What's new

The Utah Jazz and Tanking

My opinion is that tanking leads to a culture of losing that is not repaired just by getting a few great picks in the drafts. By the time you get those players, the ones you already have that are worth having don't want to play for you anymore.

Players need to be taught to win, to work within a system, and earn their minutes. I think anything else is a recipe for long term failure.
 
tanking gets you one pick in the draft, not multiple, which proves that you are misrepresenting what anyone was saying.
no one was ever arguing for multiple years of failure.
 
Players can be taught to win, in a system, earning their minutes, and still do that in a culture of competing to win but also with an emphasis on going young that might happen to get a good pick in the process. This has been done by many if not most teams that have reached contender status.
 
Well we can argue about whether a youth movement would make this team better or worse. I've heard convincing arguments on both sides. But, to me, that has nothing to with tanking. Tanking is intentionally not putting your best team on the court ... allowing your team to lose games that it could otherwise win with its current roster. I would hope that the Jazz would never do that, and I would hope that their fans would never hope for that to happen.
 
I think the Jazz have lost some games playing vets too much this season, playing them too many minutes when fresher legs would have given the team a boost, or bringing them back too much too fast when they were coming off an injury.

What if playing 5 guys 40 minutes a game might give you a slightly better chance of winning the next game, but also increases their risk of fatigue or injury, whereas giving some of those minutes to some younger guys gives you a team that will be more balanced, experienced and competitive by the time the playoffs role around?
 
Last edited:
Agreed, this one is way better than my lame thread.

I don't get the analogy. All that stuff sounds awesome. Tanking sounds crappy. What am I missing?

Not a slam on you or your thread. Everyone there was talking about the vitues of tanking and, as you can tell, I can't stand that ****.
 
Tanking doesn't work as teams hope also. The year that Griffin was drafted, the Clippers did not finish with the worst record, the Sacramento Kings did. And the Kings ended up with the 4th overall pick- a stinging slap in the face after the ridiculous season they had just finished. They got lucky and drafted Tyreke but they would have loved Blake. After that happened I figured teams might as well just play since there is no guarantees.
 
We are just saying that this tank would be a special kind of tank. It would be one for the ages. We would sell off all our vets for first rounders. We would be drafting top ten picks for like 3 years straight. All the while giving them all the minutes they deserve. We would basically be building a mega team like no one has seen.
 
i think this is a good year to tank, because we will not have excuse to tank anymore for the next 5 years at least, with young guys growing every year, we will compete better and right now, if we get a good lottery pick like at least 8-9 , or if we get two good picks, then at least we will have some important assets, then we can use them and jefferson, harris in a package to get a really quality pg or sf
 
Tanking doesn't work as teams hope also. The year that Griffin was drafted, the Clippers did not finish with the worst record, the Sacramento Kings did. And the Kings ended up with the 4th overall pick- a stinging slap in the face after the ridiculous season they had just finished. They got lucky and drafted Tyreke but they would have loved Blake. After that happened I figured teams might as well just play since there is no guarantees.

What if we dont take and finish west 9th? we wont have any single chance to win lottery and 14th pick wont make that much of a difference
At least we can raise our chance by tanking
 
I want to see the play offs come to Salt Like City this year. A 14th or 13th pick is no guarantee of even a decent role-player, whilst a good showing like winning two home games against OKC in the first round gives us money and a national exposure that could turn out to be pretty significant. If we show the league that we have something special going on it Utah, free agents would suddenly have to consider us as good opportunities to actually compete for a championship. A PG with the GS pick and two year deals for Steve Nash and Ray Allen would be some sort of best possible scenario for us I think and would certainly be fantastic for me as a fan.
 
Well we can argue about whether a youth movement would make this team better or worse. I've heard convincing arguments on both sides. But, to me, that has nothing to with tanking. Tanking is intentionally not putting your best team on the court ... allowing your team to lose games that it could otherwise win with its current roster. I would hope that the Jazz would never do that, and I would hope that their fans would never hope for that to happen.

We weren't talking about tanking in the sense of intentionally trying to lose by not playing your best players or not installing an offense or defense. We were suggesting trading Harris and AJ for nothing but future pieces and increased draft position. Then try their hardest to win every game.

The most ironic thing about the call to tank the season around here is that The Jazz would probably have nearly the same record if they played, Favors, Kanter and Burks 30mpg and dumped Jefferson and Harris for picks.

Then it's a win/win strategy.

The lakers traded for Kobe

They traded for his draft rights so they basically drafted him. They told the Hornets who to draft at the last minute.
 
:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:Update:
The 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in early March has a thought on how to fix the lottery so teams never feel the need to tank.

I like this idea a lot! What about you guys?

Give the first pick in the draft to the team that wins the most games after being officially eliminated from playoff contention. Then the team with the second highest number of wins gets the second pick. And so on.

https://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/39750/fix-tanking-the-sloan-solution

What I love about this is that it ALWAYS keeps the competition going. Through out the season, teams are trying to get to the playoffs, the second they get eliminated, they have to step it up even MORE to get the #1 pick. Losing will be the opposite of what these teams will want to do. Fans will know this and root even harder for their teams to win more so they can get that #1 pick!

It's literally a win-win situation for every one, fan, team, players....
 
Last edited:
Update:
The 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in early March has a thought on how to fix the lottery so teams never feel the need to tank.

I like this idea a lot! What about you guys?



https://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/39750/fix-tanking-the-sloan-solution

What I love about this is that it ALWAYS keeps the competition going. Through out the season, teams are trying to get to the playoffs, the second they get eliminated, they have to step it up even MORE to get the #1 pick. Losing will be the opposite of what these teams will want to do. Fans will know this and root even harder for their teams to win more so they can get that #1 pick!

It's literally a win-win situation for every one, fan, team, players....

...excellent idea! Would work, too!
 
It gives an edge to the worse teams but also encourages winning. The problem that I see coming up int hat system is that bad teams will tank early then try to turn it on late.

I guess that's the loophole. If a team were to go 0-41, or whatever you have to get to, to be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, then, somehow go 41-0 after that, that team would insure themselves the best pick in the draft.

Honestly, I think all teams, even bad teams, start the season out trying to win...but I guess, even if they DIDN'T and just "tried" to tank the first half of the season, they would at least be "trying" to play amazing basketball at the end of the year, all while other teams are trying their hardest to make the playoffs and whatever. That could only be better for the league. I hate when it gets to the end of the year and a team you need to lose to help you get in the playoffs, goes up against a team that's trying to lose too.
 
In my job/life I have learned that there are almost no limits to what a person will do to get what they want. In this case a high lottery pick.
 
In my job/life I have learned that there are almost no limits to what a person will do to get what they want. In this case a high lottery pick.

I agree with you on that. But, at the same time, the 29 other teams in the league won't just let this crappy team that tanked the first half of the season just walk all over them and suddenly start winning all the time. You would literally have to assemble a Miami super-team that purposefully tanks the first 40-50 games of the year, only to flip the switch just to get a #1 draft pick?

Logically, it doesn't make sense. If you have a good enough team to win now, why not start the season winning, win at the end, get in the playoffs, and win a championship?? I guess, technically, a team could sit a "LeBron, Wade, Bosh" tandem for the first half of the year until they're eliminated, then play them and win out most of their games to get a top pick. Then what? do that again the next year? the year after? or just 1 year? then win it all after that?

It seems convoluted to do something like that just for a pick in the draft. Maybe put a provision on their that if a player doesn't play over half the games leading up to being eliminated from the playoffs, then once eliminated, that player can't play at all the rest of the year?
 
Oh I agree Chawx that it would be better at preventing tanking.

After secodn thought it would really be deterimental to small market teams. They already have a disadvantage in the FA market and if the become basement dwellers (see Charlotte) then they are more likely to stay there.

Either way I am not a fan of the current system and trying something is better than nothing. Get it set up.
 
:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:Update:
The 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in early March has a thought on how to fix the lottery so teams never feel the need to tank.

I like this idea a lot! What about you guys?



https://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/39750/fix-tanking-the-sloan-solution

What I love about this is that it ALWAYS keeps the competition going. Through out the season, teams are trying to get to the playoffs, the second they get eliminated, they have to step it up even MORE to get the #1 pick. Losing will be the opposite of what these teams will want to do. Fans will know this and root even harder for their teams to win more so they can get that #1 pick!

It's literally a win-win situation for every one, fan, team, players....

nah, that would mean that most years the top pick goes to a good team that manipulates the system
 
Last edited:
Back
Top