ESPN truehoop Tanking article

[Dre]

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...tell-the-truth

[E.H. Munro]

Henry should probably have done some research rather than just listening to Bill Simmons bitch & moan.

[RollWithEm]

Originally Posted by E.H. Munro

Henry should probably have done some research rather than just listening to Bill Simmons bitch & moan.

It seems, if you read the article, that he actually did his due diligence quite well on this topic. I'm glad he's pointing all of this out.

[E.H. Munro]

No, he didn't. I can tell you this because he's mentioning the exact same teams that Simmons does every time he goes on this rant. And I know Simmons is being dishonest about it because I've had the argument with him before. I'm giving Henry the benefit of the doubt here (even though he's an asshole in person and probably doesn't deserve it).

For example, he repeats the Simmons canard about the 2003 Cavs "trading away their three leading scorers for nothing". Which all sounds well and good until you actually look it up. Their three leading scorers in 2002 were the completely cooked 30 year old Wes Person, who was still owed 2/15, an incredibly mediocre Lamond Murray, and Andre Miller, who was a pending UFA who had already publicly informed Cleveland that he was leaving once he reached free agency. How much were they expected to get for those guys? They dealt Miller for a high upside player that wasn't yet a bust (Darius Miles). But Miles was a SF, which meant that it was time to cash in Murray. And they got a lottery protected #1 for SF Murray. Was he worth more than that? Person was a salary dump, but he was also completely done as a quality NBA player. He had been outplayed by 22 year old Ricky Davis by the end of 2002. The Cavs made the entirely rational decision to gamble on Davis rather than paying $15 million to a 30 year old guard with cranky knees.

The same situation goes with the rest of those teams. Most of them really were that shitty. Another example, the '96 Celtics, one of the worst teams in the NBA, lost their starting PF & C to age/injury & trade. The starting center for the '97 team was the 6'8" Antoine Walker, with the 6'7" Eric Williams at the 4. Were they magically supposed to produce more wins with a team that would have been undersized by college standards? They traded Montross, who was an enormous bust, for Walker, so you can't argue that it wasn't a good deal. Dino Radja just gave up the ghost (and his NBA career was over, so that's not a disputable fact). The Spurs that year were a one man team whose one man was gone to a back injury, and who was never the same player again, so it was indisputably a real problem.

[RollWithEm]

First of all, that wasn't an article by Henry Abbott. He may have edited it, but those were the views of Royce Webb.

Secondly, regardless of who the Cavs traded that season, Ricky Davis' quote clearly indicates that he felt management was "forcing [John Lucas] to lose." There is certainly an implication that more shadiness than just their offseason transactions was occurring behind the scenes.

Actually, the same is true of the Celtics and Spurs in '97. The article is clearly claiming that individuals intimately involved with those teams felt they were tanking.

[E.H. Munro]

How were they "forcing Lucas to lose" though? That's the question. Were they summoning Voodoo priests to cast curses on the team? Did they steal all the players' lucky rabbits feet? The 2003 Cavs were the culmination of years of bad management. Their one decent player, a pending UFA, told them he was leaving and wouldn't be back. They made what they thought was the best deal they could in a depressed trade market. They clearly got more than Lamond Murray was worth.

And I really don't care what self-serving BS that ML Carr was spouting back when he was trying to land another GM job. The reality is that the '97 Celtics were the culmination of the Gavitt/Carr regime. That's why he was trying to excuse it ("We meant to suck! That's why my teams were so bad! If I were really trying we'd've been teh ossum"). But simply trace the personnel decisions. Unless they were planning their "tanking" in 1994, with no way of knowing when Duncan would be leaving Wake Forest (and there's simply no way humanly impossible that the twin DDs Gavitt and Carr could have masterminded that) then the reality is that age, injuries and shitty personnel decisions caught up with them. They were clearly trying to get better by replacing The Original Big Bindlestiff with an actual NBA player and moving Radja to center. Only Radja got injured again and Boston found itself playing with a 6'8" C and a 6'7" PF. And Radja's injuries were NBA terminal, not imaginary.

Same goes with the Spurs. If the Admiral were so healthy and able to get back into the starting lineup, why the hell was he never the same player again? You guys are citing opinions as evidence, and claiming that the facts are irrelevant. I'm simply looking at the actual facts. **** the opinions.

[Jamel Irief]

I watched the highlights of that Madsen game when it happened, and the crowd was cheering for him to shoot 3's. But Casey's fears are true, it did make a mockery of the game, and really I don't see how it can be defended that it was anything but tanking.

[E.H. Munro]

Originally Posted by Jamel Irief

I watched the highlights of that Madsen game when it happened, and the crowd was cheering for him to shoot 3's. But Casey's fears are true, it did make a mockery of the game, and really I don't see how it can be defended that it was anything but tanking.

That one game was one of the few real examples. But the author basically avoided ones that undermined his overblown Simmons podcast fueled fantasies. For example when the '07 Mavs capped a 67 win season by throwing a game to the Golden State Warriors so that they could meet them in the first round, only to get bounced unceremoniously from the playoffs.

Since I know that Simmons will never stop doing that podcast, I really wish people would start doublechecking this stuff for themselves. Because pretty much all of his favourite pet examples were simply cases of teams that went through long term mismanagement that finally caught up to them. Basketball is a talent driven sport, and when you finally run out of talent you're normally completely screwed. About the only exception I can think of is Rivers' CoY campaign in Orlando. (And no, sports fans, he actually didn't guide the Magic into the playoffs, they were in the lottery that year.)

[Luke]

Originally Posted by E.H. Munro

That one game was one of the few real examples. But the author basically avoided ones that undermined his overblown Simmons podcast fueled fantasies. For example when the '07 Mavs capped a 67 win season by throwing a game to the Golden State Warriors so that they could meet them in the first round, only to get bounced unceremoniously from the playoffs.

Since I know that Simmons will never stop doing that podcast, I really wish people would start doublechecking this stuff for themselves. Because pretty much all of his favourite pet examples were simply cases of teams that went through long term mismanagement that finally caught up to them. Basketball is a talent driven sport, and when you finally run out of talent you're normally completely screwed. About the only exception I can think of is Rivers' CoY campaign in Orlando. (And no, sports fans, he actually didn't guide the Magic into the playoffs, they were in the lottery that year.)

Your baddest honkey mofo alive avatar was better.

[E.H. Munro]

You're right, I miss Grandmama.

[Hyperion]

I hate it when they talk about the worst team in the league tanking. Look, we all know that the WORST team is actually that terrible. Look at Charlotte. They are wretched! However, the rest of the non-playoff teams are the ones who tank the most. The ones looking to move from 8th worst to 4th worst.

[E.H. Munro]

Yeah, that's the point. It happens, but not at the bottom, those teams are flat out crappy. It's the ones at the margins that try to edge their way up the draft boards.

My favourite example being the '07 Sonics. Simmons is the world's biggest Durant fanboy, so he always gives Seattle a pass for 2007. Even though Seattle forced Ray Allen to have ankle surgery that wasn't strictly necessary to get him off the court and increase their supply of lottery tickets. And to be clear, I'm forever grateful for their tankjob because it was directly responsible for Boston's 2008 title. But the people that write these recaps always miss the few real examples because they aren't the ones that Bill talks about.

[RollWithEm]

This Simmons vendetta of your is a little more deep seated than I had originally suspected.

[E.H. Munro]

Simmons does this same podcast every single spring and then a wave of bad blog posts repeating his claims springs up in its wake. Should I blame Skip Bayless for people's repeating of Simmons' schtick?

[RollWithEm]

It's not like he's the first person to bring up tanking.