2022/23 NBA REGULAR SEASON THREAD "TANKING FOR WEMBANYAMA"

baseball its still only 10 teams and not 20 though right

idk — if the ins are such a poor reward that a team like dallas considers it more advantageous to drop out, that’s ugly.

― mookieproof, Saturday, April 8, 2023 11:11 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

tbf thats one team thats tanked in four years, doesnt seem too bad

you only need to look as far as the actual 10th seed — okc — to find the story of a team that was expected to tank the season but which instead pushed for a surprise playoff seed after their young nucleus outperformed expectations and put together an exciting season for their fans. so to focus on the mavs dipping out & paint it like there’s some huge flaw in the play-in system is not taking a full view of the situation, to say the least

the NBA is the league that prob has the fewest cinderella playoff runs of any sport. fans also now expect their franchises to take longterm views of situations and to understand the value of “assets.” so when faced with the option of a draft pick or one of the last play-in spots, you’re never gonna get a team to pick the last play-in spot 100% of the time. but there’s ample evidence over the last several seasons that the existence of the play in encourages teams that would otherwise be heavily incentivized to tank to instead play the season out. the mavs are more the exception

yeah basically comes down to that once teams have little to no chance of making the offs theyre going to tank a lot of the time but when they do still have a chance theyre going to tank much less, simple math (not actually math)

in some way it does make a further mockery of the regular season 2/3rds of the teams make it into the draw but in another way it makes the regular season more important in that you really want to get a top six spot in order to stay out of the playin to avoid getting knocked out before the offs even officially start

tho that effect is prob small since getting a higher seed towards the bottom of the draw was already quite worthwhile because you avoid the very best teams so might actually win a series

Warriors been preaching avoid the play in at all costs for the last while. Also the mavs tanked 1-2 games where we used to have teams tanking from day one. The lottery odds bring even for the bottom 3 teams did a lot of good too.

yeah the odds change was good makes the lottery more exciting too

and it gives us stuff like KAT playing in a winner take all game and fouling out in 9 mins and pat bev running around the arena screaming and crying

Lmao a classic of the genre for sure

things just not going their way

NBA spokesman Mike Bass: "The NBA commenced an investigation today into the facts and circumstances surrounding the Dallas Mavericks’ roster decisions and game conduct with respect to last night’s Chicago Bulls-Mavericks game, including the motivations behind those actions.”

— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) April 8, 2023

probably this comment by Kidd that went over the line:

Here’s Jason Kidd’s answer on how Luka Doncic reacted to the Mavs’ organizational decision to pull the plug three days after the All-NBA guard declared he wanted to play as long as there were even the slimmest postseason hopes: pic.twitter.com/9hUUBqts4m

— Tim MacMahon (@espn_macmahon) April 7, 2023

lmao I hope they lose that draft pick it would be the absolute most funny outcome

all because it was solvenia night, sad

before social media most nba exec and coaches had the sense not to talk about this stuff out loud in public

nuggets starters getting run off the court by the jazz B team, someone please put me out of my misery

omg kevin its a meaningless game

then why are the starters playing!!

Cardio

also worth noting that mavs pick this year is top 10 protected, so sort of an unusual perfect storm of motivation to tank out of the play-in

oops that was a many xp, already noted, carry on

Cardio

― four square ups... no punches thrown (Spottie), Saturday, April 8, 2023 5:30 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah with the playin its really a too ling layoff noticed teams like to get their guys some burn in the second to last game

lol jokic with the 6-10-10 draymond line

Looks like the suns have picked their opponent, resting their guys vs the clips means they’ll likely meet the clips in rd1

it almost feels like it's rude now not to rest your guys when you have a seed locked up and the game means something to the other team

Yah but this is different

the mavs getting investigated by the league for how they handled the bulls game is truly a cherry on top of a pile of cherries

Ha otm

#techsupport question - I'd been having good luck watching league pass with a VPN to watch wolves games suddenly it's not working says it's local even when I'm going through Chicago or Detroit. anyone else using a VPN?

na sry i gave up on league pass when they wouldnt let me do the foreign cheapo price deal

btw happy scrub day to all the guys getting burn today lol, celtics are playing a g league guy they signed two days ago apparently for this very purpose

Pritchard has already taken 10 threes in 15 minutes.

— Keith Smith (@KeithSmithNBA) April 9, 2023

league pass price was cut in half this year btw

support shot creators

i got youtube tv instead the cadillac baby, league pass technology product is just not that great

plus the issue of watching local games which is what i do mostly

Wolves are on shithole Bally Sports North which isn't on YT TV, they offered a standalone app this year but it was $20+ a month. the whole media landscape sucks ass

its true

think i heard bally sports just went bankrupt too

yeah it's very likely it won't make it to next season which puts a bunch of NBA teams' broadcasts in jeopardy

do you get the halftime shows on YT TV?

naw its regular tv which is worse, tho tbf the more i had league pass/illegal streams the more i learned to despise the in area hype people the ones who run the dumb lil games and whatnot always yelling with a weird flat affect theyre the worst, commercials are bad too tho whatever i mute em all

aw ur such a scrooge

theyre so bad! the worst is the okc guy but theyre pretty much all terrible fuckin shoot a three for chase bank

the celtics hype lady is atrocious, critical support for you in this struggle lag00n

thank you (theyre all exactly like that tho lol)

today's adventures in tanking, texas-style. houston inexplicably won, ending their season with 22 wins. if the spurs lose, they clinch 2nd worst in the league, but theyre playing late-tanker dallas right now and everyone is playing g-leaguers on g-leaguers. spurs absolutely shotting this last-second opportunity to guarantee at worst the 6th pick.

118-73 after 3 quarters warriors vs blazers an embarrassing display capped off by this

JONATHAN KUMINGA MY GOD pic.twitter.com/UIKJEEl5gR

— Alex 👋 (@Dubs408) April 9, 2023

Inter team fight!!!!

Kyle Anderson and Rudy Gobert got into a scuffle during a timeout😳 pic.twitter.com/y8X76TbUuJ

— Backcourt Alerts (@BackcourtAlerts) April 9, 2023

shout out to the time lagoon and I went to the final meaningless blazers game of the season (2017, vs Memphis maybe?) and we didn’t know who any of the guys were, what a hoot