. And they are pretty open about it. Discussions of "tanking" are open and frequent in the sports pages of the bad teams, because it is so obvious. Suddenly, the best players aren't on the court as much as before, or at all. The stars stop playing through injuries. The coaches stop going all out in close games. Vegas odds makers start taking the "tanking factor" into account when setting the odds, and gamblers do likewise when deciding on their bets. Nobody seems to care, especially the fans who pay outrageous amounts to see the crummy teams play. They generally support and encourage the tanking; they want to see some good teams in their home city before they die. Former Boston Celtics coach Doc Rivers told the Boston Herald that after one late season victory when the Celtics were, as this year, competing for the bottom slot, he received an e-mail from a fan that saying, "Great job. Now quit it!" Rivers, who was an NBA player himself, asserts that tanking games in pursuit of ping-pong balls is epidemic and has been for more than a decade.
This season it was more blatant than usual, because the upcoming draft pool is widely regarded as the best and deepest in many years. Thus the team that picks first will continue to have first shot at the better players in every round, in a draft when potential stars may still be available in later picks. The pressure comes, as Doc Rivers related, from fans but even more from the front office. Most basketball teams are dependent on pre-sold tickets; the late-season impact of losing is minimal. Off season sales will depend less on the W-L record of the team than its prospects for being better, and that will be largely determined by the draft. A coach who keeps trying to win may find himself a coach no longer.
www.ethicsscoreboard.com/list/nba.htmln response to my post last Thursday on NBA teams purposefully losing games to increase their odds of drafting Greg Oden or Kevin Durant (a post that generated some wonderful reader comments and posts on other websites), George Mason University law professor and Volokh Conspiracy contributor Todd Zywicki asked me the following question:
Why do you think it is that the "tanking" concern seems to arise uniquely with respect to the NBA? There seems to be no concern about tanking in the NFL for instance and it is not uncommon to see a team spring an upset the last week of the season and knock them down a few spots in the draft.
sports-law.blogspot.com/2007/04/why-does-tanking-occur-in-nba-but.htmlTOM: I knew that we could do it. Here we are in the final week of the NBA season and we’re still talking hoops. It’s been an interesting season and the big theme of the old NBA winter dance has been injuries. Too many to even get into. But, if we had to throw a winter formal and assign a dress code, it would be formalwear since most players bought enough Big & Tall sport coats and matching trousers to insulate my one-bedroom apartment for those oh so chilly New York twilights. Another great theme of this fleeting NBA season has been, of course, tanking. Yes, we all know about Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. And they certainly seem like fine fellas worth tanking for. In fact, I find myself to be a little less productive each day at work in order to do my part in getting more ping pong balls for my lottery bound team. But let’s look at the constructive side of this practice. Next year we are going to be lucky enough to see Oden and Durant play 82 games in the Association. Yeah, that’s going to be fun. It’s also been the year of Team Lake and Lorenzo. Sure, we’ve made some questionable calls, but we did have some good times. I don’t know if I enjoyed Guy’s cautionary tales of traveling with young children, or the discovery of cheerleaders blogging more, but the playoffs are here and if there is one thing that Guy and I agree on, it’s that the Mavs are primed to win the championship this year. Right, Guy?
www.nba.com/fantasy/features/ayfr_070413.htmlNB: That's on NBA.com. If tanking were a complete fallacy, trust me, Lord Stern wouldn't let that go on his website.
Tanking is like flopping. It's unquestionably unethical, and it cannot mesh with any noble spirit of competition. But as long as the NBA has a system in place to reward it, it's going to happen. In fact, if you're an NBA coach, it's irresponsible to your employer not to do it. If you don't, you're giving everyone else an immediate competitive advantage over you.
That said, you and I may consider it poetic justice that the two biggest tankers, the Celtics and the Grizzlies, were the two teams most harshly punished by the ping-pong balls Tuesday night. The Grizzlies were in the best position in the lottery with a 25% chance at the top pick, and the Celtics were right behind them with a 19.9% chance. And now, in a draft with two superior talents, the Grizzlies and Celtics are picking 4th and 5th, respectively.
www.aolsportsblog.com/2007/05/24/the-debriefing-tanking-is-an-unfortunate-fact-of-nba-life/Stern would like the owners to talk about the current weighted lottery, which gives teams with the worst records the best chance of selecting No. 1. He said he likes the system but wasn't happy with the way some teams played down the stretch.
"I haven't spoken to a lot of owners," Stern said. "On the end of the season and what teams do competitively, I think we should look at the lottery system and see whether it can be improved. I believe that."
msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/6840162NB: That's Lord Stern voicing concerns about tanking. He calls it "what teams do competitively" but it's tanking all the same.