Losing is Winning

800 Words2 Pages

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. .

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