Game Thread Jan 08, 2026 07:00PM MT: Dallas Mavericks @ Utah Jazz

[fishonjazz]

No, Keyonte did not come from tanking. Making a trade is not tanking, as we saw, the with the players the Jazz got from the trades, they were a perfectly fine team capable of making the playoffs.

Do you think they traded Donovan, gobert, bogey, royce etc to get better or worse?
To me tanking is trying to lose. If you make a trade that you are hoping results in more losing then you just made yourself a tank trade baby

 

[fishonjazz]

To me, you've given the definition of rebuilding. Tanking can be part of rebuilding, but it's not equivalent to it. Rebuilding is much broader. (But no need to have this old argument again.)

If the "rebuilding" moves are done with the intention of losing more games then I don't really see a difference.

If we intentionally lose the rest of our games this season by sitting Lauri and keyonte then we are not tanking we are just rebuilding by giving more minutes and volume to other guys who desperately need more development. Gotta build those other players up as part of our rebuilding.

 

[fishonjazz]

iirc we got the 16th pick that ended up being keyonte George by trading gobert.
I think we traded gobert because we wanted to lose lots of games to get a better draft pick.

I think if we didn't trade gobert then we wouldn't have been tanking in 2023 like we were.

So I think trading gobert was part of tanking.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Do you think they traded Donovan, gobert, bogey, royce etc to get better or worse?
To me tanking is trying to lose. If you make a trade that you are hoping results in more losing then you just made yourself a tank trade baby

Again, the trades they made to get Keyonte did not make them bad enough to call it tanking

 

[fishonjazz]

Again, the trades they made to get Keyonte did not make them bad enough to call it tanking

Tanking is trying to lose games. If you make a trade that you know is making you lose more games and that is part of why the trade was made then you just made a trade to lose games. Trying to lose games is part of tanking imo. If we trade Nurk at the deadline for a second round pick then imo that is tank trade to make the team worse in the short term to be better on the long term. If we trade Lauri at the trade deadline for some lesser players and draft picks them that is a tank trade to get worse in the short term in the hopes of being better long term imo. Just like the gobert trade. We can agree to disagree.

Now I don't think DRAFTING keyonte was a tank move because I think they drafted him hoping that he would make the team better. But I do think the trade that was made to acquire the 16th pick in the 2023 draft was made to make the jazz worse than they were in order to lose more games and get a better draft pick with their own pick. Which is tanking imo (trying to lose more games)

 

[idiot]

Tanking is a tactic. Rebuilding is a strategy. Nobody's end goal is to tank/lose games. The goal is to build better over the long run. Tanking can be a tactic within rebuilding, but it is not the end in and of itself. We traded for the draft pick that became Keyonte, ultimately, not because we wanted to lose games but because we wanted to build for the long run.

 

[fishonjazz]

Tanking is a tactic. Rebuilding is a strategy. Nobody's end goal is to tank/lose games. The goal is to build better over the long run. Tanking can be a tactic within rebuilding, but it is not the end in and of itself. We traded for the draft pick that became Keyonte, ultimately, not because we wanted to lose games but because we wanted to build for the long run.

That's your definition.
My definition is much simpler
Tanking = making decisions that make you worse short term in the hopes that you get better long term.


Tanking can even be applied in unexpected places.
Let's say you are the 5th seed with a game left in the season. You think you match up better with the 3 seed than you do with the 4 seed.
So you make decisions in that last game to be worse for that game (short term) in order to hopefully be better in the playoffs (long term). You tank that game.

I had a friend who would tank his first game of bowling (short term losing)to lower his handicap and then he would play at his best and it would help him win (long term). Totally unethical. Like tanking. But can be effective.

I do agree that nobody's END goal is to lose games. Duh.
Tanking is done in the hopes that you win more games in the end (long term)

 

[fishonjazz]

Here is how Google defines tanking:

Tanking in sports is the practice of intentionally fielding a non-competitive team, often by trading star players for prospects or resting key players, to lose games deliberately and secure a high pick in the upcoming draft, leveraging systems where the worst teams get the best new talent for future success. It's a strategy to rebuild a team for the long term, but it's controversial as it goes against the spirit of competition and can disappoint fans.

 

[HermanG]

That's your definition.
My definition is much simpler
Tanking = making decisions that make you worse short term in the hopes that you get better long term.


Tanking can even be applied in unexpected places.
Let's say you are the 5th seed with a game left in the season. You think you match up better with the 3 seed than you do with the 4 seed.
So you make decisions in that last game to be worse for that game (short term) in order to hopefully be better in the playoffs (long term). You tank that game.

I had a friend who would tank his first game of bowling (short term losing)to lower his handicap and then he would play at his best and it would help him win (long term). Totally unethical. Like tanking. But can be effective.

I do agree that nobody's END goal is to lose games. Duh.
Tanking is done in the hopes that you win more games in the end (long term)

I recommend you use the term tanking like the rest of the world and dont expand it to cover "everything and anything" that makes you worse.

If you define it like that then you cannot properly differentiate it from rebuilding. Only tanking and retooling would exist, and it defeats the purpose of that word even existing.

Tanking = unethical stuff to manipulate W/L
Rebuilding = dismantling current team to build a new team

Some moves are in berween the two, but fair value trades rarely are. There is nothing unethical if you make a trade where you get good return value.

 

[fishonjazz]

I recommend you use the term tanking like the rest of the world and dont expand it to cover "everything and anything" that makes you worse.

If you define it like that then you cannot properly differentiate it from rebuilding. Only tanking and retooling would exist, and it defeats the purpose of that word even existing.

Tanking = unethical stuff to manipulate W/L
Rebuilding = dismantling current team to build a new team

Some moves are in berween the two, but fair value trades rarely are. There is nothing unethical if you make a trade where you get good return value.

See the post after the one you quoted

Sent from my OPD2203 using Tapatalk

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

See the post after the one you quoted

Sent from my OPD2203 using Tapatalk

You fed us AI slop?

 

[fishonjazz]

You fed us AI slop?

Or wikipedia: Tanking in sports refers to the practice of intentionally fielding non-competitive teams to take advantage of league rules that benefit losing teams.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanking#cite_note-1"><span>[</span>1<span>]</span></a> Tanking teams are usually seeking top picks in the next draft, since league rules generally give the highest draft picks to the teams with the worst records in the previous season. Teams that decide to start tanking often do so by trading away star players in order to reduce payroll and bring in younger prospects.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanking#cite_note-WashPost20180302-2"><span>[</span>2<span>]</span></a> While the terms tanking and rebuilding are sometimes used interchangeably, there are differences between the two concepts.

But everyone has their own definitions of tanking.

I have already said mine: Tanking = making decisions that make you worse short term in the hopes that you get better long term. To me tanking is trying to lose. If you make a trade that you are hoping results in more losing then you just made a tank trade

So when I refer to tanking that is what I am referring to. Trading gobert, donovan, bogey, royce, getting rid of snyder, trading conley, sitting healthy players, etc is tanking to me. One of those moves (gobert trade) resulted in the jazz getting the 16th pick in the draft and having Keyonte George on our team. So to me, if the jazz never decide to tank then the jazz dont have keyonte george on their team. So by that logic we got george by deciding to tank. Working it backwards, how did we get Keyonte? With the 16 pick in the draft. How did we get the 16th pick in the draft? By trading Rudy Gobert. Why did we trade Rudy Gobert? Cause we decided it was time to tank.


I mean its the internet, which has everything, so maybe someone can find something out there in the interwebs that says trading a star player for prospects and picks goes against the tactic/strategy of tanking. Idk. To me trading star players for picks and prospects is definitely an aspect of tanking.