Riggin’ for Wiggins. Sorry for Jabari. Scandal for Randle.
The catchy phrases are already piling up as NBA teams make themselves into ugly ducklings for the 2013-14 season in an effort to maximize their chances at landing one of the premium talents that have hit the college hardwood this season.
And alliteration aside, this happens all too frequently in the NBA. The Draft Lottery is a joke, a punch line to the league and the more you look at it, should be a mark on David Stern’s legacy.
From Andre Wiggins at Kansas, Jabari Parker at Duke, Julius Randle at Kentucky, Aaron Gordon at Arizona to a host of other heralded freshmen, the 2014 NBA Draft has GMs everywhere lining up to give away an entire season in hopes of landing one of these potential franchise players.
But should they even be allowed?
In an exchange years ago will ESPN’s Bill Simmons, noted thinker Malcolm Gladwell had this to say:
“I think, for example, that the idea of ranking draft picks in reverse order of finish — as much as it sounds “fair” — does untold damage to the game. You simply cannot have a system that rewards anyone, ever, for losing. Economists worry about this all the time, when they talk about “moral hazard.” Moral hazard is the idea that if you insure someone against risk, you will make risky behavior more likely. So if you always bail out the banks when they take absurd risks and do stupid things, they are going to keep on taking absurd risks and doing stupid things.”
And he’s right. Nowhere else on earth is poor performance, malfeasance, mismanagement rewarded. Well, except in Washington, D.C.
Think about it. Everything else that we do must be done to the best of our efforts – or at least some minimum level of trying – or we lose it.
From relationships to our jobs, we can’t tank and get ahead. And when we’ve tried it – as Gladwell said, with banks, it proves to be a hazard to society and one that doesn’t work.
Just picture it: going all George Costanza and sleeping under your desk all day and earning a promotion? That was funny because it was ridiculous to us.
What if we put no effort into our relationships? Just try not taking your girlfriend or wife out for dinner and a movie, even every now and then, and see how quickly your single. You even have to put effort into that – the pick-up. Try going to the bars in sweats, smelling like a dirty sock and looking like you just woke up from a bender. No woman would come within five feet of you.
Think of how outraged we’d be if this practice existed in schools?
Teacher: “Johnny is failing tests, farting in class, humming the Star Wars imperial theme when I lecture and demanding peanut butter and cheese sticks be instituted as the school lunch. We’re going to have to move him up a grade, name him Student of the Month and recommend he teach my class.”
Parent: “Well, we were worried, but hopeful this would happen. We’ll now make sure to reel him in and try a little harder on his schoolwork and behavioral issues.”
Cheat your taxes? How about some money back to make sure you have enough for next year?
It used to be that NBA teams would at least try to not be horrible, or at least be less obvious about it, until after the holidays. It was a passing rite of spring, really. Hit March, and go into full tanking mode. Now? Teams are trotting out a collection of barely passable NBA talent in hopes of getting a head start at being at the bottom by season’s end.
The lack of logic in this practice is astounding. After 30 years, aren’t we clear that this doesn’t work? A handful of well-run teams keep winning the championship. The bad teams stay bad because they are poorly run and because just getting one young superstar doesn’t fix the problem.
How many times do the Bobcats/Hornets, Hornets/Pelicans, Clippers, Raptors, Timberwolves, Grizzlies and Kings have to get a lottery pick before they are good? Those teams have had at least 6 or more lottery picks since the 1984-85 season.
In a recent case study, it was discovered that nearly 90 percent of teams that win 25 games or less are still not contenders five years later. This is the same as saying someone who sits on their couch, plays video games online and tweets about not having a wife or a job is still doing the same thing five years later.
Not exactly surprising.
While I would agree with Gladwell’s theory that we should not reward this kind of team, I think the most egregious thing is that it has become such a glaring problem that everyone openly acknowledges it but nothing is done about it by the league.
David Stern will fine San Antonio for not having their star players face the Heat last November, but he won’t do anything about this? Oh, wait, that’s because he’s helped create it, incentivize it and continue it. Stern will never admit how failed this logic is.
The question, I suppose, is why doesn’t the NFL have this problem? Why is the NFL, the envy of the NBA and Major League Baseball, facing this issue? Because management doesn’t last if they tank. There’s too much risk in throwing away a season.
What I’ve never understood is how you convince people to throw away an entire year of their careers? Imagine telling Michael Jordan, the player, you were going to openly stink for a season to get him some help? Now, Jordan the executive is managing one of the worst teams in professional sports – in any league – in an effort to build a roster of young players where one might pan out.
Not that anyone cares, but it must be difficult to be a fan of these teams. It’s against everything we know to root for losing. Yet, the NBA allows it and rewards it.
Yup. The NBA.
It’s fantastic.
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