Several Jazz players who have sat out recent games likely would’ve been playing more if the team were contending for a playoff spot, writes Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune.
That group includes Lauri Markkanen, who missed four consecutive games due to back spasms, and John Collins, who was out for eight straight due to left hip injury management. Third-year center Walker Kessler sat out a game last week in a non-back-to-back situation due to “rest.”
As Larsen writes, the Jazz are in full-on tank mode, which is probably the right long-term move for the franchise, given the challenges of attracting free agents to Utah and the need to build through the draft. Still, Larsen isn’t in favor of the NBA system that incentivizes losing and sought out a pair of Jazz veterans to get their thoughts on tanking.
“I don’t think losing, or purposefully losing, should be part of professional sports,” said Markkanen, who signed a long-term extension with Utah in August. “I feel like athletes always want to compete. I understand why some organizations around the NBA are doing it, but I feel like it sucks, in my opinion. There should be a better way to build rosters. That’s the way it’s been, so I understand it, but that’s my opinion.”
Veteran guard Patty Mills conveyed a similar sentiment.
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve always played for purpose. I play for purpose, that’s for sure. So when purpose isn’t there, it’s definitely hard,” Mills said. “It’s obviously a business, and everyone realizes when you get to this stage. There are situations that will happen that will remind you of that. At the end of the day — it’s a business call for sure — our job is to go out there and help develop, help teach, especially these young guys, how to be professionals.”
Here’s more on the Jazz, who fell to 10-32 with a loss in Oklahoma City on Wednesday:
- Jazz rookie Cody Williams, who left Monday’s game vs. New Orleans due to what the team referred to as a left ankle sprain, was wearing a boot and was on crutches in the locker room after the game, according to Larsen, who suggests (via Twitter) the No. 10 overall pick may be facing a “decently long” absence. Williams wasn’t available for Wednesday’s game in OKC.
- In a separate Salt Lake Tribune story, Larsen highlights Collins’ return from his eight-game injury absence, noting that the big man’s performance on Wednesday certainly didn’t hurt his trade value — Collins had 22 points and 12 rebounds vs. the Thunder and was a plus-12 in 26 minutes in a game Utah lost by nine points. Larsen also explores whether rumors linking Collins to the Kings make sense.
- Appearing on the Jazz’s game broadcast on Wednesday, general manager Justin Zanik explained the thinking behind the team’s decision to trade three “least favorable” first-round picks in 2025 and 2027 and 2029 to the Suns in exchange for Phoenix’s unprotected 2031 first-rounder, as Larsen relays. “The way it makes sense for us is that we now have another shot at a pick that has a lot of variability. The three picks we traded have no chance to be the No. 1 pick, and this one does,” Zanik said. “It balances out what we want, but we’ve always talked about bites at the apple or more swings in the draft, but it also is about the quality of the swings, and this is, in my opinion, the most valuable asset on the market right now.”
Cody Williams isnt beating the bust allegations any time soon sadly
I can’t think of any system that discourages tanking but also preserves parity. Once you move away from rewarding losing teams you also move towards an environment where the teams on bottom are trapped there and never receive enough to catch up. Especially with such a strict payroll cap where a team can’t even spend their way into contention.
Tanking sucks but I’d much rather have a league where every franchise has a legitimate chance at building a championship team.
My suggestion may show my ignorance of how everything works, but make the entire draft a lottery not just the non-playoff teams.
Make it a legit lottery and that will take care of tanking.
Then divide equally among every team all TV revenue if they don’t do that already. If the Knicks make $100 mil a year in television radio plus other stuff then so should the Charlotte Hornets and the Pacers and the Utah Jazz. Whatever that number is. There’s your money to spend on the roster.
If it’s not radio and TV money, then something else that the big markets receive that the small markets don’t. Is it box suites and corporate money? Is it advertising dollars?
It may ruin certain parts of ownership and the attractiveness of profits for some, but it would take care of tanking.
Am I oversimplifying things because I don’t know how it works?
IIRC Jeff Van Gundy suggested back in the 2000’s about removing the lottery and giving all teams an equal shot at the top picks of the draft.
This would have been great as there would be no incentive to tank for the worst record to get a top prospect.
The problem is now you’d be punishing the worst franchises regardless of whether they would be blatant tankers. Here they are, hoping for a top pick to get back on track, only to end up picking later time and time again. And what if an elite contender lucks out? Someone always loses.
Shea, I get that and it’s legitimate, but that’s just how life goes for us. Why can’t it be the same for NBA franchises? Sometimes we get lucky sometimes we don’t, but the more work we put in the better we are a lot of times.
So if the money is the same, why couldn’t one team or another sign the free agents? Why couldn’t one team or another make the decent trades and pick a stud at 25 and at 32 like so many teams have done?
I really don’t buy into excuses of “we always suck but it’s not our fault.” You could probably say that today, but I think a straight up lottery with no weighted ping-pong, balls, and equal money available for free agents would cure all that.
But like I said, it sounds super simple because I’m super simple. There’s a lot that I don’t get and probably not seeing.
The NBA could just get rid of the draft entirely. There are other systems in place elsewhere, such as in European soccer leagues, that do not include a draft.
Similarly, there are ways to discourage tanking. The relegation system might work.
@Gary – All things in Silver’s NBA are starved for simplication, even oversimplication works. I like anything that decouples W/L record and draft order, and its actually more consistent with the historical aims of the draft (to equalize incoming talent, not on court success). However, I disagree on giving more welfare to small market teams. They (their owners) control the league, and they get more than they’re entitled to as it is. I think its the cause of the more shameful tanking.
““I don’t think losing, or purposefully losing, should be part of professional sports,” said Markkanen…”
Welcome to the oligarch-owned U.S., Lauri, where everything is subordinated to maximum profits for the very few! This isn’t Europe with its real sports competitions, international tournaments and relegation league systems.
The NBA has turned into an odious sports-simulating circus, where watching these dull three-point-shooting contests is a chore instead of entertainment.
European football, handball, rugby etc. are so much more fun to watch, it’s like sports competition from another planet.
I wonder if something assuring that each team has the same amount of money to use on salaries would, over time, help assure that tanking made less sense. Tanking is a desperate measure, but an even playing field for player acquisition perhaps could quell the desperation.
An even playing field will never lead to equal chances at player acquisition when you have teams like the Lakers with advantages in weather, location, pedigree, etc. The only remote chance to do so in a roundabout way would be to give franchises in less desirable locations some sort of advantages to counteract that. How that could practically be achieved I have no idea.
No one gets any advantage. Some people like living in Minnesota and for an NBA guy he doesn’t have to live there just work there half the year and then he can live wherever he wants LA Miami Europe, whatever.
Many people take jobs in undesirable areas for six months at a time because of the money, etc.
Keep it real, keep it consistent, and as Meadowlark says, keep the money the same with no tanking incentive. Have a pure lottery for all 30 teams and away you go.
So if a team sucks, they suck because it’s their own fault. They’re not drafting right they’re not hiring the right scouts or coaches, etc. You can’t blame money and you can’t blame Draft position.
It’s the luck of the draw in its purest form. Just like life.
That is an inherent advantage, though. It may not be unfair in the purest sense, but the reality is those smaller markets have a lower chance of getting top-tier free agents at equal spending. Even perennial winners and class organizations like the Spurs struggled to attract them during their prime.
I’m not arguing for one approach or another, just stating that it depends on what one’s priority is. For some, it’s a laissez faire approach. For others, that means helping the little guys punch above their weight to achieve a different sort of balance. Needless to say, the second approach is a lot harder and trickier to pull off.
I like your analogies. Well said.
Thanks! A blind squirrel etc etc haha.
Organizations tank, players don’t. They know they can be replaced and likely will with higher picks.
MLB avoids this by having a crazy number of rounds (40 in a typical year iirc) and a much larger/longer development system, plus recently instituting a lottery that basically ensures the worst team in the league can’t pick higher than fifth. Mookie Betts was drafted in the fifth round and became a superstar, for example. Good players get fetched out of middle/lower rounds all the time. Hell, Mike Piazza was the last pick of his draft, iirc. But that wouldn’t work for the NBA. Just not enough players capable of playing at that level.
Piazza was picked in the 62nd (!!!) round of the 1988 draft, the 1,390th player out of 1,395 picked. Adding to the story, he was picked as a favor to Piazza’s father, who was reportedly a good friend of Tommy LaSorda.
62nd round… Damn near Mr. Irrelevant, now in the HOF.
This just illustrates you don’t understand the differences between basketball and baseball. Beyond that you aren’t even accurate about how long the draft is now, it’s 20 rounds for the record.
Nevermind thinking tanking doesn’t exist in baseball is so naive it’s almost cute.
I didn’t say tanking doesn’t exist, just that it’s not necessary for sustained success and that MLB has actually done things to address it. Your reading comprehension needs work.
Okay, I made a mistake on the draft. Thanks for correcting me there, I appreciate it.
Uhh baseball has 3 levels of minor league to fill out. That is why and it is rare for early round picks to make the big leagues from the start. They also have crazy control over contracts due to the minor league and needing service.
I all but outright said that, but true. It’s also just that they aren’t good enough to make MLB straight out of college the way some top NBA picks are. Even early 1st round superstars like Bryce Harper, Buster Posey, and Gerritt Cole took at least a year in the minors. Only a very tiny handful of players, mostly relief pitchers, make the jump quicker than that. Unfortunately, that also comes with huge injury risk. See Brandon Finnegan and Garrett Crochet.
Van Gundy’s idea is best
But the team that wins the lottery can’t win again for 7 years or something like that.
Longterm tanking doesn’t work in the NBA anyways. It just creates a culture of losing that becomes really difficult to overcome.
Utah looks like they are on that path imo.
It’s comical that the issue is even being discussed in the open, but I guess it’s good that it is. The era of plausible deniability needs to end. In any event, a real commissioner would have gotten rid of this nonsense long ago. With the current clown, addressing it is not even on the agenda.
The NBA has a (lack of) talent issue, and probably will for some time, and its likely to get worse before it gets better (the fallout of the NIL/Transfer Portal regime gripping colleges hasn’t even been felt yet in the NBA, and, idiotically, there’s talk of expansion). Not enough impact talent to go around. But having a third of the league trying to lose for a lottery ticket to get a crack at some of that talent can’t be a league facilitated way of dealing with it.
I place a ton of blame on the new age fan as well. Tanking’s always been a thing but the masses never really had a lighthouse to steer towards till OKC got lucky with SGA.
I saw yesterday the Dallas fans want to fold up shop despite sitting exactly where they were a year ago while going to the finals. You got an ongoing GSW thread right now where they are rooting for a loss tonight vs CHi . There was an article last night on Laker Nation with over 100 comments on what they should do at the trade deadline, literally not a post about punching up and everyone saying trade LBJ and AD in the next 17 days. Its sick tbh, fans want to tank more than GMs who will rarely have their job if/when it ever bares fruit. This gen of fan is super soft and rather than face any adversity they want to sell right away for the magic ping pong balls. Can’t entirely blame the teams/commish for listening to their bases
I don’t really blame the teams, or at least the FO’s, that much; they’re playing to the rules. Free agency is effectively dead as a star acquiring mechanism. Each team can trade for only one 1 star, because they’ll have to give up all their assets to get him. It’s either (i) play in straight and hope for outlier luck with later picks or pickups, or (ii) tank and hope for decent luck with the ping pong balls. Can’t say what I might do in their place.
I hold the Commissioner to a higher standard. Traditionally, from the time of Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a commissioner has had a special obligation to take the long view and protect the healthy and integrity of the product. The phrase “for the good of the game” has to mean a little bit more than what some fanboys want in the moment.
Personally, my solution would be a sort of compromise: flat lottery odds for all non-playoff and non-play-in teams (8 teams) as well as to expand the lottery to include the first 8 picks. That way, there would be no incentive for those teams to be better or worse than the others, while the other teams shouldn’t be a factor since, as play-in teams or better, their goal would be to move up in the standings rather than down. I’d also consider adding a rule where the same team cannot win the lottery more than once within a three-year period.
Granted, this could lead to a non-tanking, bottom-feeding team picking as late as #9 should they miss out on all the lottery picks, but you could always increase the odds for those 8 teams to reduce the chances of this result.
Don’t really see a better path forward without overly rewarding either the tankers (current system) or the best teams in the league (in the the case that you do a flat lottery including all teams).
*Whoops, meant 10 teams and the first 10 picks. Not sure where my brain went there lol. Same general idea though.
Makes a ton of sense Shea. I think it’s the way they originally started this whole thing and it worked pretty well.
A part of me wants to say “OK you won this hundred meter dash, so on the next one we are trying both your arms behind your back and racing again. If you win again we’re putting on a 10 pound vest. Win again and you have to start 20 yards behind the starting line and run 120 yards,” etc. etc.
I just don’t like Bringing down the top to make it fair for the bottom. I like incentivizing the bottom to work harder so they can come up to the top, if that makes sense.
Don’t disagree at heart, but whatever the solution is it needs to be supported by the necessary number of owners and the potential for the rich to get richer probably won’t win support by the cheaper and/or worse owners. Just the reality of NBA politics.
Of course, my idea wouldn’t be guaranteed to pass either, as the absolute worst organizations would surely not go for it. However, the number of objectors may be small enough to give it some feasibility.
But to your point, perhaps the NBA could run a second lottery for the playoff teams. So:
-First 10 picks are chosen via flat lottery
-Remaining picks through 14 go by standings to the remaining non-playoff teams
-Then a second lottery for x # of picks thereafter
-Remaining picks go by standings to the remaining playoff teams.
That way, you provide incentive for teams making the playoffs while also not rewarding them too heavily to the point where the rich get too rich. And you could choose to make that second lottery non-flat so that teams have incentive to finish with a better regular season record.
I know it’s a little convoluted and may not appeal to the simplicity of the current draft format to the casual NBA fan, but I think it would check a lot of the boxes regarding problems with the current system.
You’ve made a lot of great comments regarding this. I like your ideas.
Appreciate it!
Until the league de-couples record and draft order, there will always be tanking. A lottery only complicates it without changing it.
It’s simple – start by getting past the idea that being a bad team one year, entitles you to the best of the incoming young talent. Force teams to invest more in scouting and development to better their team, rather than relying on cheap young talent that can be attained simply by losing. Put a marker in 3 years time, and tell teams that by this draft, the draft order is randomized and anyone can land anywhere. Get your front office and roster in order, be ready for it.
Over time, there will be parity. Teams will stand hand out bad contracts, they’ll have injuries, players won’t develop etc. But over time, it will expose those who don’t get their scouting and development in order.