If you’ve been a sports fan for even a short period of time, I’m sure you’ve heard the term “tanking”. If this is a new term for you “tanking” is when a team plays a less than optimal lineup in hopes of losing a game. Teams generally do this to improve their draft position, but last Friday night there might’ve been another reason for a team “tanking”.
“Tanking” is a term commonly used in the National Basketball Association, but when it comes to Major League Baseball teams or teams in the National Football League, they use the term rebuilding.
On Friday night the Dallas Mavericks still had an outside chance to make the play-in tournament. Dallas needed to win it’s last two games which was a decent possibility because they faced the Chicago Bulls on Friday before wrapping up their regular season today against the San Antonio Spurs. Now just winning these two games wouldn’t have been enough for the Mavericks to get into the play-in tournament as they’d need some help, but at least there was a chance.
Before Friday’s game against the Bulls the Mavericks announced that Kyrie Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr, Max Kleber, Josh Green and Christian Wood wouldn’t play against the Bulls. Then not only were the Mavericks shorthanded due to these players been held out, but Luka Doncic played just 13 minutes against the Bulls on Friday Night.
Even with the deck stacked against them the Mavericks almost found a way to win the game. Dallas ended up losing 115-112 to the Bulls. This loss eliminated the Mavericks from being able to get the 10th seed in the Western conference.
Now in the NBA it’s very rare that a lower seeded team beats a higher seeded team in the playoffs, especially in the early rounds so even if the Mavericks had gotten that 10th seed it’s doubtful that they would’ve had much of a chance to win the NBA title but why tank.
By not making the playoffs the Mavericks fall into the NBA’s draft lottery were they’ll have a chance to get the #1 overall pick, but that’s probably not why they tanked.
See when the Mavericks traded Kristaps Porzingis to the New York Knicks the Knicks also received a 2024 1st round pick in that deal. The 1st round pick that went to the Knicks is lottery protected meaning if the Mavericks are in the draft lottery, they’ll keep that 1st round pick.
Is this the reason that the Mavericks tanked the Friday night game against the Bulls and Dallas has already announced that those same five players and Doncic won’t play in today’s regular season finale against San Antonio.
It appears as though the NBA will be looking into this situation. NBA spokesman Mike Bass said on Saturday afternoon that “The NBA commenced an investigation today into the facts and circumstances surrounding the Dallas Mavericks’ roster decisions and game conduct with respect to last night’s Chicago Bulls-Mavericks game, including the motivations behind those actions.”
Back in 2018 Mavericks owner Mark Cuban paid a $600,000 fine when he publicly admitting the Mavs were tanking. You’d have to guess that Cuban will be paying another fine for this situation.
What do you think if the Mavericks decision to sit their players out against the Bulls on Friday night and attempt to tank that game. I’d also be interested to know what you think that the NBA will do about this situation. Do you think that the NBA would go so far as to take that 1st round draft pick away from the Mavericks.
With the NBA regular season finales today, you realize how much of a joke the actual regular season is. Think about it teams play 82 games just to eliminate 10 teams before starting the playoffs.
The play-in tournament was added just so the NBA could have a few more playoff games for the television networks to show. Don’t forget that television networks can charge more for their ad rates during playoff games. So the more playoff games there are the more the NBA can get for its television rights because the networks that show those games will have more games to show. While I understand that it’s just business, but let’s face it the early rounds of the playoffs as well as the play-in tournament are boring and uninteresting.
The play-in tournament starts on Tuesday with the Miami Heat hosting the Atlanta Hawks. There will also be a Western conference play-in game, but the teams that will be in that game haven’t officially been decided yet. What is known about the Western conference play-in tournaments is that the Oklahoma City Thunder will play a road game Wednesday. The Eastern conference game on Wednesday will have the Raptors hosting the Bulls.
The winners of these games on Tuesday and Wednesday will meet on Friday for the right to advance into the actual NBA playoffs. The Eastern conference play-in winner will face the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1st round of the playoffs while the winner of the Western conference play-in gets to go up against the Denver Nuggets in the 1st round.
Would you give the winner of the play-in tournament in either conference a chance even win a game against the #1 seed in their respective conference.
Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.
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The winners of the NBA play in tournament have a virtual zero chance of advancing once the “real” NBA playoffs start.
I must admit that I was shocked when I heard that the Bulls actually defeated the Mavericks 115-112. Dallas was winning that game so easily (even without their best players) that I turned off the game in disgust.
Somehow, Dallas figured out a way to lose that game and look for the league to fine Cuban some big bucks again.
Big bucks, that is, to us and not him!
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I believe LBJ once said the regular season doesn’t matter and I think it was a slip of the tongue. You used to make me pick each round of the playoffs but it was always too easy especially in the first two rounds because we all knew who would win. I enjoy watching the NBA but honestly have resorted to only watching the playoff. More so in the last two rounds.
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