Schrödinger's Gerbil
Well-Known Member
I think we need to answer two questions to be on the same page in the tanking discussion:
1. What is tanking?
2. What is the goal of tanking?
In the context of the current NBA, and judging by what I hear/read routinely from talking heads, podcasters, blog boys, and social media fans, my answers to these two questions are
1. Intentionally tearing the team down to the studs to accumulate draft picks and build through the draft. (Sitting David Robinson to get Tim Duncan was not a tank by this definition.)
2. Winning an NBA championship (i.e., ringz culture). Creating a perennial playoff team that routinely makes it to the second round or even the conference finals now and then is not enough (i.e., the "treadmill of mediocrity"). Sooner or later, the talking heads, podcasters, etc., will begin beating the drum to tear it all down.
Based on the above, I'm unaware of any team that has successfully tanked, except perhaps, Boston (we can debate this). OKC may prove an exception and, possibly, down the road, San Antonio. But, it seems to me that this strategy, and the accumulation of draft picks, is far more likely to put a team on the road of perpetual sucking or mediocrity (e.g., Washington, Detroit, Orlando, Charlotte, Houston, New Orleans) than it is to put a team on the road to a championship.
I would also like to see a frank discussion about the cost/benefits of tanking. In particular, how many years of sucking are people willing to trade for what is mostly likely, at best, a moderately elevated chance of winning the championship? For example, do Philly fans think that the years of sucking were worth it to make it no further than the second round? (Granted, if Philly had drafted better, the story might be different. But, at the same time, everyone they drafted was a consensus top prospect.)
How would you answer the above two questions? I’m assuming you answer them differently because, as I understand tanking, I don’t see 5-10 successful examples. I don't presume that my answers are the only legitimate ones. However, I think we need some agreement around them to have a productive discussion.
A final observation. My sense is that those people who are skeptical about tanking, who aren’t obsessed with winning a championship, and who would rather watch entertaining basketball year in and out, even if it doesn’t lead to a championship, than endure years of sucking for the possibility of winning a championship tend to be shouted down, patronized, and marginalized by the tanking advocates, not necessarily on this board, but in the overall tenor of the NBA media and social media landscape.
