How Good Will the Wembanyama-Fox Duo Be?
The San Antonio Spurs have paired second year wunderkind Victor Wembanyama with De'Aaron Fox to form what they hope will be a championship-winning duo. The Spurs acquired Fox--who earned one All-Star selection in seven and a half seasons with the Sacramento Kings--in a three team deal that sent two-time All-Star Zach LaVine from Chicago to Sacramento along with Sidy Cissoko, three first round draft picks, and three second round draft picks. Jordan McLaughlin will join Fox in San Antonio, and Chicago will receive Zach Collins, Kevin Huerter, Tre Jones, and their own 2025 first round draft pick that they had previously traded.
As I noted in my articles about the Jimmy Butler trade and the blockbuster Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade, the general rule of thumb when evaluating an NBA trade is that the team that received the best player "won," although size matters in the NBA, and age is also a factor worth considering.
Fox is the best player in this deal; he is a 27 year old 6-3 point guard with career averages of 21.5 ppg, 6.1 apg, 3.9 rpg, and 1.4 spg. He led the NBA in steals last season (2.0 spg), and he ranks eighth in steals (1.6 spg) this season. He has ranked in the top 10 in assists twice (eighth in 2019, ninth in 2021), and he has ranked in the top 10 in scoring once (eighth in 2024 with a career-high 26.6 ppg). Fox has averaged at least 23.2 ppg each season since 2021-22, including 24.9 ppg this season. Fox has made the All-NBA Team once (Third Team selection in 2023). He is a very good player, but he is not a great player; he is not a perennial All-Star, he has never come close to making the All-NBA First Team, and he has an 0-1 career playoff series record that demonstrates that he has yet to lift his team to high level postseason success.
LaVine is an often injured 6-5 swingman who will soon turn 30 years old, and who last made the All-Star team in 2022. His career averages are 20.7 ppg, 4.7 rpg, and 4.3 apg. He is not a good defensive player and, like Fox, he has an 0-1 career playoff series record.
The other players in this deal, like the other players in the Butler trade and the Doncic-Davis trade, were included to facilitate the deal more so than for the direct impact they are expected to have on the court. The multiple draft picks are like stock futures: they may prove to be extremely valuable, and they may prove to be worthless. Much like a smart investor maintains a diverse portfolio, a smart team does not rely too heavily on just the draft, just free agency, or just trades, but instead keeps open as many options as possible to improve the roster in terms of talent, depth, and salary cap flexibility.
Will Wembanyama and Fox win at least one championship together in San Antonio? There are many reasons to be skeptical.
The Spurs tanked to acquire the draft rights to Wembanyama, even though it has been proven over a long period of time and a large sample size that tanking does not work. "Stat guru" executives and delusional writers have made a lot of money touting the notion that the Philadelphia 76ers "tanked to the top" despite the fact that the much-praised "Process" has not yielded more than a string of second round losses--and this season, despite having a "Big Three" featuring Joel "The Process" Embiid, Paul "Playoff P" George, and promising young guard Tyrese Maxey, the 76ers are struggling just to qualify for the playoffs. Tanking teams tend to not ever win big for a variety of reasons, including the fact that tanking promotes bad habits and creates a culture where losing is acceptable (or even desirable); bad habits and a negative culture are a lot more difficult to change than "stat gurus" are willing to admit. Embiid has been in the NBA since 2014, and he still has not developed proper training habits off of the court or a winning mentality on the court, demonstrated every time we see his out of shape body lumbering back on defense. As Jeff Van Gundy used to say during his TV commentating days: horses trot, players run.
The Spurs went 22-60 in their tanking season and then, after drafting Wembanyama, they went 22-60 in his rookie season. They added veterans Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes prior to this season, and they are currently 22-27--a significant improvement, but hardly even close to championship contention. Building a championship team is not like microwaving a packaged meal; "stat gurus" keep acting as if they can just throw talent together to win instantly and they keep being slapped in the face by the hard reality that great teams are not built that way. Great teams are built from the ground up by developing chemistry and by inculcating the right habits. Wembanyama is a highly productive young player who does not have a clue what it takes to win at the NBA level. Fox is a productive player entering his prime who has yet to win at the NBA level. Why should we believe that throwing those two players together is going to produce anything other that some regular season wins followed by, at best, early playoff exits? Wembanyama may be the best defensive player in the NBA, but the Spurs rank 13th in defensive field goal percentage and 19th in points allowed. It takes a well put together team to win at a high level, not just a bunch of individually talented players.
Fox may be talented enough to push the Spurs above .500 this season, but it will be very surprising if the Spurs win a playoff series in 2025, and it will be interesting to see how long it takes for Wembanyama to notch his first playoff series win. Embiid missed his first two seasons due to injury, and did not win a playoff series until four years after he was drafted. He has reached the second round just five times, and he is 0-5 in those series.
This is not a bad trade for the Spurs. The Spurs clearly "won" this trade and they are better now than they were before. The point is that it will take more than one good trade to undo the damage done by tanking. It is interesting to contrast Pat Riley's Miami Heat--a team that refuses to tank--with the Spurs (and other tanking teams). Since LeBron James left the Heat in 2014, the Heat have reached the NBA Finals twice, participated in the playoffs in seven out of 10 seasons, and had a losing record just twice. After Tim Duncan retired in 2016, the Spurs reached the Western Conference Finals once, lost in the second round twice, and have not participated in the playoffs since 2020. The Spurs have had a losing record in each of the past five seasons, and will have to scramble to not have a losing record this season. They may not have been losing on purpose that whole time, but they also did not build a foundation for success; they just hoped to hit the Draft Lottery jackpot--and even after "winning" the Draft Lottery they are still a losing team. Gregg Popovich used to quip that he had nothing to do with the Spurs' success and that he was just lucky to have had Tim Duncan for so long, but that joke probably seems less funny to Spurs' fans now than it did during their championship-winning glory days. Which fan base has had more fun and received more value in the past decade or so--Miami or San Antonio? Tanking is just awful for the league, for its fans, and for its media partners. At any give time, it seems that at least five or six of the NBA's 30 teams are losing on purpose, and that makes the product almost unwatchable. It was hilarious to hear J.J. Redick lambasting Charles Barkley for telling the truth that is plain for anyone to see: the NBA has a lot of bad teams playing bad basketball.
The other two teams in this trade seem to be adrift, at best. Mike Brown brought some stability to the Kings--leading the team to the playoffs in 2023, their first postseason appearance since 2006--but now that the Kings fired him and traded their leading scorer (Fox) they seem to be heading back toward their comfort zone of dysfunction. The Kings enjoyed a brief 11-4 honeymoon under new Coach Doug Christie before losing four of their last five games. LaVine has never been part of an NBA team that won at a high level, and that is unlikely to change now.
As for the Bulls, it is not clear if they are intentionally tanking or just perpetually clueless, but they have reached the playoffs just once since 2017 and they have not won a playoff series since 2015. Unloading LaVine's burdensome contract is good from a salary cap flexibility standpoint, but in the short run (and for the foreseeable future) they have less talent and will have to scrap and claw just to get into the Play-In Tournament.
Labels: Chicago Bulls, De'Aaron Fox, Jordan McLaughlin, Kevin Huerter, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, Sidy Cissoko, tanking, Tre Jones, Zach Collins, Zach LaVine
posted by David Friedman @ 12:56 PM
The Mikal Bridges Trade Lifts Knicks to Contender Status, Plunges Nets Into Tank Mode
The Brooklyn Nets dealt Mikal Bridges to the New York Knicks for five first round draft picks plus a second round draft pick and a first round pick swap; three of the first round picks and the first round pick swap are in 2027 or later, indicating that the Nets are planning to try the trendy--but thus far unsuccessful--plan of "tanking to the top." Tanking does not work, as Philadelphia 76ers fans have seen for the past decade. In contrast to the Nets giving up proven talent while hoping that unproven talent acquired years from now will help the team win, the Knicks are trying to win now, as Bridges joins three of his teammates from Villanova's 2016 NCAA
championship team: Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart, and Donte DiVincenzo.
Bridges has never missed a game during his NBA career. In the 2022-23 season he played in 83 regular season games, appearing in 56 games with Phoenix before being traded to Brooklyn, for whom he played in 27 games. Bridges averaged a career-high 20.1 ppg that season, and he averaged 19.6 ppg in 2023-24. He shot at least .510 from the field during each of his last three full seasons with the Suns, but his field goal percentage dropped significantly as he assumed a larger offensive role with the Nets (.475 in 2022-23, .436 in 2023-24). He is not a great rebounder or passer but he is an excellent defensive player, earning a selection to the All-Defensive First Team in 2022, when he also finished second to Marcus Smart in the Defensive Player of the Year voting. Bridges is an above average three point shooter (.375 3FG% for his career).
Last season, the undersized but scrappy Knicks overcame a host of injuries to rank second in points allowed and fifth in rebounding while finishing second in the Eastern Conference with a 50-32 record. The Knicks defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 4-2 in the first round before losing 4-3 to the Indiana Pacers. Bridges' superior defense and his three point shooting could have made a difference versus the Pacers, and could also be valuable in a playoff series versus the NBA champion Boston Celtics.
Two players have won two NBA titles in the past five years: Jrue Holiday (Milwaukee Bucks 2021, Boston Celtics 2024) and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (L.A. Lakers 2020, Denver Nuggets 2023). Holiday and Caldwell-Pope are athletic perimeter players who can guard multiple positions and shoot three pointers efficiently. Bridges fits that mold.
A prevailing NBA narrative suggests that first round draft picks are worth their weight in gold. That is why "stat gurus" and media members mocked the Minnesota Timberwolves for giving up four first round draft picks plus other assets to Utah in exchange for Rudy Gobert in 2022--but after making that deal the Jazz missed the playoffs the past two seasons and are sliding backwards in the standings; in contrast, Gobert anchored a Minnesota defense that led the league in points allowed and defensive field goal percentage in 2023-24 en route to the Timberwolves advancing to the Western Conference Finals for the first time since 2004. Maybe the Jazz will pan for gold someday with the first round draft picks that they obtained, but it is worth noting that even owning the number one overall draft pick provides no guarantee of striking it rich: the last number one overall draft pick who won an NBA title with the team that drafted him is Kyrie Irving (selected first in the 2011 NBA Draft), and he only enjoyed that success after LeBron James returned to Cleveland. Other number one overall draft picks since 2000 include Kwame Brown, Andrea Bargnani, Greg Oden, John Wall, Anthony Bennett, Andrew Wiggins, Ben Simmons, Markelle Fultz, and Deandre Ayton; put all of those players on the same team in their respective primes and you still do not have a championship contending team!
Teams that have superior scouting departments and excellent player development programs find and develop winning players much more consistently than teams that hoard first round draft picks without having a coherent plan for how to build a superior roster--not to mention the fact that the NBA is in the entertainment business and charges premium rates for tickets and for broadcast rights, which in turn means that the league and its teams have an obligation to the paying customers to put the best possible product on the floor. The Nets, like the Jazz and other teams that have given up proven players to obtain draft picks, will not likely be putting an attractive product on the floor next season.
Labels: Brooklyn Nets, Mikal Bridges, New York Knicks, tanking
posted by David Friedman @ 3:02 PM
Would NBA Players Give Up Guaranteed Salaries in Exchange for Amending the Player Participation Policy?
Prior to this season, the NBA instituted a Player Participation Policy to curb load management and implemented changes in the Collective Bargaining Agreement stipulating that any player who fails to play
in at least 65 out of 82 regular season games is ineligible for several major awards, including
regular season MVP. Joel Embiid has already missed 13 games this season, and now that he has reportedly suffered a lateral meniscus injury it is almost certain that he will not meet the 65 games played threshold. Some media members and some NBA players have complained that in light of his high level play this season--including a 70 point game and a league-leading 35.3 ppg scoring average--it is not fair for Embiid to be automatically disqualified from MVP consideration.
Missing a lot of games is not an aberration for Embiid, an injury-prone player who sat out every game of his first two NBA seasons. He played 31
games in his third season, 2016-17, and since that time he has played
at least 65 games in a season just twice (66 in 2022-23, 68 in 2021-22). Embiid is not only frequently unavailable during the regular season, but he often disappears during the playoffs: his playoff numbers for scoring, rebounding, and field goal
percentage are all significantly lower than his regular season numbers,
he has never won a second round series, and he has an 0-3 game seven
record. Embiid has only won one series that went past five games, which
indicates that (1) he only wins in the playoffs when his team is
markedly superior to the opposing team, and (2) he tends to wear down
over the course of a series.
Embiid won the regular season MVP last season, but is the above resume an MVP resume overall? There is no disputing that Embiid is a very talented player, but is he an MVP-level all-time great player? Put another way, should an MVP be expected to play more than 65 regular season games per year and deliver more in the playoffs than a bunch of second round losses?
The Philadelphia 76ers obtained Embiid's draft rights by tanking, and they most assuredly have not tanked to the top. Tanking and load management are two sides of the same counterfeit coin, because both practices minimize the value of winning regular season games. The NBA was much better when tanking and load management did not exist, and when players like Julius Erving and Moses Malone took pride in playing every game: "From 1967-82, the NBA regular season MVP played in 81 or 82 games every
year except for 1978, when 1977 NBA Finals MVP Bill Walton captured the
regular season MVP despite being limited to 58 games due to
injuries--and Walton was not 'load managing': he was legitimately
injured. Erving won four regular season MVPs during his ABA/NBA career;
in those MVP seasons, he played in 84, 84, 84, and 82 games (the ABA
regular season lasted 84 games). Malone won three regular season MVPs
during his ABA/NBA career; in those MVP seasons, he played in 82, 81,
and 78 games."
Bill Walton's regular season MVP in a 58 game season is an aberration, and Embiid is not Bill Walton. Embiid has never led a team to the Eastern Conference Finals--let alone an NBA title--and there is no indication that he will ever be durable enough to avoid wearing down or getting injured before or during the playoffs. Think about that: Bill Walton--the poster child for injury-prone players--proved to be more durable when it matters most than Embiid has been up to this point in his 10 year NBA career. By traditional standards, Embiid has never had an MVP-caliber season.
With the Player Participation Policy and the aforementioned changes to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in place, NBA fans are now seeing star players on the court--as opposed to sipping wine on the sidelines--more often than has been the case for the past several years. The NBA should not reverse this positive trend. Most working people are either paid based on showing up for work every day (i.e., paid by the hour) or based on performance; few people have salaries that are guaranteed regardless of their attendance or performance. If NBA players want to be eligible for postseason awards--and for contractual bonuses connected to those awards--without a minimum games played threshold then there is a simple solution: eliminate guaranteed contracts, and transition to paying each player per game played: Don't play, don't get paid. Under those rules, if players want to miss more than 17 game checks and hope that the award voters will still select them for MVP or the All-NBA Team, go for it.
I am not "blaming" Embiid or anyone else for being legitimately injured (there is no indication that Embiid is load managing). My two-fold point is (1) By definition the regular season MVP is (or should be) a player who plays at a very high level while missing very few games, and (2) players should not expect to both receive guaranteed paychecks despite missing a large number of games and be eligible for major awards: something has to give--either give up the guaranteed money, or accept that it is fair to expect major award winners to both stay healthy and not engage in load management.
Labels: Bill Walton, Joel Embiid, Julius Erving, load management, Moses Malone, Philadelphia 76ers, tanking
posted by David Friedman @ 12:28 AM
James Harden is as Good at Burning Bridges as He is at Bricking Playoff Three Pointers
I already wrote about James Harden's hubris and lack of loyalty, and I did not plan to write about Harden again unless/until the Philadelphia 76ers traded him or it was time to do my 2023-24 season preview articles. However, Harden pushed his way back into the headlines by declaring, "Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of an organization that
he's a part of. Let
me say that again: Daryl Morey is a liar and I will never be a part of
an organization that he's a part of." Harden declined to specify what he believes that Morey lied about, so Harden's claim cannot be assessed on its merits.
However, we learned that Morey is either a liar or delusional when he ranked Harden ahead of Michael Jordan as a scorer. In 2019, Chris Paul claimed that Morey lied to him with assurances that he would not be traded just days before Morey traded him to the Oklahoma City Thunder. So, even though there is no public evidence that Morey lied to Harden it would not be shocking if Morey lied to Harden--and it would also not be shocking if Harden is lying, because Harden has a track record of burning any bridges that need to be burned to assure his hasty departure from teams for which he no longer wishes to play, and it is reasonable to believe that a person who will cheat the game by reporting to camp out of shape and not playing hard is a person who would lie to get his way.
Instead of leaving it to media members to speculate about why Harden blasted the man who is most responsible for Harden receiving generational wealth to flop and flail, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver or one of his deputies should ask Harden to specify what exactly Morey allegedly lied about. If Morey merely told Harden that he would trade him and then was unwilling or unable to trade him, there is nothing for the league office to be concerned about--but if Morey told Harden that if Harden took a pay cut (as Harden did) then he would be rewarded with a huge contract extension that is a violation of the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement, which has strict rules against making promises that would enable teams to keep a player for a cap-friendly deal and make up the difference later when that team's payroll does not exceed the salary cap.
The publicly known facts are that in the summer of 2022 Harden did not utilize his player option for a $47.4 million contract for the 2022-23 season and he instead signed for $33 million plus a $35.6 million option for 2023-24; this summer, Harden exercised the $35.6 million option and then immediately demanded that the 76ers trade him.
It is obvious that something does not add up here. If Harden believed that his market value is high then he would have declined his 2023-24 option and become a free agent, confident that his desired team would outbid the 76ers for his services; of course, Harden's pathetic elimination game resume--to which he added yet another awful stat line in 2023 (nine points, five turnovers, 3-11 field goal shooting in a game seven loss to Boston)--is just one of many reasons that no one is lining up for the "privilege" of paying Harden $40 million or more for the upcoming season only to see Harden pull off his annual playoff disappearing act. The most logical reason for Harden to turn down $47.4 million, take much less money, demand a trade, and criticize his greatest benefactor is if Harden believes that Morey promised to give him a huge, multi-year contract extension this summer; if Harden expected that to happen and Morey (or the 76ers' owners) said no, then it would make sense--at least from Harden's warped perspective of entitlement--that Harden would grab all of the money that he could (his player option) and angrily ask to be traded.
The larger point here is that--to use a politically incorrect phrase that is nevertheless apt--the inmates are running the asylum, which the great Julius Erving said recently when he explained why he left several of the best modern players off of his all-time greatest players list. The way that the system is supposed to work--in society as a whole, and in the NBA in particular--is that after two parties sign a contract both parties honor that contract. You may share my distaste for how LeBron James left Cleveland in 2010, but LeBron James waited until his contract expired and then he had every legal right to seek employment with a different team--but what James Harden, Damian Lillard, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis, and other big name players have done in recent years is sign big money contracts and then not only demand a trade but also arrogantly assume that they have the right to pick where they are traded, in blatant violation of the terms of their contract.
We may never find out if Morey lied to Harden, but if Morey lied to Harden with promises of a big money deal then Harden would have to admit to breaking salary cap rules to prove that Morey lied. Harden may not have thought all of this through before he opened his bearded mouth and attacked his biggest fan, or Harden may just believe that if he makes the situation toxic enough then he will get his way, an approach that worked for him on his way out of first Houston and then Brooklyn.
Harden could have avoided all of this by declining his option and offering his services on the open market. The reason that Harden did not do that is the same reason that Lillard squeezed every penny out of the Portland Trail Blazers before demanding that the team trade him to Miami: both players know that they are not worth nearly as much on the open market as they would like to be paid.
Harden and Lillard appear to believe that they can get away with not showing up for work until they are traded to their respective desired destinations, but any player who does not show up for training camp or who shows up for training camp looking like he is wearing a fat suit in preparation for portraying Professor Klump in "The Nutty Professor" should be suspended without pay. If I were Morey, I would tell Coach Nick Nurse to have Harden run laps for every missed shot and turnover in game seven versus Boston, and if Harden balked I would have him escorted out of the practice facility sans paycheck. The 76ers suspended Ben Simmons in a similar circumstance before trading him for Harden, but Harden has more power than Simmons so Philadelphia fans should brace themselves for a few games of "fat Harden" before the crisis reaches a boiling point and Morey ships Harden out. Maybe Morey will channel Michael Jordan and "take personally" Harden's public verbal assault on his character. Harden clearly thinks that he has all of the leverage, but maybe he has overplayed his hand and will be forced to "settle" for being paid over $35 million to play for Philadelphia next season.
I was a big 76ers fan as a kid, before I realized that I was more of a Julius Erving fan than a 76ers fan; after Erving retired, my attachment to the team faded, and then completely disappeared after Sam Hinkie attempted to "Tank to the Top" (an unfortunate book title which does not at all describe what happened). Reigning regular season MVP Joel Embiid is all that remains from Hinkie's infamous "Process," and it would be fascinating to hear Embiid's honest opinions about Harden and Morey. Of course, the oft-injured and never in top condition Embiid should perhaps lead a team past the second round of the playoffs before he points fingers at others.
It would be a fitting conclusion to the misguided "Process" if Embiid, Harden, and Morey all end up with teams other than the 76ers. I predicted that the 76ers would not win anything of consequence until they purged every remnant of Hinkie's reign of error, and I have not wavered an inch from that stance: franchises that spend seasons losing on purpose will not morph into champions because that is not how a championship culture is built.
Labels: Daryl Morey, James Harden, Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers, Sam Hinkie, tanking
posted by David Friedman @ 12:30 AM
NBA's In-Season Tournament Will not Cure the NBA's Load Management, Tanking, and Flopping Problems
Next season, the NBA will have an in-season tournament, with the winner being awarded the NBA Cup (which could be renamed if/when corporate sponsors provide funding). The NBA issued an official press release explaining the in-season tournament's format and rules but the short explanation is that no extra games will be added to the regular season, a prize pool will be distributed after the NBA Cup concludes, and an MVP and All-Tournament Team will be selected. Each player from the championship team will receive $500,000, while each player from the runner-up team will receive $200,000; players whose teams lose in the semifinals will receive $100,000 each, and players whose teams lose in the quarterfinals will receive $50,000 each. The tournament games will be part of the regular season schedule except for the championship game, which will be an extra game for which the statistics will not be counted as either regular season statistics or playoff statistics (much like the statistics from all of the Play-In Tournament games are not officially counted as regular season statistics or playoff statistics). This neither fish nor fowl treatment of game statistics for a game that is supposed to be important is ridiculous. At the very least, the NBA should create a separate category if it does not want the championship game numbers counted as part of the regular season or the postseason.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has advocated for an in-season tournament for over a decade, and there is little doubt that his fans--who adore every move he makes while also belittling the style and policies of his great predecessor David Stern--will waste no time declaring that the in-season tournament is a brilliant innovation. The reality is that the in-season tournament is not innovative at all; it is derivative, because the concept has already been applied in soccer and other sports. If anything, adding an in-season tournament to the NBA's calendar after the league thrived for several decades without such a tournament seems more like a gimmicky, desperation move than a creative act. Of course, the bottom line here is about money, not creativity. The NBA cares more about profits than anything else, so the success of the NBA Cup will be measured quite simply in dollars and cents: if the fans show up and tune in, if the advertisers and sponsors buy the concept (literally and figuratively), and if the TV networks enthusiastically broadcast and promote these games then the NBA could not care less about any criticism.
It will be very interesting to see how seriously the teams, coaches, and players treat the in-season tournament. If we see the load managing and tanking that are all too common throughout the regular season--and keep in mind that all of the tournament games except the championship game count in the regular season standings--then the NBA Cup will not gain much traction.
I would prefer that the NBA focused on minimizing load managing, tanking, and flopping as opposed to adding an in-season tournament that will never have the same historical prestige or importance as the NBA championship. Hopefully, the NBA's new anti-flopping rule will rein in at least the most egregious and habitual offenders. Flopping is not a new problem--Dave Cowens railed against it in the 1970s, correctly calling it cheating--but it is more prevalent than it used to be, and it is rewarded far too often by referees who get duped more often than Elmer Fudd does when pursuing Bugs Bunny.
While flopping taints individual plays and games, load managing and tanking devalue seasonal player statistics and team records. Playing all 82 games used to be a badge of honor for NBA players before load management and tanking became accepted practices, and because everybody played hard the players' statistics meant something. Now, players can rack up big numbers against teams that are trying to lose, and good teams can pad their win totals by stacking up victories against teams that are trying to lose. The evidence shows that in general tanking does not work, and the Philadelphia 76ers--contrary to the ridiculous assertion of one book title--have not "tanked to the top," but even though "stat gurus" claim to make data driven decisions many "stat gurus" continue to follow this demonstrably unfavorable path.
The NBA's Play-In Tournament was supposed to mitigate load managing and tanking by providing an incentive for teams to keep playing hard until the end of the season, but the reality is that the last games of the regular season often resemble preseason games in terms of quality and star player participation. I watch the NBA's Play-In Tournament because I watch great NBA basketball, good NBA basketball, and bad NBA basketball, not because I think that the Play-In Tournament is a great concept or because the Play-In Tournament games are particularly intriguing.
If the NBA is going to model itself after other sports leagues, then the NBA should get rid of the Play-In Tournament, scrap the nascent NBA Cup event, and solve many of its current problems with one big change: introduction of relegation. Relegation refers to sending teams that finish at the bottom of the standings to a lower, less prestigious league. The NBA already has a lower, less prestigious league now (the NBA G League), so that part of the infrastructure is already in place. The prospect of relegation--which would translate directly into teams having lower earnings, less prestige, and consequently lower market value--would likely put an immediate end to both tanking and load management, because the costs of those strategies would be way too high and the negative impact would be obvious even to "stat gurus" with questionable number crunching skills.
Further, the NBA should not only relegate the worst teams but it should also either not let those teams participate in the NBA Draft at all or at a minimum it should bar those teams from participating in the NBA Draft Lottery.
To be clear, I understand that it is extremely unlikely that the owners or the players will ever agree to put a relegation system in place--but if the owners and players were serious about making the game better in the long run as opposed to grabbing every available dollar in the short run then they would embrace the relegation system.
Labels: load management, NBA Cup, tanking
posted by David Friedman @ 1:38 AM
The NBA Was Much Better When Load Management and Tanking Did Not Exist
A lot has changed in the NBA in the past 40 years, and many of the changes are not improvements. NBA players used to have complete skill sets; no one talked about "two way players" because the expectation was that all players--and particularly the star players--at least competed on defense, even if they were not exceptional defenders. Most of the top scorers had a variety of fundamental moves that did not involve traveling or flopping and flailing.
The NBA game was not only more fundamentally sound and aesthetically pleasing, but the players actually showed up to games on a consistent basis. If you bought a ticket to go to a game to see your favorite player play, he almost certainly played. In 1982-83--when Moses Malone and Julius Erving led the Philadelphia 76ers on a glorious, record-setting 12-1 playoff run culminating in a 4-0 NBA Finals sweep of the defending champion L.A. Lakers--39
NBA players played in all 82 regular season games, and Clemon Johnson
played in 83 regular season games (51 with Indiana, followed by 32 with
Philadelphia). An additional 22 players played in 81 regular season
games. Those numbers were typical for that era; in 1981-82, 42 players
played in all 82 regular season games, and three players played in more
than 82 games, while an additional 21 players played in 81 regular
season games.
It was a given during that era that MVP level players rarely missed games. From 1967-82, the NBA regular season MVP played in 81 or 82 games every year except for 1978, when 1977 NBA Finals MVP Bill Walton captured the regular season MVP despite being limited to 58 games due to injuries--and Walton was not "load managing": he was legitimately injured. Erving won four regular season MVPs during his ABA/NBA career; in those MVP seasons, he played in 84, 84, 84, and 82 games (the ABA regular season lasted 84 games). Malone won three regular season MVPs during his ABA/NBA career; in those MVP seasons, he played in 82, 81, and 78 games.
Playing all 82 games used to be a badge of honor for NBA players.
In contrast, in 2022-23 just nine players played in all 82 games. Mikal Bridges, perhaps the last throwback to a bygone age when the Jedi protected the Republic while the league, teams, and players cared about competition, played in 83 games (56 with Phoenix, followed by 27 with Brooklyn). Bridges entered the NBA in 2018-19, and he has yet to miss a game.
The creation of the Play-In Tournament was supposed to minimize load management and tanking by incentivizing teams to play hard for all 82 games with the hope of at least earning the coveted 10th seed. Predictably, that is not how things have turned out. Last Friday, the Dallas Mavericks--with a chance to grab the Western Conference's 10th seed with a win and some help from other teams--rested every main player on their roster dating all the way back to Mark Aguirre. Luka Doncic played a whopping 12 minutes so that he could get credit for a game played, but he sat out the final three quarters of what turned out to be a 115-112 loss to the Chicago Bulls. The NBA is reportedly investigating the Mavericks for this blatant tanking. In 2018, the NBA fined Dallas owner Mark Cuban $600,000 for publicly stating "Losing is our best option." Since $600,000 did not prove to be sufficient to curb Cuban's tanking, I suggest that $1,200,000 plus forfeiting the draft pick that the Mavericks were trying to protect by losing on purpose might get Cuban's attention--and yes, I understand that the NBA is unlikely to do that, but if the league is serious about putting an end to tanking then Commissioner Adam Silver must impose penalties that convey that seriousness.
Also, the NBA's tanking investigation should not be limited to the Dallas Mavericks. Golden State just beat a team wearing Portland uniforms that did not feature the Trail Blazers' core players; the individual and team statistics from that 157-101 blowout--including Golden State's record 55 point first quarter--are meaningless, and the predetermined outcome of the game not only impacted playoff seeding but also had potential wagering implications (which matters now because the NBA and other sports leagues have intertwined their operations with wagering businesses).
The toxic combination of tanking and load management cheats the fans who buy tickets to see their favorite players, compromises the integrity of playoff seeding, devalues individual and team statistics, and creates a host of issues regarding legalized wagering. There is a simple response to anyone who claims that "the science" proves that load management protects player health and safety: use "the science" to determine how many games players can safely play, limit the season to that number of games, and set the expectation that players will participate in a full season unless they have a legitimate injury.
Labels: Dallas Mavericks, Julius Erving, load management, Mikal Bridges, Moses Malone, Play-In Tournament, Portland Trail Blazers, tanking
posted by David Friedman @ 11:42 PM
"Tanking to the Top" is Not What the 76ers Have Done
I have never written a book review without reading the book I am reviewing, but this article is more of a review of a book review than a review of the book. Fred Barnes'
The Wall Street Journal review of Yaron Weitzman's
Tanking to the Top is as misguided as the title of the book itself. Weitzman's book is about the Philadelphia 76ers, who did indeed tank, but most assuredly have not reached the top.
I have previously discussed
Why Tanking Does Not Work, but you do not have to take my word for it. In the April 2014 issue of
The Atlantic, Derek Thompson analyzed the history of tanking:
Nearly 30 years of data tell a crystal-clear story: a truly awful team
has never once metamorphosed into a championship squad through the
draft. The last team to draft No. 1 and then win a championship (at any
point thereafter) was the San Antonio Spurs, which lucked into the pick
(Tim Duncan) back in 1997 when the team’s star center, David Robinson,
missed all but six games the previous season because of injuries. The
teams with the top three picks in any given draft are almost twice as
likely to never make the playoffs within four years—the term of an NBA
rookie contract, before the player reaches free agency—as they are to
make it past the second round.
Why are teams and their fans drawn to a strategy that reliably leads to
even deeper failure? The gospel of tanking is born from three big
assumptions: that mediocrity is a trap; that scouting is a science; and
that bad organizations are one savior away from being great. All three
assumptions are common, not only to sports, but also to business and to
life. And all three assumptions are typically wrong.
Since Thompson wrote that article, two teams have won an NBA title subsequent to using a number one overall draft pick, but neither team triumphed by tanking. The Cleveland Cavaliers won the 2016 championship with two number one overall draft picks that they selected (LeBron James, 2003; Kyrie Irving, 2011), but tanking was not the basis for that team's success; James had left Cleveland, won two titles in Miami, and then returned to Cleveland as a free agent, while Irving has not had much team success before or after playing alongside James. The Cavaliers traded 2014 number one overall pick Andrew Wiggins for All-Star Kevin Love, who was a vital contributor for the 2016 championship team. Also, the 2019 Raptors won a title after having a number one overall draft pick in 2006, Andrea Bargnani; through a series of transactions, the Raptors ended up with a 2016 first round draft pick for Bargnani, and they traded the player that they drafted with that pick (Jakob Poeltl) as part of a package to acquire 2019 Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard, but it would be foolish to suggest that tanking contributed in any meaningful way to Toronto's title.
In contrast, under the
misguided leadership of Sam Hinkie, the Philadelphia 76ers went 19-63, 18-64 and 1-21 before firing Hinkie. Hinkie took over a 34-48 team, and he promptly turned it into perhaps the worst team in NBA history. In the full seasons since Hinkie departed, the 76ers went 28-54, 52-30, and 51-31; they are 39-26 in the suspended 2019-20 season. Prior to hiring Hinkie, the 76ers lost in the second round of the playoffs in 2012. Nearly a decade later, they have yet to advance past the second round of the playoffs, and their regular season winning percentage has declined two years in a row. There is as much reason to believe that the 76ers have gone as far as they can with Joel Embiid--the poster boy draft pick of Hinkie's so-called "Process"--as there is to believe that the injury-prone Embiid will lead the 76ers to a title.
If the 76ers ever win another championship, it will be despite Hinkie's "Process," not because of it.
Tanking stands in marked contrast to Michael Jordan's approach to the game. Jordan would never accept tanking, and he would never consider second round playoff losses to be "the top."
As "The Last Dance" has reminded those who may have forgotten, or who may be too young to remember, Jordan battled against the Chicago Bulls' attempt to tank when he was injured during his second season, and he bristled at their eagerness to blow up a six-time champion at the end of his career. "The Cubs have been rebuilding for 42 years," Jordan fumed in response to the Bulls' plan to run off him, Phil Jackson, Scottie Pippen, and Dennis Rodman to start from scratch.
The Bulls won six titles in the 1990s. They have won five playoff series since chasing away Jordan and crew. "They had a dynasty. Now they have a coffee shop," was Charles Oakley's
take on the Chicago Bulls in 2002. I doubt that too many people in Chicago are buying the "Tanking to the Top" premise in 1998, in 2002, in 2020, or in any other year.
Jordan's singular focus was to win as many championships as possible. He divided people into two categories: those who could help him win championships, and those who could not help him win championships. Jordan had no interest in wasting time with anyone who fit into the second category. Jordan tested any player who joined the Chicago Bulls during his tenure. Players who passed the test stayed on the team; players who failed the test did not stay on the team.
Kobe Bryant had the same mentality, though he lacked Jordan's media-savvy ability to convince the public that this mentality is a virtue. Jordan punched a teammate in practice, and regularly berated his teammates, but Jordan remains a hero; Bryant reasonably stated a preference for Shaquille O'Neal to get in shape, and he pushed his teammates to levels that they never reached before or since, and Bryant was portrayed as a horrible teammate.
Jordan and Bryant would scoff at the notion that anything less than a championship is satisfactory. They did not play to win division titles or conference titles, or lose in the second round of the playoffs.
Bryant explained the mentality that he and Jordan shared:
All I thought about as a kid personally was winning championships. That's all I cared about. That's
how I valued Michael. That's how I valued [Larry] Bird. That's how I
valued Magic [Johnson]. It was just winning championships. Now,
everybody's going to value things differently, which is fine. I'm just
telling you how I value mine. If I'm Bron, you got to figure
out a way to win. It's not about narrative. You want to win
championships, you just gotta figure it out. Michael gave me some really
good
advice after the '08 Finals: "You got all the tools. You gotta figure
out how to get these guys to that next level to win that championship."
Going into the 2010 series, I said, "Listen, Boston, they got Ray Allen,
they got Paul Pierce, they got [Kevin] Garnett, they got Sheed
[Wallace], the talent is there. They're stacked." That was the first
superteam. [Michael] kind of heard me lament about it, and he just goes,
"Yeah, well, it is what it is; you gotta figure it out. There's no
other alternative." And that's the challenge LeBron has. You have pieces
that you have to try to figure out how to work with. Excuses don't work
right now...
It has everything to do with how you build the team, from an emotional
level. How do you motivate them?...Leadership is not making guys better
by just throwing them the ball. That's not what it is. It's about the
influence that you have on them to reach their full potential. And some
of it's not pretty. Some of it's challenging, some of it's
confrontational. Some of it's pat on the back. But it's finding that
balance, so now when you show up to play a Golden State or a Boston,
your guys feel like you have the confidence to take on more.
Weitzman's book endorses Hinkie's tanking, and Barnes raves, "By the time he joined the Sixers, Mr. Hinkie knew some core truths about the modern game...The author's analysis is convincing and his reporting thorough.
Tanking to the Top is the best basketball book in years."
If you want to know "core truths about the modern game," read Derek Thompson's analysis cited above, or read
Phil Jackson's Eleven Rings. There are many basketball books from the past few years that I would select over a misguided attempt to justify losing on purpose: in addition to Jackson's book, some other fine choices include
Wooden: A Coach's Life, and
The Mamba Mentality.
In the same review article, Barnes also praises
The Victory Machine, by Ethan Sherwood Strauss, who is perhaps best known for annoying Kevin Durant at a press conference by asking the same question (in slightly different forms) repeatedly about why Durant had not been talking to the media recently, until Durant became frustrated. Durant labeled Strauss as "a dude...who come in here and give his whole opinion
on stuff and make it seem like it's coming from me. He walk around here,
don't talk to nobody, just walk in here, survey and write something
like that." It takes no particular skill to ask the same unimaginative question over and over, but Strauss achieved his real goal: he obtained publicity for himself, and promptly announced that he was writing a book about the Warriors (the book that Barnes just reviewed). When you watch a sporting event and you know the names of the referees, that typically means that the referees are not doing their jobs: the sport is not supposed to be about them, but about the athletes. Similarly, if after a press conference you know the name of a reporter, it typically means that reporter was not doing his job: the press conference is not supposed to be about reporters, but about the athletes. No one tuned into that press conference to hear Strauss keep asking Durant why Durant had not talked to the media.
I observed all kinds of press conference nonsense firsthand when I covered the NBA.
I don't know if those two books were assigned to Barnes, or if he picked them himself, but if those are the two best basketball books being released now--and if Barnes is the most qualified person to review those books--then that is just sad.
This is not the first instance of questionable sports analysis by
The Wall Street Journal. In 2010, David Biderman contacted me regarding my
research showing that Chris Paul's assist totals are inflated, but his subsequent article in
The Wall Street Journal did not mention my findings.
Biderman later informed me that he did not have enough room in his rather lengthy piece to do justice to my analysis. So, instead of telling the story accurately and completely, he included misleading and/or inaccurate sound bite quotes from other people regarding the use of statistics in basketball. It is enlightening to get an inside view of how the media works; the one and only goal for most media outlets is to generate content that is likely to produce advertising revenue: the truth is not even a casualty of the process, but rather it is irrelevant.
The Wall Street Journal has fared even worse when it turned its attention to chess, as I documented in
Why Does Chess Not Receive Intelligent Mainstream Media Coverage?,
Wall Street Journal Publishes Another Sloppily Rendered Chess Article , and
Wall Street Journal Attempts to Correct Faulty Chess Article. In 2009, former Women's World Chess Champion Alexandria Kosteniuk was so outraged by one of the
The Wall Street Journal articles cited above that she wrote the following
on her website:
What's upsetting is that the Wall
Street journalist, Barbara Jepson, tricked me by telling me that the
article she was writing was about "Women's Chess", which made me very
happy, as I supposed she would be writing something to support women's
chess (not destroy it), that's why I took great care to answer in a
positive and honest way (as I always do).
She
asked me several questions including if I thought special women's
titles should be eliminated. In my answer to her, I wrote very clearly
with my reasoning that "Women's titles and tournaments should exist".
And then she changed the title of her piece to "Abolish Women's Chess
Titles", and used my name in it (I guess to add some authority to it, as
if to boast she consulted with the women's world champion about it),
only quoting some insignificant point I made to another question about
sponsoring, without stating I was against that idea of abolishing
women's titles, so that most people thought I agreed with the idea of
abolishing women's titles since I was featured in her article and said
nothing about the lead question of abolishing titles.
This
apparently caused on purpose misunderstanding led me to get several
emails from people asking me why I supported abolishing women's titles.
This lie started to be posted all over the web and can still be seen on
several web sites. I had to immediately respond on my blog and set
things right.
Now you, dear reader, please judge for yourself what kind of article that Wall Street Journal was?
It was about the same kind of article that would assert (1) that Sam Hinkie understands deep truths about the NBA and (2) that a book praising tanking as a good strategy is the best basketball book of the past several years.
Labels: Ethan Sherwood Strauss, Fred Barnes, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Philadelphia 76ers, Sam Hinkie, tanking, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Yaron Weitzman
posted by David Friedman @ 8:32 PM
Enes Kanter Rejects the Tanking Mentality
Tanking is wrong because it cheats the fans out of their hard earned money that they pay to attend or watch games and it violates the integrity of competition. It is also worth noting that
tanking does not work.
It is most unfortunate that tanking has become a widely accepted practice in the NBA. I have no interest in watching or analyzing the performances of teams that are actively trying to lose games. If I were interested in that kind of farce then I would watch pro wrestling or some other form of pre-scripted "entertainment" that may involve impressive physical feats but does not involve actual competition.
I very much appreciate the comments Enes Kanter recently made about tanking. His New York Knicks are one of at least 10 NBA teams that are tanking to some extent and he is not at all happy about it: "Let me tell you something, man: They can develop guys in
the G League. This is not the time to develop young guys, or whatever,
because we're trying to win games here. This team is paying us a lot of money, everybody, and
all the fans are paying a lot money to watch the games and they're
paying a lot of money for tickets, so they're not just coming here
watching, 'Oh, this guy's getting better. This guy's developing.' No,
we're trying to win games here, man. I think that's how
our mindset should be. And if they want to develop somebody,
they can send him to the G League and we can see some development. But I
think right now, we're trying to win games. We're not trying to develop
nobody."
Teams that are not trying to win should not charge full price for tickets, nor should they accept a full share of the league's broadcast and merchandising revenues; if you are intentionally putting a subpar product in the marketplace, you cannot justify charging the public full price for it. I don't know if league-mandated refunds/rebates would cure the tanking epidemic (and such refunds/rebates may not even be permissible under the Collective Bargaining Agreement), but NBA Commissioner Adam Silver needs to do something, because the product that his league is putting on the court on a nightly basis in many cities is embarrassing. The top end teams are exciting and fun to watch but many of the bottom end teams are brutal.
Labels: Enes Kanter, New York Knicks, tanking
posted by David Friedman @ 7:02 AM
Why Tanking Does Not Work
Last season,
I cited Derek Thompson's article in The Atlantic about why tanking does not work. Despite the fact that tanking is both unethical and ineffective, it is becoming increasingly popular in the NBA. At
The Roar,
I
reexamined the subject, focusing on the Philadelphia 76ers, who are pathetic in every sense of the word:
Why Tanking Does Not Work
Labels: Derek Thompson, Philadelphia 76ers, tanking, The Atlantic
posted by David Friedman @ 2:05 PM
Why Tanking Does Not Work
"Stat gurus" believe that "advanced basketball statistics" enable them to more accurately and efficiently evaluate players and teams than the "old school" traditional scouting methods (watching players/teams in person, studying players/teams on film, considering basic box score numbers such as per game averages and raw shooting percentages). In theory, a "stat guru" could build a better team than an "old school" basketball talent evaluator by making better draft choices and/or by making shrewder decisions in terms of which players to sign, which players to trade and which players to cut. A high first round draft pick and/or a significant amount of salary cap space should be gold for a "stat guru" and one can easily imagine a team executive who believes in "advanced basketball statistics" thinking that it might be a good idea to tank in order to acquire a lottery pick, disregarding the idea that building a winning team requires putting a winning culture in place; there is no "advanced basketball statistic" that quantifies "winning culture," so such a concept is meaningless to a "stat guru."
In the April 2014 issue of
The Atlantic, Derek Thompson notes that even the most ardent "stat gurus" have been forced to admit how difficult it is to accurately evaluate players--and that the challenges involved in player evaluation are a major reason why
tanking does not work:
Nearly 30 years of data tell a crystal-clear story: a truly awful team
has never once metamorphosed into a championship squad through the
draft. The last team to draft No. 1 and then win a championship (at any
point thereafter) was the San Antonio Spurs, which lucked into the pick
(Tim Duncan) back in 1997 when the team’s star center, David Robinson,
missed all but six games the previous season because of injuries. The
teams with the top three picks in any given draft are almost twice as
likely to never make the playoffs within four years—the term of an NBA
rookie contract, before the player reaches free agency—as they are to
make it past the second round.
Why are teams and their fans drawn to a strategy that reliably leads to
even deeper failure? The gospel of tanking is born from three big
assumptions: that mediocrity is a trap; that scouting is a science; and
that bad organizations are one savior away from being great. All three
assumptions are common, not only to sports, but also to business and to
life. And all three assumptions are typically wrong.
Supposedly, the worst thing for an NBA team to do is get stuck on the 40-45 win "treadmill," good enough to make the playoffs but not good enough to seriously contend for a championship. Why not gut the roster, plummet to 15-20 wins and rebuild around the talents of a lottery pick? That may seem logical but the reality, as Thompson notes, is "Mediocre teams don’t necessarily stay mediocre. Within two years,
they’re three times more likely to become elite (winning at least
two-thirds of their games) than the lousy squads that locked up the top
picks. Developing and effectively deploying current players, making
smart trades and judiciously signing free agents, finding good players
later in the draft—these patient, sometimes incremental moves appear to
work better than tearing things down to try to land a hyped-up superhero
in the draft."
Dallas owner Mark Cuban is a big fan of "advanced basketball statistics." He broke up his 2011 championship team instead of giving that veteran, tough-minded squad a chance to defend their title. The Mavericks' winning percentage dropped from .695 (57-25) to .545 (36-30 in the lockout-shortened season, equivalent to 45-37 in an 82 game season) and they lost in the first round of the playoffs. Dallas went 41-41 last season and failed to qualify for the playoffs, while this season they are currently in a three-team dog fight for the final two playoff spots. Cuban did not literally tank--though Thompson points out that Cuban has publicly stated his support for such a tactic--but the moves that he made are based on the same principle as tanking: instead of trying to win the most possible games right now, he gave up proven players with the hope that he could obtain better and/or younger players.
Jerry Reinsdorf and Jerry Krause thought the same way about the Chicago Bulls during the late 1990s. There are many examples of an owner/general manager combination threatening to break up a team if it did not win a championship but the 1997-98 "Last Dance" Bulls are the first--and, to the best of my knowledge, only--team that the owner and general manager pledged to break up, in advance, even if the team won the championship. Krause could not wait to push Phil Jackson, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen out the door so that
he could show the world how smart he is and just how quickly he could mold a championship team around his hand-picked coach, Tim Floyd. Since that time, the Bulls have missed the playoffs seven times, lost in the first round five times and made it as far as the Eastern Conference Finals just once.
The bottom line is simple and it reflects the truths that pump through the heart of any champion and any person who takes pride in his craft: Tanking does not work, losing on purpose does not build a winning culture and breaking up a championship team is foolish.
Labels: "stat gurus", Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Derek Thompson, Jerry Krause, Jerry Reinsdorf, Mark Cuban, Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, tanking, The Atlantic
posted by David Friedman @ 12:29 PM
