Around the League: Week 21 3/5-3/11

[carey]

Nationally televised games this week

Monday: Detroit @ Cleveland 7:00 PM EST NBATv, Portland @ L.A. Clippers 10:30 PM EST NBATv
Tuesday: Houston @ OKC 8:00 PM EST TNT, New Orleans @ L.A. Clippers 10:30 PM EST TNT
Wednesday: Toronto @ Detroit 8:00 PM EST ESPN, Cleveland @ Denver 10:30 PM EST ESPN
Thursday: Boston @ Minnesota 8:00 PM EST TNT, San Antonio @ Golden State 10:30 PM EST TNT
Friday: Washington @ New Orleans 8:00 PM EST NBATv, Cleveland @ L.A. Clippers 10:30 PM EST NBATv
Saturday: San Antonio @ OKC 8:30 PM EST ABC
Sunday: Golden State @ Minnesota 3:30 PM EST ESPN, Cleveland @ L.A. Lakers 9:30 PM EST ESPN

NBA News

D.A. columns for the week.

• New era, new challenges to retaining throne awaits Golden State Warriors: http://www.nba.com/article/2018/03/05/m ... itle-run#/
• Mark Cuban's tanking talk (and NBA-issued fine) speaks of larger issues in league: http://www.nba.com/article/2018/03/05/s ... d-600000#/
• Morning Tip Q&A: DeMar DeRozan: http://www.nba.com/article/2018/03/05/m ... -raptors#/
• DA's Top 15 Rankings: Portland Trail Blazers starting to take flight: http://www.nba.com/article/2018/03/05/m ... h-5-2018#/
• Morning Tip Mailbag: Your questions on no-calls, the San Antonio Spurs and more - http://www.nba.com/article/2018/03/05/m ... aldridge#/

Other stories.

• Thunder coach Donovan has a plan to fix college basketball: https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/ ... 392436002/
• Rockets have now won 15 straight: https://www.thedreamshake.com/2018/3/3/ ... riller-nba
• Seerat Sohi on how the Raptors trusted Dwane Casey to remake Toronto without the front office actually rebuilding the team: https://www.sbnation.com/2018/3/2/17070 ... f-the-year
• The Kings pranked the Jazz’s starting lineup intro with the help of Sexy Sax Man: https://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2018/3/ ... troduction

[Superbone]

The smooth jazz burn is hilarious. Especially with no reaction from the crowd. I guess they were speechless.

[Mori Chu]

LMAO. I enjoyed that Jazz prank, too. Great stuff. I like when teams rib each other like this.

[Hermen]

Incoming "rant". DA says that to get rid of tanking you would have to get rid of the draft, but that doesn't seem true. You just have to stop rewarding bad teams with better picks. The wheel system would do it. Or, less drastically (but with more variance), just shuffle the lottery teams in a random order for picks 1-14. Maybe that makes a team not go for the 8th seed and try the lottery instead, but at least there's a real price there.

I am amazed that there are fans willing to pay for the tickets to the shit-storm games like Suns-Hawks. I mean, games like this are the real detriment to the league, not Cuban being honest. Teams putting young players in weird line-ups/positions to make winning less likely are detrimental to the league. Players "rested" in the best years of their career is detrimental. But the league/owners seem fine with it, as long as you don't admit it.

At the end of the day, even with good picks handed to them, poorly managed teams remain bad. And well managed teams find a way to be good. Why give excuses to bad teams and hand them the best young players, when good teams could make more out of them?

[Flagrant Fowl]

I am amazed that there are fans willing to pay for the tickets to the s*** games like Suns-Hawks. I mean, games like this are the real detriment to the league, not Cuban being honest. Teams putting young players in weird line-ups/positions to make winning less likely are detrimental to the league. Players "rested" in the best years of their career is detrimental. But the league/owners seem fine with it, as long as you don't admit it.

I disagree with this. You can't find a league in any sport where teams without a chance to play in the postseason don't start to experiment with younger players, different lineups, and different schemes. For those teams, they're developing players for future seasons and it's smart for them to start doing it as soon as possible. The issue is the grey area where it's essentially impossible to prove that a team is actively "tanking" on any given night, which is really only an issue because of the draft lottery system. Even if the lottery is changed in a way that doesn't incentivize having the worst record, we'd still see bad basketball from bad teams in March.

[ShelC]

The way the NBA is and how they try to market and monetize everything, I'm surprised they haven't embraced tanking with some sort of lower tier tank bracket or playoff for the 1st pick. Televise the games, the teams could trot out Gleague castoffs, and neither team would want to win. The scores would be like 65-49. It'd be great...and awful.

[O_Gardino]

Pistons lost again last night. They are 2-9 in the last 11, and would have to pull off a miracle to get into the playoffs now.

Meanwhile, the Clippers are 8-3 in that time (11-4 since Harris joined the team), and are half a game behind Denver for the 8th spot.

[O_Gardino]

I really don't think tanking is that big a problem, or a systematic issue that needs to be solved. You could really screw up the competitive balance of the league trying to keep bad teams from being bad.

1. Bad teams are bad. That's the nature of competition. There is always a loser. Don't try to fix this.

2. The point of the draft order is to give bad teams a chance to get better, and good players a chance to make their name in a city that needs talent. Don't screw it up trying to make a terrible team play 5% better.

[Cap]

Simple solution for tanking:

- Eliminate backcourt violations
- If you score points for the other team by putting it in your own basket, the other team gets to take the ball out.

Now when two tanking teams play each other, we get real basketball, only in the opposite direction.

[O_Gardino]

Simple solution for tanking:

- Eliminate backcourt violations
- If you score points for the other team by putting it in your own basket, the other team gets to take the ball out.

Now when two tanking teams play each other, we get real basketball, only in the opposite direction.

11/10

I laughed hard enough that my boss put me back to work.

[Hermen]

I am amazed that there are fans willing to pay for the tickets to the s*** games like Suns-Hawks. I mean, games like this are the real detriment to the league, not Cuban being honest. Teams putting young players in weird line-ups/positions to make winning less likely are detrimental to the league. Players "rested" in the best years of their career is detrimental. But the league/owners seem fine with it, as long as you don't admit it.

I disagree with this. You can't find a league in any sport where teams without a chance to play in the postseason don't start to experiment with younger players, different lineups, and different schemes. For those teams, they're developing players for future seasons and it's smart for them to start doing it as soon as possible. The issue is the grey area where it's essentially impossible to prove that a team is actively "tanking" on any given night, which is really only an issue because of the draft lottery system. Even if the lottery is changed in a way that doesn't incentivize having the worst record, we'd still see bad basketball from bad teams in March.

Sure, player development is fine, but right now teams don't have only the players' interests in mind but also the incoming pick. Wasn't Russell discouraged from taking 3s in his rookie season? And Oladipo was shoved into the pg spot, Len at pf, Grizzlies used 3 bigs for a while this year. Not to mention getting benched in the 4th if you're having a good game.
And, yes, some of these things may happen regardless of tanking, but there's no need to encourage it. Why make fans cheer for losses?

[Hermen]

I really don't think tanking is that big a problem, or a systematic issue that needs to be solved. You could really screw up the competitive balance of the league trying to keep bad teams from being bad.

1. Bad teams are bad. That's the nature of competition. There is always a loser. Don't try to fix this.

2. The point of the draft order is to give bad teams a chance to get better, and good players a chance to make their name in a city that needs talent. Don't screw it up trying to make a terrible team play 5% better.

But right now they are trying to keep bad teams from being bad by giving them good picks. In the process they are forcing average teams to be bad as well, because that's the surest way of getting better.
Also, why would competitive balance be worse if bad and average teams were not discouraged from competing?


Edit: And just to add, tanking doesn't bother me much. I simply ignore the teams that do it for the rest of the season. I do think it's hypocritical to fine Cuban for being honest. And I think rewarding bad teams screams of poor design.

[The Bobster]

Really, the main point of the draft was to keep salaries down.

The alternative would be to have a rookie maximum salary and let them sign wherever they want, and limiting the number of players that a team can sign at that rookie max, perhaps allowing one for a playoff team and two for a non-playoff team. Or giving non-playoff teams a (slightly) higher rookie maximum salary. (all of this would be based on available cap space)

[Mori Chu]

Simple solution for tanking:

- Eliminate backcourt violations
- If you score points for the other team by putting it in your own basket, the other team gets to take the ball out.

Now when two tanking teams play each other, we get real basketball, only in the opposite direction.

Magnificent!

[JCSunsfan]

I am amazed that there are fans willing to pay for the tickets to the s*** games like Suns-Hawks. I mean, games like this are the real detriment to the league, not Cuban being honest. Teams putting young players in weird line-ups/positions to make winning less likely are detrimental to the league. Players "rested" in the best years of their career is detrimental. But the league/owners seem fine with it, as long as you don't admit it.

I disagree with this. You can't find a league in any sport where teams without a chance to play in the postseason don't start to experiment with younger players, different lineups, and different schemes. For those teams, they're developing players for future seasons and it's smart for them to start doing it as soon as possible. The issue is the grey area where it's essentially impossible to prove that a team is actively "tanking" on any given night, which is really only an issue because of the draft lottery system. Even if the lottery is changed in a way that doesn't incentivize having the worst record, we'd still see bad basketball from bad teams in March.

How about if you pay players for wins. $10,000 a piece to each player on the winning team for each game. It would make tanking a lot harder to get away with.

[Flagrant Fowl]

How about if you pay players for wins. $10,000 a piece to each player on the winning team for each game. It would make tanking a lot harder to get away with.

I don't think the issue is with the players, it's with the front office and coaching staff.

[bajanguy008]

Interesting thread discussion

Silver sure seems to be trying.....

https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/971171507618664449

[Flagrant Fowl]

Anthony Davis is fucking insane. He's like an athletic Tim Duncan right now.

[Shabazz]

The Rockets are 34-1 when Harden, Paul and Capela all play.

[INFORMER]

I'm really not a fan of the wheel system. Just make the lottery for the first five picks in the draft, have the lotto teams be every team that misses the playoffs and all eight of the 1st rounder losers, and make is even odds for all teams.