NBA has become a joke

[Whyachi]

Portland was bottom 4-5 in the league after game 16, and that was ‘before’ the trade deadline/ASG.

the Blazers had the stupidest December road schedule I've ever seen. Back 2 back 6 game road trips?? wtf is that??! When the team finally came home in January, they had a broken Winslow, sponges for legs, and a starting Center that could barely move. The aggressive Blazers defense to start the season turned into players with superglue stuck to the bottom of their sneakers.

Cronin built a sneaky tank. Created a team a limited supply of reserve players. Coach Billups rolled with this idea and maxed out starter's minutes, claiming he can't put the bench guys in because they stink. "We're trying to make the playoffs."

This year's Blazer tank is a complicated mess. The icon players started using ball games as a buffet line to pad personal stats. Losses became a really good thing for the team's future, and now Portland is gearing up for another crack at a super rookie.

*sidebar - Blazers logged more missed games because of injuries then any other team in the NBA, you can't possibly blame the GM for not predicting this.

retort - The GM signed those players knowing they have a history of missing games due to injury.

 

[Bingo Bango]

Eh, they were losing ‘before’ the tank too.

In other words, you see no difference between trying to win and trying to lose. Interesting.

 

[AldoTrapani]

Wtf dude next time go to games earlier in the season

 

[AldoTrapani]

My granddaughter was at the last game, her team was recognized as Oregon State Champions for 4th and 5th graders, which was very cool. She got a ball signed by Dame.
It’s weird to tell young kids, well, they are purposely losing games so they can maybe be great in the future.

Or you can just tell them they’re hurt

 

[SharpesTriumph]

In other words, you see no difference between trying to win and trying to lose. Interesting.

To many fans the goal is a championship and or contending. Trying to win now while only being first round fodder is trying to lose.

While trying to rebuild long term while losing temporarily now in the short term is trying to win.

 

[HomerLovesKoolAid]

Become? The NBA has been on the "credibility of pro wrestling" trajectory since the Stern shoveling of marketing horseshit in the 80s.

 

[Irish Trader]

Guaranteed contracts and players wanting max contracts that they don't deserve them.

 

[Bingo Bango]

Do you not like Shaedon Sharpe? We got him by tanking last year. We’ll get another great player this year. How else do you suggest we get top talent around Dame and for after he’s gone?

Sharpe is still a question mark. He has talent, but can he play at an NBA level every night? Time will tell. Either way, I don’t like tanking. It’s a form of cheating. It undermines all the good things about sports that we teach our kids: trying hard, giving a full effort, never giving up, etc. And there’s not even a clear benefit to doing it. Portland has wasted too many draft picks and made too many bad trades to convince me they are somehow going to pluck a superstar out of the lottery and turn their fortunes around. Ain’t gonna happen. Tanking again this year is a desperate move by a desperate organization.

 

[KingSpeed]

I get the appeal to use a very simplistic approach, but I think this is overly simplistic.

I think the closest you can come to creating a "right" framework (because there will always be problems) is slotting lottery odds by BEST winning percentage for teams missing the playoffs after:
A) a team is mathematically eliminated from the playoffs;
B) a team is some arbitrary # or % games out of the playoffs
C) an arbitrary threshold of games played (say, 70 games)

In these types of situations, your essentially setting up a sub-tournament of sorts for the bad teams encouraging them to win games. Eliminates the problem of tanking, but creates new issues with potential player safety/load management, player development, etc.

So in your system, the teams in the middle tank. NO, Dallas, OKC, Lakers would be tanking to miss playoffs. If you have the BEST chance at Wembanyama, I mean GS would be trying to lose now too. Tanking cannot be avoided unless the #1 team in the NBA gets the best odds.

 

[BigGameDamian]

To solve the tanking issue for non playoff teams the teams only. The team with the best record out of the last 20 games wins the first round pick and have it trickle down from there. So no more ping pong bullshit. You will have to play to win the the better pick in the draft

 

[KingSpeed]

To solve the tanking issue for non playoff teams the teams only. The team with the best record out of the last 20 games wins the first round pick and have it trickle down from there. So no more ping pong bullshit. You will have to play to win the the better pick in the draft

But if you go 20-0, you make the playoffs and don’t get the pick so there would still be tanking to be good but not too good. There would probably be games with two decent teams playing each other trying to lose.

 

[Bingo Bango]

To solve the tanking issue for non playoff teams the teams only. The team with the best record out of the last 20 games wins the first round pick and have it trickle down from there. So no more ping pong bullshit. You will have to play to win the the better pick in the draft

Interesting idea. That’s thinking outside the box.

 

[Bingo Bango]

But if you go 20-0, you make the playoffs and don’t get the pick so there would still be tanking to be good but not too good.

Yeah, that would happen. A team struggling to make the playoffs would suddenly reel off 20 wins in a row.

 

[blazerkor]

Now don't get me wrong I don't like the lottery structure and think that it would be very easy to fix. You just reverse it so the team with the best record out of the playoffs has the highest odds in the lotto and the team with the worst record in the league has the lowest odds. It would get rid of tanking and that would be good for the league because I'm sure ratings tank when teams do. I think the thing that holds up change in the league is that none of these teams are losing money, they're all making it year in and year out while they watch the valuations of their teams climb at the same time.

I would still have the teams outside of the top 4 pick in order of the worst record to the best but just flip the lottery odds. While things are the way they are, I'm happy that our team shows the good sense to tank, I honestly think brilliant strategists like Dr. Jack would want the best player possible out of the draft once they knew they didn't have a team that could compete for a title and therefore would be on board with resting their best players while getting time for guys that need more development or evaluation.

 

[Samuel]

In other words, you see no difference between trying to win and trying to lose. Interesting.

When Cronin deliberately didn't address their size issues at the deadline in any semi-meaningful way (even a buyout guy + cutting Archipalego would have helped—with zero tax implications) the writing was on the wall. The Blazers defensive issues go way beyond size but there were a handful of games in that specific time window where other teams were destroying us in the paint because we were throwing the likes of Jabari Walker and Trendon Watford at them (who are more 3s than they are 5s).

Yes, Nurkic was hurt, but then we all knew this would be a thing in preseason. Evaluation-mode turned into tank mode pretty quickly.

I'm a bit less knives out than the rest of the fanbase is right now—but for me the roster better be in a lot better shape after the summer, though—even if the direction is youth movement. Cronin will have had 4 trade windows to balance the roster at that point!

 

[Labinot41]

moving up 3 spots in the draft, especially in the lottery, can make a huge difference. Just sayin

 

[THE HCP]

Become? The NBA has been on the "credibility of pro wrestling" trajectory since the Stern shoveling of marketing horseshit in the 80s.

Stop Captain Tin Foil Hate guy!

 

[HomerLovesKoolAid]

Stop Captain Tin Foil Hate guy!

You were the guy PT Barnum had in mind!

 

[SharpesTriumph]

Sharpe is still a question mark. He has talent, but can he play at an NBA level every night? Time will tell. Either way, I don’t like tanking. It’s a form of cheating. It undermines all the good things about sports that we teach our kids: trying hard, giving a full effort, never giving up, etc. And there’s not even a clear benefit to doing it. Portland has wasted too many draft picks and made too many bad trades to convince me they are somehow going to pluck a superstar out of the lottery and turn their fortunes around. Ain’t gonna happen. Tanking again this year is a desperate move by a desperate organization.

It's not the Blazers, it's the NBA.

 

[SharpesTriumph]

So in your system, the teams in the middle tank. NO, Dallas, OKC, Lakers would be tanking to miss playoffs. If you have the BEST chance at Wembanyama, I mean GS would be trying to lose now too. Tanking cannot be avoided unless the #1 team in the NBA gets the best odds.

#1 team get the best odds???? That makes no sense.

Tanking can easily be avoided by using the wheel system where team rotates draft spot independent of record.

 

[SharpesTriumph]

Now don't get me wrong I don't like the lottery structure and think that it would be very easy to fix. You just reverse it so the team with the best record out of the playoffs has the highest odds in the lotto and the team with the worst record in the league has the lowest odds. It would get rid of tanking and that would be good for the league because I'm sure ratings tank when teams do. I think the thing that holds up change in the league is that none of these teams are losing money, they're all making it year in and year out while they watch the valuations of their teams climb at the same time.

I would still have the teams outside of the top 4 pick in order of the worst record to the best but just flip the lottery odds. While things are the way they are, I'm happy that our team shows the good sense to tank, I honestly think brilliant strategists like Dr. Jack would want the best player possible out of the draft once they knew they didn't have a team that could compete for a title and therefore would be on board with resting their best players while getting time for guys that need more development or evaluation.

So then teams that are first round fodder tank to avoid playoffs but win the lottery?

 

[SharpesTriumph]

To solve the tanking issue for non playoff teams the teams only. The team with the best record out of the last 20 games wins the first round pick and have it trickle down from there. So no more ping pong bullshit. You will have to play to win the the better pick in the draft

Most players don't care about draft picks. Maybe a star like Dame would.

Does Nurk want to win the #1 pick so Wemba can be our center of the future?

 

[wizenheimer]

I guess I'm in the minority because I don't believe tanking is a problem. And if it is a problem it's a symptom of a real problem and that's a luxury tax system that does not discourage big-market teams. Want to solve tanking? Maybe start with a hard cap

 

[Whyachi]

I honestly thought the Blazers might not score a basket in the 4th quarter tonight. When Cronin wants a bad team on the floor, he doesn't mess around.

 

[Fairly-Hard]

Does Nurk want to win the #1 pick so Wemba can be our center of the future?

Good point.

 

[bigbailes]

"Has become" a joke? Dude this league has been ripe with being a joke for a long time. It's always been a rigged situation with the best players playing by different rules, with the talk of fixing draft lotteries and of course it's the only one where a referee (I'm sure it was just one *insert eye roll*) was proven to be betting on the games. Even with all that, we all obviously love the Blazers or we wouldn't be here, and even though I know it's a fools errand hoping for a Blazers title some day, I'll never give up hope even if I care less about the league as a whole with each passing day.

 

[KingSpeed]

So then teams that are first round fodder tank to avoid playoffs but win the lottery?

That’s what I was saying. There would still be tanking in the middle.

 

[KingSpeed]

#1 team get the best odds???? That makes no sense.

Tanking can easily be avoided by using the wheel system where team rotates draft spot independent of record.

Not saying to do it but draft order being decided by record 1 thru 30 is the only lottery system that prevents tanking. #1 team gets best odds. #30 team gets worst odds. Then no organization will try to lose. They will desperately try to get best record possible. Any other record-based system will result in tanking.

 

[RR7]

It never ceases to amaze me how many people can't stand the NBA, but then not only follow it, but follow it more rabidly than most any other fans by conversing on message boards with other fans. Only to complain about it. What sort of masochist shit is that? Sports are entertainment. I wouldn't watch a shitty television series over and over, and go online to talk about the series with other people, complaining about how bad of a series it is, how terrible the genre is, how much the actors suck, etc. If your entertainment has stopped entertaining you, find something else. Life is too short.

 

[bigbailes]

Not saying to do it but draft order being decided by record 1 thru 30 is the only lottery system that prevents tanking. #1 team gets best odds. #30 team gets worst odds. Then no organization will try to lose. They will desperately try to get best record possible. Any other record-based system will result in tanking.

Or as someone else mentioned ... go to the wheel format that was talked about a few years ago where every team in a 30 year cycle would have all 30 picks ... that's a pretty easy way to stop tanking.