Locker room talk: rolling basketball thread

IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Yesterday I met up with Igor and a friend visiting him from Serbia and, in the absence of an explanation here, I asked them.

So yeah same as you said, the basic rule is that the worst team gets the first pick, next worst the second and so on.

But that - as you say too - is complicated by trading the rights to the picks. They didn't mention the lottery though, which I guess is yet another complication.

My thought though, this season there was this guy gonna be in the draft who everyone is excited about. And the team that finishes last will get him, doesn't this create a conflict of interest with teams improving their draft options by deliberately losing games?
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
IdleRich said:
My thought though, this season there was this guy gonna be in the draft who everyone is excited about. And the team that finishes last will get him, doesn't this create a conflict of interest with teams improving their draft options by deliberately losing games?
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that's the intended purpose of the draft lottery. the order of draft picks is randomly selected from the teams with the worst records. intentionally losing to get the worst record won't necessarily mean you get the #1 pick.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Yeah, what you're referring to Rich is called "tanking"—teams playing intentionally bad to secure better picks—and it's a significant part of the NBA season, at least for the bottom-barrel 3-6 teams. One team's GM attained legendary status via a half-decade-long tank called The Process, ended up collecting an unbelievable number of young players in the 2010s. It's harder now with the lottery system Leo mentioned, but it still happens—just, you're competing to get a top pick, not the top pick.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Lots to be said here about how subsidy and incentivization are fundamentally the same thing—any kind of compensatory handout to a game's losers will end up a magnetic attractor for behavior.
 
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sus

sus

Moderator
Leo said:
I know you're a big Jordan Poole fan, @sus. What do you think of the trade?
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IDK front office fucked up I think, basically

Poole was an amazing development story for us, and might still end up a perennial all-star despite a rocky season. If he accepted his role, he would have likely continued to be a key contributor in championship-contending teams. But front office paid him too much, which (1) got to his head (2) forced them to trade him if he wasn't immediately living up to full potential.
 
sus

sus

Moderator
Ws have done really well in terms of medical staff and load management last few years; think that both 2016 and 2019 finals taught them a lot as an org about patience and overuse. So probs not crazy to think there's a good chance CP3 is healthy come playoffs.

But Ws are getting older and JP really helped them do that load management by balling out in regular season. I dunno. Not particularly optimistic for this core, unless the youngsters take a big leap.
 
Leo

Leo

Well-known member
sus said:
IDK front office fucked up I think, basically

Poole was an amazing development story for us, and might still end up a perennial all-star despite a rocky season. If he accepted his role, he would have likely continued to be a key contributor in championship-contending teams. But front office paid him too much, which (1) got to his head (2) forced them to trade him if he wasn't immediately living up to full potential.
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Wonder if the Draymond punch also fucked with his head.
 
linebaugh

linebaugh

Well-known member
The celtics are the perfect place for KP though. Even if hes reduced to just a floor spacer in the playoffs thats what the celtics need and he also wont have to be a primary big either. If he can stay healthy it should be a good pick up. Im not gonna beleive he has any skill besides floor spacing that a team can lean on him for against good teams in the playoffs until I see it though.
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
sus said:
Yeah, what you're referring to Rich is called "tanking"—teams playing intentionally bad to secure better picks—and it's a significant part of the NBA season, at least for the bottom-barrel 3-6 teams. One team's GM attained legendary status via a half-decade-long tank called The Process, ended up collecting an unbelievable number of young players in the 2010s. It's harder now with the lottery system Leo mentioned, but it still happens—just, you're competing to get a top pick, not the top pick.
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It makes sense that they would have designed a remedy for it of course. I suppose that such a situation can arise in any sport but it's quite rare in football, however I do remember a tournament in Hong Kong or something once where both teams had qualified for the next round and so the result would only settle who came first and second in the group and thus their opponent in the next round and ultimately their path to the final.

It turned out both teams preferred the route that would result from finishing second and so they were both hoping to lose. At first they were just playing half-heartedly but at the end it became completely farcical with one side trying to 'accidentally' score in their own net, and the other one defending it. Completely ridiculous, I guess they were fined.

More common is when a draw suits both teams and they kinda unofficially agree to play out a toothless, shotless 0 - 0. Obviously against the rules but hard to prove.

That's against the rules obviously, because it's cheating. But one thing that's not cheating and which is more common and can affect other teams, is due to the sheer number of tournaments and fixtures... it's inevitable that some teams will have games that don't matter to them but where the result affects other teams. If you have a meaningless game it makes total sense to rest your best players so they don't get injured or tired for the games that do matter... but that's very disappointing for a team that needs you to win so that they can avoid relegation...
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
sus said:
One team's GM attained legendary status via a half-decade-long tank called The Process, ended up collecting an unbelievable number of young players in the 2010s.
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Wait, they played badly for five years to get a really good bunch of picks at the end? I have to take my hat off to them for the sheer bloody-minded persistent sneakiness of that. What about the fans? Were they aware of this plan? Did they go along and watch them lose on purpose for years on end?

Am I right in saying that there is no relegation? So there is no penalty for being really shit... coming last us ultimately no worse than just missing the play-offs?
 
sus

sus

Moderator
IdleRich said:
Wait, they played badly for five years to get a really good bunch of picks at the end? I have to take my hat off to them for the sheer bloody-minded persistent sneakiness of that. What about the fans? Were they aware of this plan? Did they go along and watch them lose on purpose for years on end?

Am I right in saying that there is no relegation? So there is no penalty for being really shit... coming last us ultimately no worse than just missing the play-offs?
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On November 29, 2014, the 76ers lost to the Dallas Mavericks 103–110 and set a franchise record for losses to start the season, as they fell to a record of 0–16.[65] After losing their next game against the San Antonio Spurs to make it 0–17, the 76ers were on the verge of tying the NBA record of 18 straight losses to start a season if they lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves on December 3, but they broke their losing streak and won their first game of the 2014–15 season with an 85–77 victory at Minnesota.[66]
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