Something disastrous happened to the LA Lakers on Sunday: they actually won a game. Before beating the Memphis Grizzlies 108-103, things had been going fairly well for the Lakers: they were on a four-game losing streak, and were playing badly enough that they could have conceivably lost their remaining games of the season.
With the win, however, the Lakers’ chances of getting a top three pick in this year’s NBA draft lottery took a huge hit, dropping below 50%. That’s a huge deal, because if their pick ends up being No4 or lower, it will go to the Philadelphia 76ers. In that scenario, the Lakers would receive little compensation for suffering through one of the most painful seasons in franchise history. After the ill-timed win, the Lakers reacted by shutting down an injured but still productive Nick Young for the season. This is how strange the season has been for the Lakers: not only are they deliberately trying to lose games, they found themselves in a situation where playing Young was somehow actually harmful to that cause.
It’s not an ideal situation for the Lakers, but they’re still in much better shape than the Brooklyn Nets. Despite a three-game winning streak, the Nets have the worst record in the league. As of now, there’s a one-in-four chance that their 2017 first-round pick will end up being No 1 overall, which would be fantastic news if they actually had a first-round pick this year. Unfortunately, Brooklyn sent it to the Boston Celtics a few years back in a trade package for what was left of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. That deal looked short-sighted then, and it looks like one of the worst in basketball history now. The Celtics could conceivably end the regular season on top of the Eastern Conference and end up with the first pick in what’s looking like a rather stacked draft.
This means, out of all the teams that are in the worst shape, the Phoenix Suns are in the best shape. The Suns lost 12 straight games heading into Wednesday night’s contest against the Golden State Warriors, and have complete control of their first-round pick. Assuming that they don’t suddenly develop competence between now and the end of the season, the main thing the Suns will have to worry about is whether or not the ping-pong balls will bounce their way come lottery day.
There are very few subjects that irk basketball purists more than tanking for draft picks. It’s hard to think of a situation more hostile to competition than one where teams are given an incentive to not put their best teams on the floor. It can be especially tricky this late in the season, when playoff teams are jockeying for higher seeding while teams on the bubble try to nail down a postseason berth. There’s a lack of fairness when the difficulty of a team’s remaining schedule depends on whether or not the opposing teams have any motivation to win.
The tanking process is also dispiriting for fans attending those final few games in April. Often they get stuck watching D-League caliber lineups fumble their way up and down the court while the star players stay stuck on the bench. Of course, that’s often how those games go when a team’s playoff seeding has already been set, but at least in those situations the crowd isn’t suffering from the internal conflict of wanting to see a win while knowing that a loss would help the team more.
It’s a surreal situation and one that isn’t entirely fair to the rest of the league, even when factoring in the randomness introduced by the lottery system. Ultimately, the NBA draft rewards failure, whether it’s of the intentional or accidental kind, and encourages teams to tank, an unpardonable sin for those who believe that professional sports should be the last bastion of meritocracy.
Don’t expect the draft to change any time soon, however. Without the draft, there wouldn’t be as much drama remaining in the regular season this time of year. By the last few weeks of the season, we tend to know which teams are playoff locks, which ones are fighting for those final seeds, and which ones are well out of it. The draft adds intrigue to what would otherwise be meaningless games for many markets. It may be perverse to root for your favorite team to fail, but it shows that you’re still paying attention.
In fact, the growing acceptance of tanking is good for basketball, a sign that fans aren’t solely invested in the sport for the immediate thrill of winning but are invested in their team’s long-term health. Part of supporting one’s team in the 21st century is exercising patience and taking the long view, which is why the 76ers could tank several seasons in a row without a fan revolt. So, if you support a lottery-bound team, feel free to root for failure without an iota of embarrassment: consider it your ethical duty and just be thankful you don’t root for the Nets.
