Tanking

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Tanking

Postby Dee4Three on Thu Apr 19, 2018 1:47 am

Glad this stuff is coming out. From Cuban's dinner, to Chicago's antics after the all-star break, to this.

It's really sad. I mean, we know it's going on, and it's been going on for a long time, but to see it so out in the open really hurts the league in my opinion. Whats even more sad, is it's become a joke amongst most fans, they think it's funny. But in reality when you look at the big picture, it's a big problem.

https://sports.yahoo.com/report-tanking-nba-owner-caught-berating-coach-teams-late-season-win-003045293.html


Apparently, an NBA owner got angry with a coach this season for trying too hard in a game that his team won. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski noted that instance in his podcast, which was picked up on by a keen Reddit user.



“I never heard more talk from front office executives’ frustration with coaches who were winning games that they didn’t want them to win. And owners, I know of an instance of an owner berating, really berating his coach here in the last several weeks of the season for going in and beating a pretty good team on the road, going ‘what are you doing?’ And think about that, that should not be going on.”
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Re: Tanking

Postby Andrew on Thu Apr 19, 2018 4:41 am

There's merit in bottoming out and starting over, and winning games obviously doesn't help that approach, but when it's come to the point where coaches are being chewed out for trying and not intentionally losing games...yeah, it's not a good look. I've always said that tanking is above board as long as it comes down to cleaning house and enduring a tough season or two with a work-in-progress roster being built up from the rubble, but there's got to be effort, and no intentionally throwing games. Maybe the revamped lottery odds will reduce the incentive to tank so blatantly and underhandedly.

Besides, if there are players on the squad you want to keep, you want them to develop a winning attitude and chemistry, not get comfortable with losing. There lies the path to becoming Derrick Coleman.
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Re: Tanking

Postby [Q] on Thu Apr 19, 2018 5:17 am

Did they reform the lottery for this year? I remember they were trying to even odds for the top 6
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Re: Tanking

Postby Jackie Kong on Thu Apr 19, 2018 6:21 am

[Q] wrote:Did they reform the lottery for this year? I remember they were trying to even odds for the top 6

http://www.nba.com/article/2017/09/28/n ... ery-system
New system will take place starting next season.
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Re: Tanking

Postby [Q] on Thu Apr 19, 2018 7:07 am

Cool so they flattened odds for the top 3 and they are drawing for the top 4 spots instead of 3
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Re: Tanking

Postby Andrew on Thu Apr 19, 2018 11:09 am

Yeah, this season was the last chance to tank under the old system.
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Re: Tanking

Postby benji on Thu Apr 19, 2018 10:51 pm

It was the Hawks. They beat the Wizards and Celtics back-to-back in games 80 and 81. And had beat the Jazz a couple weeks earlier. They could have tied Memphis for second worst record without the Wizards and Celtics wins. Tied Phoenix without the Jazz win also.

The new ownership pretty clearly wants rid of Budenholzer too.

So maybe it was Grant Hill. :shhh:
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Re: Tanking

Postby Dee4Three on Fri Apr 20, 2018 6:44 am

But will that really help?

The odds for the remaining participants in the 14-team lottery will be reduced gradually after the top three. For instance, the difference in lottery odds between the first three seeds (14 percent) and the fourth seed (12.5 percent) will be 1.5 percent. The difference between the fourth seed and the fifth seed (10.5 percent) will be 2 percent, and the difference between the fifth seed and the sixth seed (9 percent) will be 1.5 percent.


It will be reduced AFTER the top 3. Could tanking technically be even worse with this rule change, as the poor teams will try to tank even harder in order to drop into the bottom 3 teams?
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Re: Tanking

Postby [Q] on Fri Apr 20, 2018 7:34 am

That's the problem. They didn't blow it up completely by flattening odds for top 6 so the end goal is still there: be in the bottom 3. All this did was give the bottom 2 less of a reason to lose intentionally at the end and it also slightly reduces odds of #1 and top 4 pick
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Re: Tanking

Postby Andrew on Fri Apr 20, 2018 10:17 am

I wonder if this year is something of an anomaly in terms of the number of teams tanking. Usually there's two or three, but not the bottom third of the league.
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Re: Tanking

Postby diamenz on Fri Apr 20, 2018 1:13 pm

the nba really needs to address tanking and flopping. especially flopping.
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Re: Tanking

Postby Andrew on Fri Apr 20, 2018 1:20 pm

Agreed, the attempts to curb flopping have been halfhearted and insufficient.
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Re: Tanking

Postby air gordon on Sat Apr 21, 2018 5:15 am

management tank. not the coaches and players.

and derrick coleman was always going to be a derrick coleman ;)

how do you curb flopping better? other then the players that have tendencies like ilyasova, who falls when the wind blows by. in real time how do the refs catch the flopping?

even elbows to the facial area appear to be mere grazes real time but on replays those are legit. just saying....
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Re: Tanking

Postby [Q] on Sat Apr 21, 2018 5:35 am

There's a big difference between attempting to take a charge and flopping. Guys like Marcus Smart are legitimate floppers. Tons of evidence of this. Some just exaggerate the amount of contact they get without falling But especially when you get into the bigger guys sometimes they are just strong as fuck and there's nothing you can do about it. Ex. Sabonis and Vlade trying to defend against Shaq

You're never going to get rid of tanking because teams will suck every year but if you flatten odds for top 6 or top 10 there is less incentive to lose as much. That allows bad teams to actually try and win without worrying about losing a ping pong ball or two
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Re: Tanking

Postby Dee4Three on Sat Apr 21, 2018 5:54 am

air gordon wrote:management tank. not the coaches and players.

and derrick coleman was always going to be a derrick coleman ;)

how do you curb flopping better? other then the players that have tendencies like ilyasova, who falls when the wind blows by. in real time how do the refs catch the flopping?

even elbows to the facial area appear to be mere grazes real time but on replays those are legit. just saying....


I think certain coaches do help with the tank effort. The direction may come from management to tank (clearly) but the coach is still a willing participant. Hoiberg strikes me as someone who is a "whatever you say" guy, and "its a business" guy, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was more than happy to tank the season away. Rick Carlisle as well.

Stan Van Gundy spoke against it, and I was happy about that. If coaches are willing participants, that means coaches also tank, so coaches are part of the problem.

The coaches for tanking teams are either spineless, greedy, or willing participants. Or, all three.

In regards to flopping, a half-ass effort has been put forth by the league. Remember when they first started the "fining" for it? That lasted maybe a few months, and suddenly we stopped hearing about players getting fines, even with outrageous flops (like that of Pachulia this season). Marcus Smart blatantly flops like a fish all over the floor, he should also be fined. Unfortunately, he gets the benefit of the calls on a lot of them.

It's pretty easy to tell when something is a flop. Also, when they were doing fines for them in that short period, they would review the play after the game and decide at that point whether to fine. In instant replay, you can absolutley tell when a flop occurs, so it's not like they need to decide in real time whether a fine should occur or not.

Either way, it's just another example of the NBA making a fake stance on something, just to make it seem like they are actually doing something about it, similar to the NFL concussion issue. Busting Jodie Meeks for PED use is another example of just something mandatory they have to do in order to make it look like they are enforcing rules/guidlines.

I just saw a quote that I completely agree with. It says, the league doesn't care about teams tanking, they care that people are talking about it. Same with PED use, it's a problem when people talk about it, otherwise it's a look the other way approach.
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Re: Tanking

Postby Andrew on Sat Apr 21, 2018 12:16 pm

Coleman probably was always going to end up walking the path that he did, but the point is that other players shouldn't do the same. He stands as an example of how a bad attitude and lack of competitiveness can end up wasting a lot of talent.

It's a tall order for referees to get every single call right, and frankly, it's not a reasonable expectation. There are some common and obvious tactics when it comes to flopping though, which could feasibly be written into the rules and enforced more consistently. Common tricks like offensive players jumping or running into defenders to initiate the contact and then flailing to exaggerate it could be a non-call, or an offensive foul, the way extending a foot to initiate contact on a jumpshot is now called as such. If there's no lowering of the shoulder or extension of the arm by the offensive player on the perimeter, and the defender falls down like they've been shot, call it a blocking foul or play on.

Basically, don't reward the exaggerated theatrics, either by calling it against them, or by letting play continue. We've seen some good ideas for changes in that regard, like the rip through no longer resulting in free throws (unless a team is over the limit), the aforementioned ruling against sticking out a foot to catch a defender, and so on. More changes along those lines can curb the impact (and ultimately, the frequency) of flopping. Fines don't mean anything to players, who are making a ridiculous amount of money anyway. Remove the benefit of flopping and flailing, and there'll be no point doing it, so it won't be employed as a tactic.
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Re: Tanking

Postby benji on Sat Apr 21, 2018 7:48 pm

The problem with "addressing tanking" is that you're arguing to penalize teams for doing what's the smartest thing to do. Clear out the books and get younger.

Messing with the lottery is stupid because it's seen as the only reason for "tanking" when leagues that don't have anything resembling the NBA's system have the same benefits to "tanking" in their not so draft dominant systems.

"Tanking" is simply the act of committing to an actual rebuild, not spending excessive amounts of resources for marginal wins.

ESPN recently ran an article with a focus on the MLB (with some asides regarding the Sixers whose high finish was not yet known) which a few years ago had the same freak out over teams "tanking" when GMs were shedding the franchises of their anchors. The three teams at the center of those criticisms five years ago are now better known as the leagues last three championship teams.

The influence of a single player (let alone stockpiling multiple ones) encourages greater record-related focus in the NBA but all the other reasons remain for The Process. The Sixers refused to anchor on veteran salaries for mild improvements, even this season, to preserve the space for use in the tiny window between the team becoming good and them having to break the bank on Embiid/Simmons/Saric/Furtz/etc. Something that was doubly beneficial when one of their internal developments became someone they had to pay in Robert Covington.

The Bulls didn't really "tank" the season, they did what was smart when they realized they were headed to the lottery and should move Butler and in the process found out they're farther along in their rebuild than they looked before the season. Especially because they got lucky in the Butler trade and imported three key pieces. By clearing out the roster they also got playing time for everybody under the age of 26, most of whom proved they were on track to be at least as good as the guys they were backing up the season before. Except Holiday and Lopez who played more out of necessity than anything. (Although Holiday leading the team in minutes is the best evidence of the team tanking.)

Clearing out the salaries also allowed them to get paid way more than the market seemed to be offering when they moved Mirotic. (Which they could do because Portis and Markkanen proved they were ready earlier. And a week later they added Noah Vonleh.) Taking on the Pelicans contracts (which Asik aside they immediately dumped) meant they got a first round pick out of it instead of second rounders. A first rounder that had lottery potential until the last week of the season too.

If I had any criticism of the Bulls last season, it would be dropping Willie Reed so quickly. Though they may be resigned to simply paying out the rest of the Lopez/Asik/Felicio deals which left him as too many bigs despite being arguably the best player of the four for the team. Ideally, they'd have kept him while crossing fingers that they could flip Lopez to a team desperate for him like the Pelicans were for Mirotic.

Compare the Lakers infinitely smarter move last season to give a one year deals to Pope versus paying $17 million a year for an already over his prime Deng to play a position they already had too much youth at a year sooner. (Notice that all of Magic's deals starting with Lou Williams two days after he took over, were moving players unlikely to be in the Lakers rotation two years from now, to get expiring contracts/clear space and more draft picks.)

Utah made it back into the elite by tearing down and building from within, then leaping on opportunities. Boston spent half the season relying on the internal developments over acquisitions. Indiana fell backwards into this when it seemed like they were helping the Thunder out, only the Thunder didn't play any better this year. Minnesota and Denver both rebuilt internally while positioning themselves to take on Butler-Gibson/Milsap as those extra pieces. Portland would similarly count except they wasted so much cash on marginal players when they forgot to ask Aldridge his plans. The Clippers traded their biggest name player for the last decade in the MIDDLE OF THE SEASON and are in prime position regarding Jordan's impending FA unlike a few years ago.

Even Phoenix is arguably doing the right thing while lucking into last place, moving Bledsoe for what became Elfrid Payton is smart, especially when you remember they have Brandon Knight already under contract. And the fact that after dealing Bledsoe and waiving Monroe, Tyson Chandler and Jared Dudley were the only players on the team older than 26. Four of the teams' most common starters were under 22. Payton is 23. TJ Warren is the old man at 24. That's why a Budenholzer wants in. It's the same team he started putting in place in Atlanta until he got all-but-fired twice then chewed out by the new ownership.

The Spurs have operated on this model for a long time, they've just covered it up at the top of the roster until someone like Danny Green suddenly "appears" out of nowhere on two Finals runs. Then this season the Kawhi situation basically revealed it clearly. The Warriors never stopped this method of building even after getting first Bogut, then signing Iguodala and, later, Durant. All the minutes they gave this season to Cook, McCaw, Looney, and Bell are because they're keeping one eye on the clocks of not only guys like West, Iguodala, Pachulia and Livingston but also Durant and Curry who are about to hit 30. Even the Raptors historic season was based on their young bench!

One of the Cavs problems, like the Heat when LeBron was there, is that until the second half of this season, they were prone to patching over with marginal veterans despite all their success stories being internal developments that they didn't need to re-prop up with new duct taped pieces every season.

The Sixers got extra lucky because injuries doubled up their gains, but "The Process" was how good teams that don't have FA's dropping into their laps have rebuilt for ages, it's been the Spurs model. The Sixers "tanked" because unlike what should probably be called the Knicks model (and potentially the Kings model) that "anti-tankers" advocate, they didn't panic sign a bunch of marginal veterans who wouldn't be with the team when Embiid healed, instead they churned through a bunch of cheap crap and wound up with a star in Covington out of it. Then once they got all their youth together finally, they lost another consensus number one pick for the entire season pretty much, generally only signed role players like Redick, and still shot to the top of their conference and may rampage even more so through the playoffs.

The one to watch now, is what Mitch Kupchak and Michael Jordan do with the Hornets. Kupchak being fresh off that glorious Deng deal and Jordan having splurged on surrounding pieces thinking the team was on the cusp on the East. Especially considering the way forward involves dumping their best player to move a disaster contract (before they can be conned into giving said best player his own) and also probably pulling the plug on a 24-year old.
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Re: Tanking

Postby air gordon on Sat Apr 21, 2018 11:53 pm

Clearly you dont know what youre talking about. The pels trade was a terrible trade
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Re: Tanking

Postby Jackie Kong on Sun Apr 22, 2018 12:36 am

I think what Silver tried to address with the new Lottery system was extreme tanking rather than tanking itself. There is a chance tanking might get worse with the new system if you ask me but he probably wants to avoid a new 76ers sort of tanking.
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Re: Tanking

Postby benji on Sun Apr 22, 2018 1:20 am

air gordon wrote:Clearly you dont know what youre talking about. The pels trade was a terrible trade

Look I agree that Mirotic was a far better asset than the player I will compare him to, and I would love to have kept him to soak up usage, but turning a 26 year old who's about to come off his rookie deal into $12 million a year when you're overloaded with talented youth at the position into a near lottery first round pick when the Knicks had turned MEGASTAR Melo into a second round pick (ironically, the one the Bulls sent to OKC with Gibson and McDermott) dealing with a similar desperate team in a league wide trade market that's collapsed was a hell of a shrewd move considering the teams time table.

also yes, i figure this is delicious sarcasm here but i haven't been around as much lately so i don't know immediately what righteous opinions you've been laying on the fair weather fans who have no concept of the long term nor how trades actually work in markets
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Re: Tanking

Postby benji on Sun Apr 22, 2018 1:43 am

Jackie Kong wrote:I think what Silver tried to address with the new Lottery system was extreme tanking rather than tanking itself. There is a chance tanking might get worse with the new system if you ask me but he probably wants to avoid a new 76ers sort of tanking.

You mean having your draft picks get injured or go kaput seemingly randomly every year? (Or have to wait a year for them in Saric.)

Now it's true, the Sixers could have played Noel, Embiid and Simmons all late in the year before they actually played, but it's stupid if the league forces that when they can instead have the guy skip the 15 games for a doomed team, then come back next season and be ready to go. And both Noel and Embiid got hurt twice before getting on the court. And Embiid is so good that they're still being conservative with him rather than risk it too soon.

The thing that the Sixers did that pissed everyone off, and the league intervened to overturn the owners and force them to hire a different GM, was refuse to sign up a bunch of veterans and play them for no reason until they could actually help the team. (see: this offseason's splurge on Redick and Amir...then trading to get Ilyasova back after he fit in well the year prior) Instead they threw the bargain unguaranteed deals around like candy to churn through as many players as possible to see how many were eventually worth keeping, a surprising number of whom are still on the team actually, and one who became a star in Covington.
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Re: Tanking

Postby air gordon on Sun Apr 22, 2018 2:01 am

got eem haha

i suppose the suns are on the positive tank list since they aren't giving out more bad contacts. notable misses on Len and Bender (maybe premature eval on the latter but he had a 0 usg game in 32mins played lol) and good ol' andrew's aforementioned derrick coleman environment
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Re: Tanking

Postby benji on Sun Apr 22, 2018 2:41 am

crazy thing is Len is still only 24, and he's gotten significantly better then last two years

bender and chriss you might as well keep plugging away with until something better comes along because they've played two seasons and will still start next season at age 20, Josh Jackson is older than both of them by like eight months

their guaranteed star in Booker is 21, actually he's only like a month older than Jackson

since they need 12 guys anyway and those are all on rookie contracts, you might as well keep em around, alan williams is 25 and the rest of his deal isn't guaranteed

brandon knight is only 26 too! so even his $14 million a year doesn't hurt you, especially on a team that needs someone to come off the bench and fire up shots blindly

chandler and dudley are the only other guys over the age of 24 making over $6 million next season, a combined $24 million for a 35 year old and 32 year old who probably get waived so they can go sign up with the Cavs or some other team that loves old veterans

they're doing The Process, just none of their youngsters are missing entire seasons and none of them are probably as good as Embiid or Simmons, drafting like 4th and 5th over and over takes some time to build up a roster, as the Suns found in their first decade of existence (and similarly again in the late 1980s when they "won" Ed Pickney (#10), William Bedford (#6), Armen Gilliam (#2), and Tim Perry (#7) in their four year lottery trip!)
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Re: Tanking

Postby Jackie Kong on Sun Apr 22, 2018 2:58 am

I think Silver was mostly upset with 76ers record 28 games losing streak. They didn't really need to be that bad or lose that many games on purpose to secure 1st round pick odds.
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Re: Tanking

Postby benji on Sun Apr 22, 2018 3:21 am

Once again, this presupposes there was something they were supposed to be doing other than losing with the roster they had available. (And beyond that they lost otherwise winnable games on purpose rather than just being terrible.)

Notably, after Colangelo took over, the team didn't change The Process one bit, they actually traded or consigned to purgatory BOTH of the teams All-Rookie First Teamers from the two years prior, and went 24-87 in games Joel Embiid didn't play in. That's an 82 game record of 18-64, basically unchanged from when Hinkie's just horrible beyond the pale criminal regime was in power.
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