This summer, the NBA will feature a stacked draft class featuring future basketball stars like Andrew Wiggins, Julius Randle, and Jabari Parker. These players are so highly coveted that some NBA teams are trying to purposely build a deficient roster to lose games and get a better spot in the draft to pick them. This phenomenon is called “tanking,” and NBA executives are becoming more and more open to this idea. I believe NBA teams that are rebuilding should support tanking because it makes their team better in the long run and ensures they acquire good players they are not guaranteed to get in free agency.
If done correctly, tanking can turn any rebuilding NBA team into a powerhouse. For example, in the years that the Seattle SuperSonics became the Oklahoma City Thunder, the team tanked their way to acquire Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden in the NBA Draft. These three players came a long way in helping turn the Thunder into a title contender, and even though Harden has since been traded, Oklahoma City has created a roster through tanking that can consistently make the playoffs and bring a big crowd to the arena every single night. If the Thunder never tanked to acquire their players, they would just be in the middle of the Western Conference every year, and the lack of crowds would make people wonder why an NBA team was brought to Oklahoma City in the first place. Other smaller market teams have tanked for superstars as early as 1984 when the Houston Rockets tanked for Hakeem (then known as Akeem) Olajuwon, as well as 1997 when the San Antonio Spurs tanked for Tim Duncan or 2003 when the Cleveland Cavaliers tanked for LeBron James. You may have heard of those three names. Olajuwon led the Rockets to two champions...
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...e Western Conference. While a casual NBA fan probably will never root for their team to lose, it is not only an unorthodox way to root for a team; it can also prove to be extremely effective in the long run.
For any struggling NBA team, tanking is the only logical option. If any team not in contention to win games right now is not tanking, they are building their team the wrong way. While tanking is not usually viewed as the most honest way to build a team, unless something is done to prevent it, that is just how NBA executives will build their team. If the strategy is effective, then why should NBA teams not use it?
Works Cited
Reevy, Matt. "5 NBA Teams That Successfully Tanked for the Draft." Wall St. Cheat Sheet 28 Dec. 2013. Google. Web. 8 Jan. 2014.
"Yearly NBA Attendance." NBA Attendance. ESPN, 2013. Web. 8 Jan. 2014. .
sit the bench every year and not play at all. Players should try their best to get drafted and
In the last ten years many young and talented high school basketball players have chosen to enter the NBA draft. These 17 and 18 year olds decide to skip college, and instead they choose to take a big risk and enter the NBA, hoping to become stars and earn millions of dollars. In many cases, these youngsters’ careers are a failure because they don’t turn out as talented as they thought to be. They end up spending only a few seasons in the NBA because they are not good enough to compete at that level. Many of them have to move on to doing other things, such as playing basketball overseas, doing everyday jobs, or going back to college to earn a degree.
Did you know that there are roughly 550,000 male high school basketball players, 15,000 are good enough to make it to play college basketball, one third of that or 5,000 play well enough to make it to division I which is the highest in the NCAA basketball league, and only around 348 go on to play one game in the NBA. On the other hand there are rare cases of players having extraordinary talents and making the jump from high school basketball straight to NBA without any college experience. The debate on this topic is two sided, the first being that the jump from high school to the NBA should not be allowed and the second being that they should be able to do what they want.
To start with, there is an argument as to whether or not coaches of school sports teams should offer equal playing time to all of their players. According to Alan Goldberg, every athlete wants playing time, but not every athlete can always get it. In other words, only the athletes that put in the effort can have playing time because that shows that they really want playing time. The athlete can not only put in the hard work but he/she needs to be skilled at that sport. Coaches of school teams should not offer equal playing time to the players because teams play to win so they will put their best players in, players who are skilled and put in the effort will make the starting lineup, and the athletes are paying for practice not playing time.
... their league. Rich teams take too many players that they don’t even need. It’s the equivalent of when large incorporations buy-out the local “mom ‘n pop” store. Soccer’s culture is being disrupted and slowly ruined by overspending from top clubs. Fans need to take the power back and disperse it evenly to all sides, and by doing that we can bring back soccer’s culture, and restore the game to what it once was.
First, the industry is organized by the NBA to have 30 equally balanced competitors. So, the distribution of capacity across teams must be relatively equivalent in order to maintain game suspense and thus it attract fans. The NBA endorses competitive balance with different measures such as reverse-order draft choices, salary caps, revenue sharing and etc.
Die hard fans go to every game and do not miss a single second of the game. I consider myself a die hard fan because I only talk about the Chicago Bulls, and I believe they are the premier team in the NBA. Moreover, my brother can be implemented in this category because he never misses a Miami Heat game. Die hard fans know each and everything about the team. Usually, these fans paint their faces, put up stickers on their cars, and own the team merchandise. Die hard fans only talk about their favorite team and they think their team is the best team in the world. The other teams would be considered trash and the die hard fans defend their team no matter the circumstances. Teams love to possess fans like these because it
too much power and think they can do whatever they think can improve the team?
players to the NBA as many as three years early. This has resulted in not only
The creation of the Oklahoma City Thunder has had huge economic effects on the local and state economies. According to the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, each thunder home game puts $1.3 million dollars into the local economy, every season there are 41 home games, which equals around $53.3 million dollars per season. Jordan Wiley, general manager of Leon’s on Brookside, says “Thunder games have created a generous boost in sales…Thunder games held on weekends can double sales. A Thunder game held during the week can triple sales. (...
The NBA should develop a differentiation leadership strategy. Events that the NBA has organized are becoming irrelevant when compared to its rivals’. For example, the MLB’s All-Star Game has an impact on post-season results. The MLS’s All-Star game features the league’s best against top European soccer clubs. The NHL’s All-Star Game features a ton of scoring in a sport that typically has low scores. There is no novelty factor for the NBA during its All-Star Weekend. Only the NFL’s Pro Bowl is worse than the NBA’s All-Star Weekend in terms of entertainment value.
To me, if the NCAA and it's coaches truly care about their players, they would not force them to make such a serious decision with limited information. Coaches would not give the cold shoulder to their players who over predicted their draft stock, especially if they keep their NCAA eligibility. But it's not about players best interest and reducing the consequences from potentially bad decisions. It's about coaches who desire scholarship assurance.
...ht. There is that competitive edge in every athlete or coach that wants to win and wants a championship and all that greed results in rule breaking and cheating. You won’t be able to stop people from wanting to win and that is why there will always be people cheating. That is why the NCAA needs to get more involved with recruiting and college sports so people know if you break the rules you will get caught.
The National Basketball Associations, Golden State Warriors are approaching history. They are the number 1 ranked team in the league and the quest for winning a record 73 games is well within reach. The keys they play by have helped them be the success they are. The consistent 3 point shooting threat has left many shaking their heads in disbelief. Always making the extra pass has allowed them to strive on and off the ball. Most importantly teamwork both on offense and defense has led them to be ranked among the league’s best in both. As long as the Golden State Warriors keep shooting the three point shot the way they have been, along with great passing and teamwork they will pass the record held by the 1995-1996 Michael Jordan led Chicago bulls team.
There are now even more international players in the league today, and many of them show great potential. International players like Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kristaps Porzingis are just few examples of rising stars in the game(Segal 79). As of today the NBA is in a phase known as the LeBron era(Segal 22). Right now, guards are being seen as more of the focal point of the team rather than big men(Segal 33). Some of today’s brightest stars include guards like Russell Westbrook, James Harden, Kyrie Irving, and Stephen Curry(Segal 10). Last but not least, players are forced to play a lot softer today than in the past due to multiple rule changes(Trenchard, NBA Then and