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2025-2026 Tank Race Prediction Contest and Current Results Thread

I do think Jazz fans stfu on the timeline would make a lot of this go away. I saw Nate Duncan tweet about this, and if you know anything about him, he’s joking about it in the same way we do here. He does not care one bit about the ethics and repeatedly says teams should do this.

But then you have every Jazz fan quoting and replying to his tweet like he just kicked their dog. It created all of this engagement, and algo is of course going to push that and reward more people who talk about it.

Jazz fans with no persecution complex is a pipe dream though.
 
KqWIN said:
I do think Jazz fans stfu on the timeline would make a lot of this go away. I saw Nate Duncan tweet about this, and if you know anything about him, he’s joking about it in the same way we do here. He does not care one bit about the ethics and repeatedly says teams should do this.

But then you have every Jazz fan quoting and replying to his tweet like he just kicked their dog. It created all of this engagement, and algo is of course going to push that and reward more people who talk about it.

Jazz fans with no persecution complex is a pipe dream though.
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Yep. Almost any big national media person who's talked about the Jazz has also said that:
  • they would do the same thing if they were the Jazz
  • it's not just the Jazz
  • it's the system they have trouble with (if they have trouble at all and are not just having a bit of fun), not the Jazz
Too many Jazz fans just picking random quotes and claiming NBA media is against us and only us
 
There is a very simple explanation for all that complaining about the Jazz. When the team is sitting their best players out with injuries/DNP they are literally out of the spotlight: the tanking is invisible. But when you play your best players, jump to a large lead and then immediately sit them down, replace with you worst lineup and play it out to the loss - it is very, very visible and obvious. And there is no plausible excuses.

You can also add to that the image of your best players smiling and laughing on the bench when your team is in the process of losing in crunch time by 1-2 points.

A tank like that is much harder for the league to tolerate and sweep under the rug. It is just one step before shooting airballs on purpose or scoring on your own basket. I don't think you can play 10 games in a row like that without consequences.
 
jazznik said:
There is a very simple explanation for all that complaining about the Jazz. When the team is sitting their best players out with injuries/DNP they are literally out of the spotlight: the tanking is invisible. But when you play your best players, jump to a large lead and then immediately sit them down, replace with you worst lineup and play it out to the loss - it is very, very visible and obvious. And there is no plausible excuses.

You can also add to that the image of your best players smiling and laughing on the bench when your team is in the process of losing in crunch time by 1-2 points.

A tank like that is much harder for the league to tolerate and sweep under the rug. It is just one step before shooting airballs on purpose or scoring on your own basket. I don't think you can play 10 games in a row like that without consequences.
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Regardless of which style of tanking you think is worse, the NBA fined the Jazz for doing the first thing. It was through indirect means, but if there is a message to be taken from the league it's to do what the Jazz did last night instead of what a team like WAS doing. Truth be told, most teams are doing both. If there's any truth to the Jazz being singled out, it's because they DNP'd Lauri and got fined for it.
 
jazznik said:
There is a very simple explanation for all that complaining about the Jazz. When the team is sitting their best players out with injuries/DNP they are literally out of the spotlight: the tanking is invisible. But when you play your best players, jump to a large lead and then immediately sit them down, replace with you worst lineup and play it out to the loss - it is very, very visible and obvious. And there is no plausible excuses.

A tank like that is much harder for the league to tolerate and sweep under the rug. It is just one step before shooting airballs on purpose or scoring on your own basket. I don't think you can play 10 games in a row like that without consequences.
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Whether the league can tolerate this in the long run is a legitimate question.

For now, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Jazz are following league rules.

I don't think the league has a lot of leeway to arbitrarily change its rules midway through the season just because things are unseemly. Rule changes of this magnitude have to be negotiated among/agreed upon by the league collectively (team voting) in its annual meetings.
 
jazznik said:
There is a very simple explanation for all that complaining about the Jazz. When the team is sitting their best players out with injuries/DNP they are literally out of the spotlight: the tanking is invisible. But when you play your best players, jump to a large lead and then immediately sit them down, replace with you worst lineup and play it out to the loss - it is very, very visible and obvious. And there is no plausible excuses.

You can also add to that the image of your best players smiling and laughing on the bench when your team is in the process of losing in crunch time by 1-2 points.

A tank like that is much harder for the league to tolerate and sweep under the rug. It is just one step before shooting airballs on purpose or scoring on your own basket. I don't think you can play 10 games in a row like that without consequences.
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Amen.

This narrative that "We'Re JUst DOiNg THe saMe THIng aS everYONe ELsE!!!" is weapons grade copium.

There is a massive difference between a genuinely terrible roster (whether by design or through legit injuries to the best players) losing a ton of games (see, for example: Dallas, Washington) and an obvious play-in/playoff team throwing games live on TV by benching their stars mid game.
 
idiot said:
For now, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Jazz are following league rules.

I don't think the league has a lot of leeway to arbitrarily change its rules midway through the season just because things are unseemly. Rule changes of this magnitude have to be negotiated among/agreed upon by the league collectively (team voting) in its annual meetings.
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Well, there are formal and unspoken rules. When you keep breaking unspoken rules usually somehow someone finds a way to punish you for that.

There are no league rules against players tipping opponents shots in their own basket and it happens rather regularly. Do you think that the Jazz can plant a center under their own basket so that he keeps "inadvertently" tipping in the missed shots several times in every game that goes down to the wire? And that there would be no consequences for that?
 
I will also add that if the Jazz were clearly all about the tank in the fourth quarter yesterday, they could have done a lot more:

2 G-Leaguers were in uniform and could have been put in. Vince Williams, who not only is unfamiliar with the Jazz's system but looked pretty useless yesterday, could have replaced Collier as PG in the 4th quarter.

Instead, the Jazz went much of the quarter with exactly the players you would expect to be on the floor if the Jazz are concerned about development/evaluating what they have: Collier, Cody, Ace, Sensabaugh, Flip. Hardy didn't panic and try these other solutions when the Jazz maintained the lead throughout the quarter or when the Jazz very easily could have won the game if a break or two went our way.
 
Problem for Jazz right now is they are trying not to lose their top 8 pick. If the pick did not have conditions on it they might not be so desperate to lose games. They might be ok with any lottery pick they get.
 
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