Author Topic: Tanking  (Read 3536 times)

charlie

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Tanking
« on: May 23, 2007, 06:39:38 PM »
I'm curious, do any of you think that serious tanking occurs in other sports. By tanking I mean the team making trades and roster decisions or playing time decisions in such a way that the team they field has a smaller chance at winning in the hopes that by losing a lot of games they can have a higher draft pick.

I'm an NBA basketball fan, and in that league this past year there was a good deal of tanking and quite a few more teams whose fans wanted them to tank (like mine). I'm just curious if this happens in other leagues. I know that in baseball it doesn't really happen and in football it happens only a tiny bit.

Govtcheez

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Re: Tanking
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2007, 06:46:16 PM »
Doesn't that happen every year in the NBA?

I wouldn't be surprised if it happens in the NFL, but it's less obvious than the NBA because there are so many fewer games and it's easier for the team to lose half the season in a couple months just because they suck.

Then there are teams like the Lions, who throw away the #1 pick by being unable to even lose correctly.

charlie

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Re: Tanking
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2007, 06:53:11 PM »
This year was far worse than normal (thanks to Oden and Durant), but yes, it does usually happen. The Spurs did it to get Duncan, the Cavaliers did it and got LeBron James, for example.

The last two years the 49ers actually won games late in the season (they had a shot at Reggie Bush two years ago) even though everybody knew they sucked. Nobody would have complained if they had kept losing. But it turned out just fine for them. I think since football has so many more players, and #1 QBs can be a crapshoot anyway, there is less incentive to tank. I would only tank for a franchise QB or RB, but in basketball you can get a franchise player at any position.

Govtcheez

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Re: Tanking
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2007, 06:58:48 PM »
I'm not sure I can see a reason to ever tank in football unless you have a time machine and can know for sure that JaMarcus Russell is going to be the next Steve Young.  The NFL seems to have the highest ratio of hype:actual talent out of any of the major leagues in the US.

But maybe I'm just jaded because of the Lions

PJYelton

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Re: Tanking
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2007, 06:59:02 PM »
I think it only really happens in basketball since thats the only sport that regularly has just a couple guys in the draft who are really even worth having, and having just one player can mean the difference between a bottom dweller and a strong playoff team.

Thats the big reason I'm actually a fan of the lottery system in basketball.

Govtcheez

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Re: Tanking
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2007, 07:00:40 PM »
> Thats the big reason I'm actually a fan of the lottery system in basketball.

As it is now or in general?

charlie

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Re: Tanking
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2007, 07:11:18 PM »
I think the NBA lottery is a little too weighted towards the bad teams. The current breakdown is (# balls is out of 1000):
Code: [Select]
Position # Balls % Chance
1 250 25.0%
2 199 19.9%
3 156 15.6%
4 119 11.9%
5 88 8.8%
6 63 6.3%
7 43 4.3%
8 28 2.8%
9 17 1.7%
10 11 1.1%
11 8 0.8%
12 7 0.7%
13 6 0.6%
14 5 0.5%

My preference is something closer to this:
Code: [Select]
Position # Balls % Chance
1 100 10.0%
2 95 9.5%
3 90 9.0%
4 85 8.5%
5 80 8.0%
6 75 7.5%
7 70 7.0%
8 65 6.5%
9 60 6.0%
10 55 5.5%
11 50 5.0%
12 45 4.5%
13 40 4.0%
14 35 3.5%
Rd1 7 0.7%

That would make the incentive to tank for a superstar much smaller, while still helping the really bad teams more than the mediocre teams over time.

PJYelton

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Re: Tanking
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2007, 07:11:50 PM »
As it is now, although I'm sure if I thought hard enough I could come up with some small tweaks I'd like to see implemented. I definately like it better than the unweighted lottery system they used to have. If you could some how guarantee that no teams ever tanked then I'd prefer a traditional non-lottery draft that gives hope to crappier teams. Of course the current system doesn't get rid of tanking either so :dunno: