Tanks but no tanks

One of the best quotes about sports is Herm Edwards’ oft repeated statement, “You play to win the game.”  It’s a great quote because it’s true; you may say you’re doing it for the exercise, to build camaraderie, because it’s a way to reduce stress, but the fact is, if winning wasn’t the reason to play the game, you wouldn't keep score.

That is why I think some people getting overly worked up when they see someone breaking the code and not trying to win.  There is reportedly a great deal of animosity aimed at the Philadelphia 76ers, who seem to be going out of their way to not win basketball games.  In the parlance of sports, they are “tankers,” a team that intentionally loses in order to have a better chance of getting a high draft pick before the next season.

The main source of annoyance seems to be the fact that in the 2014 draft the 76ers’ first pick was Joel Embiid, an excellent player who just happened to get seriously injured at the end of the college season, meaning that the 76ers will be playing without him this season.  Their other first round pick, Dario Saric, is committed to playing in Europe for two years.  So the worst team in the league used two top ten picks on players who can’t help them immediately, increasing the odds that they will get a high draft pick next year.

There’s the rub—the phrase “increasing the odds.”  The NBA knows something about tanking, and so invented a lottery system to discourage the practice.  Being bad doesn't guarantee you a number one pick, only a higher probability of getting a high pick. But the 76ers’ action seem to demonstrate that the NBA didn't go far enough, and some teams (and apparently commissioner Adam Silver) wanted to go further. They proposed “reforming” the lottery to give the worst teams a lower chance of a great pick, and some better teams a shot at a pretty good draft pick.

But there are two problems with what the NBA proposed.  First, it doesn't eliminate the incentive for tanking.  If you are willing to tank for the certainty of getting the number one pick, you’ll also tank to increase your odds at getting the number one pick.  If you are a lousy to mediocre team, you don’t have a lot of options: try hard for an 8^th seed and get blown out in the first round of the playoffs, or sink down and increase the chances of snagging a future superstar for next to nothing.

The second problem is that weakening the NBA Draft undermines the very purpose of the draft—to equalize the distribution of talent by giving bad teams the chance to force the best players coming out of college to play for them.  Under the current system, since 1985 only four times has the team with the worst record gotten the number one pick. That means the lottery system has failed 25 out of 29 times. If the point is to give teams with bad records a chance to become good, you have to reward the worst teams whether they are bad through incompetence, bad luck, or design.

If you want to discourage tanking, the draft is not the way to do it.  It probably isn't feasible, but the way to stop tanking is something akin to relegation, where for example if you “win” one of the NBA’s four worst records three years in a row, the franchise would be kicked out of the league and replaced by the best D-League team.  Or take away revenue sharing money from teams that don’t spend it productively, or create a rookie contract system that means winning the lottery equals paying big bucks to an unproven college player. The draft is for re-distributing talent, not punishing teams for not trying.

Besides, “tanking” is subjective.  The Spurs have been penalized by the NBA for not playing their best players in every game; is that “tanking” or merely an excellent strategy for not over-working players? Are fans of the Charlotte Hornets or Orlando Magic that disappointed when the visiting 76ers lose by 20 points late in the season?  And it’s not like TNT will be broadcasting a Sacramento Kings/Philadelphia 76er match on Christmas Day.

The issue isn't settled, and most NBA insiders expect the league to try and solve the tanking problem again sometime during the season. Thank God our best minds are trying to solve this problem instead of developing a vaccine for Ebola.