Tanks but no thanks
I was aghast the other night when I watched the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, still in the running for a playoff position, deliberately pulling its starting players out of a game and losing so that it wouldn't make the playoffs, and its position in the upcoming player draft would improve. Nowadays, hopelessly losing teams routinely "tank" at the end of the NBA season – the Trail Blazers have been at it for what seems like a month now, and for the second straight year – but I don't recall a team still in playoff contention ever undertaking such a stunt.
And make no mistake, the team's head coach, Jason Kidd, stupidly admitted it on national television in a post-game press conference. The decision, he indicated, came straight from the top: the billionaire team owner, Mark Cuban (pictured).
I used to think highly of Cuban, but when he recently acquired Kyrie Irving, a notorious head case whose teams have not accomplished much for many years despite all his star posturing, I started to doubt my initial favorable judgment. After Kyrie's arrival, the 29–26 Mavs promptly went 9–16.
Now they tank away a possible playoff slot. What an insult – to the ticket holders, the sponsors, the fans, the players, and the league. What a terrible message to send to kids. And what a symbol of what's wrong in sports these days. Enjoy your precious draft picks, Cuban. And the karma that comes with them.
This is an example of why I don’t care, do not watch nor support any professional sport.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like every year I see NFL teams who have the first overall picked *almost* locked up, still pull out all the stops to get a win. It's partly because all the NFL games are meaningful. Over half of the league is making less than $1m per season on short term contracts, so every minute of playing time on tape matters between seasons. Most coaches who are in the bottom five for wins also know they are likely getting replaced after the season is over, so they don't tank unless they were hired with a rebuild in mind.
ReplyDeleteIt's tougher on the players (if you can play in the NBA you will) but it's also one of the reasons that football is king. More sports fans are interested in the NFL draft than the NBA finals.
They really violated all the rules of Tank Club - including Jason Kidd basically daring the league to do something about it. If you're gonna tank you gotta start pulling the pieces out way before the end of the season, or just all season like Pop has been doing with the Spurs since Kawhi left.
ReplyDeleteMany decades ago I had a conversation with the “wrestler” Gorgeous George.
ReplyDeleteHe was a good merchandiser/businessman and predicted this behavior would creep into most spectator sports. I naively ignored his comments.
Tanking is a breach of contract with the fans. If you're a season ticket holder, you expect the best players to play and for the team to try its level best to win every game. When these expectations aren't met, the team's paying customers are cheated. I'm surprised there haven't been any lawsuits over this.
ReplyDeleteThat would be a heck of a class action. And in this case, the facts are open-and-shut.
DeleteUnless and until the league adopts effective rules that discourage tanking, teams will continue to make these kinds of decisions out of rational (although that reasoning might be questionable) self-interest. Fans tend to view the sports they follow from some kind of moral high ground, where honor, integrity, and sportsmanship are necessary parts of the experience. Meanwhile, the owners, and many of the players, are just looking to maximize the return out of their entertainment enterprise. Heck, the World Series is held up as some kind of bastion of tradition and greatness, and they didn't even bother having one in 1994 when there was a spat about money and other labor issues.
ReplyDeleteWell a big problem with the NBA and other leagues is that smaller market teams either pay a kings ransom to get a star player in a trade or never get them in free agency. So the draft is one of remaining ways to get top talent.
ReplyDeleteTrue enough, but Dallas is not a small market city by any stretch.
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