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You might listen if it's Pau, but they didn't in here. Because Pau has said things like that, and the response was exactly what you see above: "Man, I don't care about what a Pau has to say. "Yes players like to have the ball to feel more motivated
Think about how you feel when you play pick up Basketball and you don't get the ball
But with that said it's the NBA, if you can't make shots and finish, shut the *%#+ up.....If it's Pau Gasol yeah I'll listen but Lin and Boozer y'all are trash bin like players who don't play any defense
The Lakers are going to lose this year even if Kobe goes all Magic Johnson again, basically this season is just I'm here for the Kobe
Did you guys watch the game last night? Honestly. Criticizing Kobe's shot selection this season is one thing, but specifically citing last night is ridiculous.
Boozer got 13 shots. He made 3. On what team would Boozer be able to shoot 13 times. Jeremy looked lost last night. He constantly just looks for Kobe.
LinkTanking Is Good
In today’s NBA, we are told that tanking is bad. That it’s damaging to the product. That it’s an affront to fans and sponsors. Even players take offense to the mere suggestion that tanking is a “thing.”
In a vacuum, the point of sport is to win. Tanking teams clearly aren’t trying to win, and some might even say that those teams are actively trying to lose. Spin it however you like, of course; maybe those teams are making subtle efforts to avoid winning games, maybe they are making little effort to win games. Either way, these teams are ******** on the sacred spirit of competition, and therefore, tanking is bad. Or so we are told, anyway.
Not everyone feels this way, though.
Some fans are indifferent — mostly those that realize and understand that every single season, there are going to be teams that are awful. There’s nothing to be done about it, it just is. It’s simple math, really; for one team to be good, another team has to be bad. That’s the nature of competition. Should it matter, therefore, if the bad teams are bad on purpose or just bad because of ineptitude, bad luck or otherwise? The Milwaukee Bucks were trying to win games last year, they just failed miserably, ending up with a worse record than the Philadelphia 76ers, who by nearly all accounts were trying to lose games like it was going out of style. The results were the same despite the (presumed) intent.
The current NBA draft lottery system rewards bad teams with high draft picks. Naturally, teams that tank — excuse me, teams that allegedly tank — are simply working within the league’s operative framework to acquire high-value assets. They aren’t breaking any rules, they’re playing by them.
So that’s where things stand on tanking; you’re either against it or indifferent. Unless you’re me. I’m here to be the NBA’s version of Gordon Gekko.
Tanking, for lack of a better word, is good.
First and foremost, let’s establish one inexorable truth: Tanking is in the long-term interest of bad teams. Consider the aforementioned Sixers. Over the last two seasons, GM Sam Hinkie has gutted the team, spending three consecutive lottery picks on players who would miss all or most of their rookie seasons, trading relatively valuable rotation players for second-round picks, and avoiding roster additions that would improve the team as if they were some sort of incurable plague.
But what if Philadelphia had approached things with a different strategy?
Instead of drafting Nerlens Noel at No. 6 last year, what if they drafted Ben McLemore. And instead of drafting Joel Embiid at No. 3 and trading No. 10 pick Elfrid Payton for No. 12 pick Dario Saric, what if they kept Payton and drafted Aaron Gordon at No. 3. And instead of trading Spencer Hawes for some riff-raff and two second round picks, what if they had held kept him and used some of their ample cap space to retain him?
Yes, what if?
For starters, the 76ers would undoubtedly be a “better” basketball team — even if only slightly. Instead of a projected 15- or 18-win season, they’d probably be expected to win 20–23 games. (Yay, wins!) But what the anti-tanking lobby won’t acknowledge, what it can’t acknowledge, is that those extra wins would only serve to harm the franchise in the long run. The difference between winning 16 games and winning 20 games is meaningless in the short term — in any term, really. The team would still suck, the fans and sponsors would still be unhappy, and the playoff race would still over by the All-Star break.
Philly won 34 games during the 2012–13 season and didn’t come anywhere close to qualifying for the postseason. There wasn’t any viable way to give the 2013-14 team a reasonable shot at the postseason, either, so they reversed course. Instead of trying to be good “then,” they shifted their focus to being good “later.” That meant acquiring high-value assets in the form of high draft picks. And, everyone knows, the way to get high draft picks is to be a bad team. Tanking, undeniably, is acting in the long-term interests of the club.
The 2015-16 76ers, unless they trade any of their recent or upcoming picks, will boast a roster with five lottery picks in three years — in other words, the same type of nucleus that Oklahoma City built into one of the best teams in the league. To argue against tanking is to (indirectly) argue against responsible long-term planning.
Again, tanking is good.
Interestingly, tanking by bad teams is also good for mediocre teams. Where there was once a pseudo-competitive team on the schedule — or a league-average one, at worst — there is now a fairly easy win on the schedule. Tanking teams also ensure that there is one fewer team battling mediocre teams for a playoff spot. Does Atlanta or Charlotte make the playoffs in the East last year if Philadelphia, Boston, and Orlando weren’t punting the season? Maybe, maybe not, but that’s how it went down.
Bad teams tanking is good for the elite teams, too. When a team like the 76ers decides that they’d rather play for lottery picks, that means that they have no interest in pursuing players in free agency that could help them win now. The elite teams then gobble up the talented players they need with less overall competition for those players’ services. Similarly, as Philadelphia did with Hawes and Evan Turner, tanking teams generally look to trade away useful, not-franchise players — especially those on expiring contracts — to obtain future assets, and elite teams, if they have the cap room, are there to take advantage.
Players like Shaun Livingston, Spencer Hawes, Trevor Ariza, Pau Gasol, Vince Carter, and Paul Pierce all signed this offseason for roughly the league-average salary in order to join teams that have a good chance of winning 50 games or more this season. Meanwhile, Philadelphia has a payroll of just $38 million, leaving them with $25 million in cap space. Would Shaun Livingston sign for the Mid-Level Exception in Golden State if Philadelphia were offering him $8 million per season? Does Pau Gasol join Chicago for $7 million and change per season if Philadelphia gives him twice that much? If Philadelphia signs Livingston and Gasol, they surely get to 30+ wins instead of 15, but they still probably miss the playoffs and remain largely irrelevant. For Golden State and Chicago, however, Livingston and Gasol could mean the difference between losing in the second round of the playoffs and reaching the NBA Finals.
With teams sinking farther towards the bottom, the NBA also inevitably becomes more top-heavy, the byproduct of which is more competitive and entertaining playoff series. Did you enjoy five Game 7s in the first round of the playoffs last year? In a roundabout way, you can thank Philadelphia, Orlando, Boston, and all the other teams who decided losing was better for their long-term plans than winning.
The big elephant in the room in all of this are the legion of suffering fans of tanking teams. Nobody wants to pay to watch a losing team, and even fewer people want to watch games if they think the team is losing on purpose. But again, tanking is a long-term plan. Once the team builds around the high draft picks and starts to win again, the fans will come back.
Thunder fans — blue t-shirt lovin’ bunch that they are — don’t seem too upset that the team lost 75 percent of its games in 2008 and 2009. Clevelend fans — now that King James has returned — fans seem quite fine with the fact that their team was bad (and lucky) enough to land three No. 1 picks in a four-year span. The 2007 Celtics tanked aggressively. They used their high draft pick to land a superstar, followed by another superstar, and then sold out all 55 home games the following year (including playoffs) on their way to a title — and I didn’t hear anyone complaining.
You see, fans are actually smart enough to realize what’s going on.
Tanking might not be exciting. It might not make for good television. If your favorite team is doing it, it might make for a few unpleasant seasons. But the ends justify the means. Tanking is good.
Yeah Lin taking 2 shots isnt a good look. I really thought he would add a lil something to the team.
can‘t if kobe shoots like that. not everyones a robert horry. comes in cold and hits game winner like its nothing. lol
dude.was chillest cat on da block
I do not mean to infiltrate this sacred thread with my experiences or opinions in the effort to flame or troll, but what I must say that it is incredibly important to feel included as an athlete, in order to keep your spirits up, then wanting to contribute to winning efforts.
For some bigs, simply touching the ball on possessions, then throwing the pass that leads to a basket, can uplift morale, then spreading confidence and goodwill throughout the team. That big will set the next pick for you, work a bit harder at getting that board, have your back against the opposing team's thug, just by touching the ball, then feeling involved in the offense.
If you have a pass first point man, letting him direct traffic, opening up the floor, allowing him to be a leader, gives him the juice he needs to go after the other team's floor leader, competing as to who will lead his team to the W.
We've all seen it on the playgrounds, high school and in college, those of us who played there.
All it takes is for one guy to want to shoot it all day, in order to suck the life out of a team.
Did you guys watch the game last night? Honestly. Criticizing Kobe's shot selection this season is one thing, but specifically citing last night is ridiculous.
Boozer got 13 shots. He made 3. On what team would Boozer be able to shoot 13 times. Jeremy looked lost last night. He constantly just looks for Kobe.