Short version - once the Mavs were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, they purposely lost as many games as they could. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...-everything-possible-to-tank-at-end-of-season Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban admitted Wednesday the franchise tried to lose games after being eliminated from contention for the 2017 NBA playoffs. The Dan Patrick Show passed along comments the outspoken Mavs owner made about the idea of tanking after the team landed the ninth overall pick in the draft lottery Tuesday night: Dallas finished the regular season with the league's ninth-worst record after posting a 2-8 record over its final 10 games. It missed the Western Conference playoffs by eight games. In November, ESPN's Tim MacMahon noted Cuban didn't believe tanking entire seasons in an effort to accumulate a series of high draft picks was a formula for long-term success. "There are so many teams that became four years away from four years away because guys just learned how to lose," he said. "They stopped caring about any individual game and just got used to it, and you don't want guys developing those bad habits. We have so many young guys on this team, we want the games to mean something. Not to be, 'OK, who are we going to pull in the fourth quarter so we can lose this game?' That's not how teams develop good habits." The bottom line is the current setup leaves little incentive for teams to win games after the postseason is no longer a realistic goal. Changing the lottery format and odds only does so much because being closer to the bottom is still an advantage in the end. Steve Aschburner of NBA.com noted commissioner Adam Silver called tanking "a different kind of resting," referring to the league's problem of coaches sitting high-profile players for nationally televised games, and said the look is treating it seriously. "The larger subject of the lottery, the odds for the lottery, how so-called lottery picks are protected [in trades]," he said. "That is something that we discussed at our board meeting and agreed that we need to revisit it in a holistic way." One idea that's been brought forth in the NHL amid several teams openly plotting to lose for a shot at top prospects is the "Gold Plan," which Patrick also mentioned to Cuban in their interview. It suggests placing teams in the draft order based on the number of points, or in the NBA's case wins, after they are mathematically out of playoff contention. Cuban, though, believes teams would simply try to get eliminated from the playoffs earlier and expressed belief that the current system doesn't have a better solution as of yet
Good for him. Why deny it? Don't ever forget, the rockets tanked shamelessly in 1984 for Hakeem. Of course when tanking you accept all the risks of it not working. But I have no problem with a owner admitting it and I would have no problem with the rockets doing it in the future if needed.
He did terrible at it; he kept Devin Harris in the last game of the season against the Grizzlies and he had one of his best games in years. It was a poor attempt at tanking
I don't know the answer but rewarded for losing?! Rewarded for racing towards the bottom? Time to change the system.
Tanking a season when done right can be effective. Spurs proved that with Tim Duncan, we did it with Hakeem.
The problem with Cuban is that he should have committed to the Process earlier than this. Dirk Nowitzki was done like 3 seasons ago. Instead of going for a last-ditch effort at contention by overpaying role players like Parsons, Matthews, and Barnes, the Mavericks should have cleaned house and started fresh. The Process take at least 3 drafts with high lottery picks to be effective. To a catch a lightning in a bottle in the draft is getting harder in today's NBA and even if you catch one like Anthony Davis, the ability to surround him with talent is a difficult task. As Cuban will find out the hard way, the Mavericks are going to tread perpetual mediocrity for a long time before they are good again.
I actually think they can turn it around rather quickly if they are fully committed to tanking for a entire season or two. It will also require Dirk to retire or ring chase a second ring somewhere. This is the same franchise pre Cuban that sucked from 1990-2000 basically doing the process The Whole time and still sucking even with Jason Kidd. So I think it's fine that they rode the Dirk train til the wheels fell out even if all that meant was first round exits. Now that they are not even good enough to be first round fodder, it's clearly time to tank. And if Cuban openly admits so be it.
SHOCKING. But, Cuban is doing what's wrong best for the team's future - sucking for a season or two and getting a few high caliber prospects.
With the buyout clause being a thing...you can't stop tanking and probably half of the teams(maybe even more)shouldn't bother trying to compete. It's basically just a learning experience for their young players and a try out for D-League scrubs to show that they deserve a roster spot. In the 90s for example, you regularly saw old vets or former all stars with injuries all trying to earn their way into rotations on really bad teams. Go look at any bottom feeder team, you will see many 30 year old vets etc. Today, almost half the league is 20 year olds and dleaguer rosters because all the vets get bought out and sign with all the same top teams. Even guys who would start on tons of teams and help teams be competitive would rather be bought out and just ring chase on the bench of a contender. League is in very poor shape because of this and because of the 1 and done college thing. All these 19 year olds need 3-4 years to really contribute and usually a waste of a rookie contract for the team that drafts them.
Can't blame coaches/owners at all for tanking. It is the most surefire way to rebuild a team bottom-up, and its on the league to desentivize (how you spell this word, I may never know. Auto-correct not helping me out) tanking, not teams to not do it out of competitiveness or whatever.
