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Can I just say that I'm sick and tired of the press [aka ESPN] calling out the Jazz for tanking?

The NFL doesn't have a lottery so the worst teams get the top picks automatically and yet the tanking seems more talked about in the NBA.
 
Ironic thing is, if the NBA actually considered this an egregious crossing of the line and communicated that to the Jazz, "you can't play your starters partial minutes like this anymore", it would lead to starters being sat out entirely and an even worse product.

But at least stupid people could continue to "harbor the illusion" that there were no shenanigans. Or whatever the dumb argument is.
 
default said:
The NFL doesn't have a lottery so the worst teams get the top picks automatically and yet the tanking seems more talked about in the NBA.
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I feel pretty certain that if 1/5 (or whatever the percentage is) of NFL teams were sitting all their best players for half the season to try to get the top picks then it would be talked about plenty.
It's talked about in the NBA because of how many teams are doing it and how often.

In the NFL it's much more rare
 
Wow. People just refuse to understand what this is about.

As Gunter said, it's about perceptions, and like it or not, perceptions are important. Important enough to change the whole league in various ways. We've seen it happen before.
 
Schrödinger's Gerbil said:
Oh, for crying out loud. Boo hoo. The entire NBA media ecosystem has gone from embracing tanking to full evangelical revival mode—hands raised, eyes closed, preaching the holy gospel of “tear it down” as if it’s divine revelation handed down from the basketball gods. And I mean everyone: every pundit, blog boy, podcaster, YouTube prophet, and talking-head rent-a-brain has not merely jumped on the tanking bandwagon, they’ve strapped themselves to the hood like it’s the last helicopter out of Saigon.

And yet somehow, amid this unanimous, full-throated sermonizing, I’ve never once heard a serious skeptic ask the most basic questions: Does structural tanking actually work? Is it a reliable path to a championship, or even sustained deep playoff runs? (Spoiler: the evidence says no.) What does a “successful tank” even mean? Three years? Five? A decade of aesthetic misery punctuated by ping-pong balls? And what about costs -- actual, measurable costs -- so we could talk like adults about return on investment instead of treating deliberate losing like it’s some kind of advanced analytics cheat code?

And don’t even get me started on the ethics. Tanking isn’t some abstract strategy on a whiteboard; it’s a business model built on exploiting fan loyalty. It’s intentionally selling a shiIty product for not one, not two, not three, and often not four or more years, while still charging premium prices for tickets, parking, and concessions, all while peddling “hope” they can’t guarantee in any way, shape, or form. It’s basically “trust the process,” etched by the finger of God onto tablets of stone and brought down from the mountain top.

The entire NBA landscape is now saturated with tanking, talking about it, praising it, promoting it, ridiculing teams that don’t tank hard enough, and absolutely savaging any franchise that decides, audaciously, to stop hemorrhaging losses and attempt the radical experiment of trying to win basketball games. You know, acquiring veterans, balancing out young players, building a roster that resembles an actual professional team rather than a G-League witness protection program.

And now, now, after years of nonstop cheerleading, suddenly the same media crowd is clutching its pearls: “Oh my heavens, the Jazz are tanking too much! Where is my fainting couch? Fetch the smelling salts!” Give me a f’n break. You helped create this monster. You fed it. You raised it. You tucked it in at night and whispered sweet nothings about draft odds and asset accumulation. For years, it’s been: more tanking, more tanking, there’s not enough tanking.

Well, apparently, there is enough tanking.

So instead of acting self-righteous about the grotesque creature you midwifed and nurtured so lovingly, maybe, just maybe, you could’ve engaged in a nuanced, informed, and critical discourse on tanking from the beginning. But no. That would’ve required thought, intellectual consistency, and a memory longer than a single NBA season.

In summary, to all the same NBA intelligentsia now suddenly reaching for their smelling salts over the Jazz, shut the F up.
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Bravo. Good writing
 
Tremendous Upside said:
Wow. People just refuse to understand what this is about.

As Gunter said, it's about perceptions, and like it or not, perceptions are important. Important enough to change the whole league in various ways. We've seen it happen before.
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the optics are indeed important. But framing can pretty much change the optics and these lame people who hate Utah are finally choosing to change the framing to point out the Jazz as the biggest offender when you could frame it that the Jazz are actually tanking in a more ethical way by not making up injuries, playing their stars 25+ mins a night but not in crunch time and are giving fans the opportunity to see their stars play
 
default said:
The NFL doesn't have a lottery so the worst teams get the top picks automatically and yet the tanking seems more talked about in the NBA.
Click to expand...
Tanking is talked about there as well (Suck gor Luck etc), but to much lesser extend. If they were better at assessing QB prospects and hit rates of franchise level QBs at the top would be high then it would get worse and louder.

But for all other positions one player wont impact the whole franchise like it does in NBA.
 
Tremendous Upside said:
Wow. People just refuse to understand what this is about.

As Gunter said, it's about perceptions, and like it or not, perceptions are important. Important enough to change the whole league in various ways. We've seen it happen before.
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Everybody understands that.

We all know some form of change is coming after this season, with the volume of teams egregiously tanking. The league isn't going to punish the Jazz or any other team, they'll implement a change after this season.

The league especially isn't going to come down hard on the Jazz for "crossing the line in an especially bad way" by... playing their starters for 3 quarters instead of 0.

It's stupid to argue that the league should or will. It's stupid to argue that the Jazz are actually doing anything worse than what other teams have done for decades, because "the optics are worse".

Who cares if the optics are worse if it isn't going to result in a punishment against the Jazz? It is, objectively, less egregious tanking than what other teams have always done.
 
MTS said:
Ironic thing is, if the NBA actually considered this an egregious crossing of the line and communicated that to the Jazz, "you can't play your starters partial minutes like this anymore"
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It's not about the minutes. The minutes are just your strawman.

If the starters had played so badly against Orlando that the Jazz had been in a 40 point hole at the half, nobody would have given a **** about Lauri, JJJ and Nurk sitting the rest of the way.

However, people have eyes. The issue is that we blatantly threw a basketball game.
 
Tremendous Upside said:
It's not about the minutes. The minutes are just your strawman.

If the starters had played so badly against Orlando that the Jazz had been in a 40 point hole at the half, nobody would have given a **** about Lauri, JJJ and Nurk sitting the rest of the way.

However, people have eyes. The issue is that we blatantly threw a basketball game.
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Know what else is blatantly throwing a basketball game, to an even more egregious degree?

Never playing your starters at all

"B-bu the perception" we're talking about reality, not perception. Perception would only be relevant if the NBA was actually going to punish the Jazz, which they are not. Because they know they can't. Because they know they wouldn't have a leg to stand on to punish a team for resting its starters in the 4th while letting teams sit their starters wholesale.
 
Tom Pitt said:
In all seriousness though, the league has nobody to blame but itself . A team that isn't good enough to compete for a title should try and maximize it's chances to acquire top level talent. They can also prioritize developing/evaluating young players in 4th quarters while also trying to maintain good lotto odds. This is the system the league established. The Jazz are just operating within the rules. It has nobody to blame but itself imo
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I wouldn't say it's the NBA fault. American Sports are just so use to drafts based on record. Every American League does it. NBA just happens to be a sport that is dictated by a few players so tanking makes more sense than it does any other sport
 
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