So, why is it only the NBA that feels shame for this reality? The NBA needs to stop feeding into the narrative of the hoops haters and apologizing for its teams engaging in future-facing behavior that other teams in other leagues partake in regularly. Don’t ask your teams to ignore proven benefits to appease prejudice.
No one bats an eye when Ivy League-influenced major league baseball clubs sacrifice consecutive seasons to position for peak draft position and prospect inventory. That’s not viewed as ignominious behavior. It’s billed as insightful analytics. Maybe basketball needs a prospect industrial complex.
Tanking is a tried-and-true MLB winner. When former Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein took over the Chicago Cubs in 2012, they lost 101, 96, and 89 games, before making the playoffs in 2015, a year ahead of their internal schedule. The Houston Astros’ run of nine playoff appearances in 10 seasons — including a record seven straight American League Championship Series — was fueled by a three-season stretch from 2011 to 2013 in which they lost no fewer than 106 games.
The Baltimore Orioles also followed this loss-a-palooza game plan, losing 108 and 110 games in the first two full seasons of president of baseball operations Mike Elias.
This baseball blueprint was so successful that MLB had to institute a draft lottery in 2023 for the top six picks, as well as rules that state no team can own a top-six pick three years in a row.
That hasn’t stopped clubs like the Chicago White Sox, who broke the MLB record for losses in a season with 121 in 2024, and Colorado Rockies (a league-high 119 losses last season, their third straight 100-loss campaign) from trying to tank their way back to contention.
The 102-loss South Siders earned the No. 1 pick in 2026 and have lost 100 games in three consecutive seasons. Their never-ending tankathon gift-wrapped ace Garrett Crochet for the Red Sox. Thanks, guys.
In hockey, the San Jose Sharks lived up to their arena’s shark tank cognomen under former Boston University star Mike Grier, starting with the 2022-2023 season. Grier made sure the Sharks had the league’s worst record during the 2023-24 season, trading three-time Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson before the season and All-Star forward Tomáš Hertl at the trade deadline.
The No. 1 pick prize was BU’s Macklin Celebrini. Behind Celebrini and Boston College’s Will Smith (No. 4 overall in 2023), the rebooted Sharks are on track for their first sub-44 loss season since 2022.
Last season, the Jets started woefully unqualified quarterback Brady Cook in their final four games under the guise of evaluation, even after veteran QBs Tyrod Taylor and Justin Fields were healthy.
Anyone evaluating the rookie Cook knew the only way he could help the J-E-T-S find their next franchise quarterback was by being a signal-caller sacrificial lamb.
People around here are still mad that the Patriots won their 2024 season finale and dropped to the fourth pick (tackle-for-now Will Campbell).
The NBA deals with a dubious double standard here. Some of this is self-perpetuated by practices like load management.
Yet, it feels more than purely coincidental that the league with the highest percentage of black players is regarded as the one with the most competitive insouciance and questionable effort issues. (Baseball, anyone?) That perpetuates a racist trope about Black men.
The NBA shouldn’t fuel this by acting like its tanking problem is greater. It’s not.
Unwittingly, that is what Silver is doing when he spotlights the conversation and the fines he issued to the Danny and Austin Ainge-led Utah Jazz ($500,000) and the Indiana Pacers ($100,000) for “overt behavior” prioritizing draft position over winning, as Silver did at the NBA All-Star festivities in Los Angeles. (Both teams sat players the league felt should’ve been playing, with the Jazz sitting active stars in fourth quarters.)
Wise fans understand what the Jazz, stuck on the treadmill of futility, and Pacers, who were in the NBA Finals last year but playing this season sans injured star Tyrese Haliburton, are doing by prioritizing the future. Silver acknowledged so.
“Many of you have written, understandably, about our teams that the worst place to be is to be a middle-of-the-road team. Either be great or be bad, because then that will help you with the draft,” said Silver.
“In many cases, you have fans of those teams — it’s not what they want to pay for, to see poor performance on the floor — but they’re actually rooting for their teams in some cases to be bad to improve their draft chances.”
Bingo. It’s not the affront and sports scourge it’s being made out to be. Former Mavericks principal owner and current minority owner Mark Cuban hews closer to the truth.
Expecting teams to mindlessly chase singular wins with no endgame benefit or reward is myopic. It displays child-like naïveté about how the world works. Yes, ideally, competitive integrity and probity would equate to automatic success. They don’t.
Seeking deliverance through the draft is nothing new in sports. What the NBA and tanking have is a PR problem, not an ethical one. Tanking needs a rebrand like the way smoking became vaping.
It needs to be dressed up in corporate earnings projection argot: We’re reordering and reprioritizing our outlook and operating procedures to focus on R&D, which will maximize future returns and projections.
That sounds more high-minded than effectively embracing losing in the short term for long-term gain.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com. Follow him @cgasper and on Instagram @cgaspersports.