Our boy Ethan has been heard from again...

I thought he'd be done for awhile after the quality RoY missive he penned in April, including such gems as:

Well, he's back (Insider). And this time he's trying to enlighten us that tanking is bad (mmm'kay?), and using GSW (and the pick that became Barnes) to do so. He then asserts that removing draft pick protections would rid the NBA of this dastardly virus. Unfortunately, he attempts to use his version of logic to do so, and in turn ends up vomiting out a junior-varsity ripoff of Jay Caspian Kang's great (though I disagree with the results) writeup on Grantland from last year. It's not even that original--what GSW did fails to even remotely meet the "integrity" issue that was written about in 2006 by Sam Smith in the MIN tank game.
Let's go step-by-step on this one:

1. His misunderstanding of the philosophy of "tanking"

I can remember a couple of teams being "ridiculed" for tanking (aforementioned MIN in 2006, many of the teams written about in Royce Webb's post here)...but in every case the strategic side also comes out. It really is a tactic, and it's really used by teams, for various reasons. Players are "rested", the infamous "knee tendinitis" makes some inactive, otherwise benign things like "calf strains" end seasons with 10 games left, et cetera. In fact, last year the Sporting News (hardly some BleacherReport wannabe) ran the following headline:

And at least one GM was quoted as saying:

2. Blazers trade vs. GSW trade
Strauss (and Kang, in April 2012) makes a big deal of GSW's trade of Ellis and Udoh for an injured Bogut. However, GSW made the move for long-term gains (I think most in POR would beg for the opportunity to trade for the type of C that we saw in the playoffs from Bogut, as well as opening up room for Klay Thompson and Curry to play more). Where's the issue with Portland trading away an All-Star for one of the protected picks that Ethan's harping over (and getting the RoY because of it)? Is it ok when WAS or POR or CLE does it, but when GSW does it (and makes the 2nd round the next year, on the strength of their long-term strategy paying off) it's "ridiculed"? Who (other than Ethan) is saying that GSW ruined the integrity of the game over a 1/3-season stretch last year?

3. "The #1-#3 picks are not yours"
Another of his reasons for wanting protections removed is that CLE had only 25% chance of maintaining the #1 pick, while the #8 slot had 80% chance of 8th or better.

Um, sure? But the worst team has a 100% chance of having a Top 4 pick. The #2 team has a 88% chance. The #3 team has a 70% chance.
And yes, tanking is absolutely about an improved chance in a raffle. With pick protection, it just adds an element of "you're going to get nothing at all" to it. If not, then why would teams with no picks being traded away ever do the things Kang wrote about:

And that's just from one week in 2012, boys and girls.

4. "It wasn't for the #1 pick, so why allow it?"

First, this is ridiculous on its face. The Warriors had just about the same chance as the Blazers did to get the #1 pick in 2007, more than CLE did in getting Kyrie Irving last year or CHI getting Derrick Rose in 2008. In fact, since the lotto went to 1000 combinations in 1999, more teams have won the #1 from 7th-position or later than those who have had #1 position. So there's that.
Additionally, assuming that GSW was tanking, it's not ok for them to do so for 27 games or so, but it is acceptable for teams like WAS and CHA because they at least had the decency to do it for an entire season? "How dare you trade Monta Ellis for a #1-pick center, when you could just be starting Bismack Biyambo with integrity!?!?"

I'd imagine that doing so (and giving you a chance to draft one of the best 37 players available and sign them to a 4-year deal with RFA protections) outweighed the outcome of finishing with the 8th- or 9th- or 10th-best record and not having that chance. I could be wrong, but it seems like that's a strategic move that doesn't have anything to do with whether the pick was #1 or not.
We've done this exercise before, but here are the last 12 #3 picks. Tell me which ones you wouldn't want to have signed for the first 8 years of their career:
Beal, Kanter, Favors, Harden, Mayo/Love, Horford, Morrison (fine, you got one, Charlotte), Deron, Gordon, Melo, Dunleavy, Gasol
Heck, let's use the #7 pick! Not quite as prestigious, but would YOU like to have the first 8 years of these players, or nothing:
Barnes, Biyambo (thanks again, Charlotte), Curry, Gordon, Brewer, Foye/Roy, Villanueva, Deng, Hinrich, Nene?
Why, if the difference is losing a couple of games here or there, would you want to give up a cheap, high-probability-of-talent player when you don't have to? There's a reason for the protections.

5. "This is something new?"

a) You can't have it both ways. You just said it's ok ("Sure.") if it's for a player who has a "shot" to be a Hall of Famer, but not for a mediocre starter. Which side of that spectrum is someone that "help(ed) reinvigorate their franchise"?
b) Or if so, is that like how the Blazers lost their last 13 games in a row, in order to secure the right to keep their Top 12-protected pick? Where's the outrage there?
Additionally, where is the counterargument? That if protections had been used, CLE doesn't have Kyrie Irving? That if Billy King hadn't have thought that the 2012 draft was a "3-player draft" he might have Barnes, or Lillard, or Drummond, or some other young player that could be contributing rather than paying $40M for Crash Wallace to ride the bench as Lillard's winning RoY? (Or even using it as a way to maneuver a trade for Dwight?) In other news, Billy just signed a 3-year extension. So what do I know?

The lotto was created in large part due to HOU's tank job in 1984. After Orlando won (Chris Webber) with the best record in the lottery, making it less important to try to have a poor record, the NBA revised the tiered-combinations system in order to increase the potential for the worst records to win--thereby re-creating reasons to tank. For instance, the 8th-slot in 1993 had roughly half the chance (7.58% vs. 16.67%) of the top slot to win. Today, it's 1/10th the chance (2.8% vs. 25%). Tanking is incentivized, and it's removing the lottery, NOT removing pick protections, that will make it less so.

I don't know who Ethan Sherwood Strauss has pictures of in order to keep getting published by ESPN, but the quality and logic of his "commentary" does not justify the infinitesimal share of my Insider dues that are going to him.