When Mark Cuban admitted that the Mavericks were tanking games, he was fined $600,000 by the NBA. So you tell me—is tanking wrong, even by the NBA’s standards, or is it perfectly ethical, as you’re saying?
Being a team that gets lucky almost always seems to be the way non-destination teams win, though. Like you said, Milwaukee, Denver. They got lucky. Each got a title. Toronto got lucky with their Kawhi trade. Otherwise you have GS, LA, Miami, Boston, and Cleveland being the outlier that lucked in to a top 2 player of all time. What small market teams "tanked properly" like you keep on repeating? Even S.A., the only other small market team really in the past 20 years got a ton of luck because David Robinson got hurt, as well as Sean Elliot. They didn't intentionaly tank. Robinson missed the beginning of the season, first 18 games or so. Why didn't they do the right thing and tank and keep him out? They brought him back, he broke his foot, and they got super lucky it was in the Duncan draft year . Washington had 1, 6, 3, and 3 tanking properly and they're still irrelevant 15 years later. We tanked properly for Roy, Aldridge, Oden. No title. No luck either. It seems like you have repeated all year that THIS IS THE WAY. But where are the examples where it worked for these small market teams?
Everyone knew San Antonio was tanking. Every discussion about it at the time was a chuckle and a wink. "Yeah we know what's going on there..." Toronto didn't get lucky with the Kawhi trade. They had assets to trade for him. They made their own luck by having enough assets to make that trade and compete after making the trade. A lot of those assets were obtained in the draft. Boston definitely built most of their talent base through the draft. They had assets from tanking which allowed them to land the big trades they did when they got Garnet. I discussed that in an earlier post. Multiple years of high draft picks. Multiple years of multiple first round draft picks. Oklahoma City is absolutely loaded. Through the draft. There are no guarantees. But if you control what you can control you can build enough assets to take advantage of situations when they arise. Even if you do that as a non-destination team you still have to overcome a lot of bad luck that tends to happen to non-destination teams in the NBA. So yes, I've said this many times all season. I've also backed it up many times all season.
Robinson broke his foot. If he didn't, and Elliot wasn't hurt, then they're not getting Duncan. Yes they threw in the towel. When their star broke his foot. They didn't start the season looking to tank. And if they did, like I said, they would have sat Robinson with his back injury instead of bringing him back in December. So yes, it's the most famous. But no broken foot, no Duncan. Unless you think they lied about the foot? Toronto traded Derozan, Poetl and a top 20 protected pick. They didn't tank for Poetl. They didn't tank for Derozan. They got lucky that Kawhi and SA had a huge falling out and they got a young star so cheap. Who else did they deliberately tank for? The right way? They drafted Siakim 27th. They gave up a 1st for Lowry. Boston traded Ryan Gomes(2nd rounder), Gerald Green(18th overall), Al Jefferson(15th overall) and 2 1sts for Garnett. Sorry, and Sebastian Telfair. The lone lottery pick. They didn't tank to get any of those assets. They got lucky that friend of the show Kevin McHale was running things in Minnesota. I've yet to see the teams that have done a prolonged tank like you've advocated succeeding from it. And these aint it.
And I’ll add, since I saw OKC was mentioned as loaded, they wouldn’t be the team they are today if it wasn’t for SGA, and they got him via a trade from the Clippers for Paul George. Take SGA away from OKC, and they wouldn’t have close the record they have right now.
