World Of Tanks

Apparently, the NBA is going to do something about tanking. That's the practice of intentionally losing so as to get a better draft pick next year. They're talking about not giving the last-place team the best chance of getting the first pick, and instead just giving the last three teams the same chances. That way, bad teams get a chance at rebuilding, but there's no incentive to be last.

Personally, I don't understand why anyone cares about this "problem." Well, I figure it's because the idea of losing intentionally is so abhorrent to sports culture. And also because North American Pro sports has had some historic problems with intentional losing. But I couldn't care less. If we were talking about teams intentionally missing playoff spots to go for a better draft pick, then I could understand fans being angry. But what actually happens is that a team that might at best finish 25th out of 30th will instead finish dead last. That isn't great behaviour, but I don't think it even cracks the top hundred Things Wrong With Professional Sports.

And part of the problem is that it isn’t even possible to define tanking. If you want to tank, you trade your best players, and let the youngsters and journeymen sink to the bottom. But if you’re not tanking, just rebuilding in earnest, you trade your current assets for draft picks and prospects, which causes your team to drop to the bottom of the league.

That’s the point that was put forward by the Buffalo Sabres recently, after a bad season that netted them a second-overall pick. They’ve been accused of tanking, which is frustrating because their geographic rivals in Toronto finished last the next year and got the number one pick. The Sabres have been painted as tankers, while the Leafs were portrayed as wise rebuilders, even though they essentially did the same thing.

Some of that double standard is surely due to the bias of a largely-Canadian pool of journalists. And a lot can be chalked up to that infamous night that the Sabres’ own fans started cheering against them in the hopes of a better draft pick. But it’s hardly fair blaming a team for having insightful fans. I think the real problem is that for some odd reason, people only get angry at tanking when it’s unsuccessful. Going back to the NBA, the most obvious tank jobs actually resulted in teams getting game-changing talents, yet people look back at those incidents with a smirk, while current tankers who are yet to see any benefit get all the ire.

And that gets back to another reason I can't get angry at tankers - and why I doubt this measure will actually work. It's really hard to get a winner in the NBA without a superstar. Yes, you can point to counterexamples, including my own Toronto Raptors, not to mention superstars drafted way down the table like Kobe Bryant. But for the most part, a high pick is needed to join the league's elite, and neither lowered odds nor journalists' scorn with change that.