During a recent visit to Boston, new NBA commissioner Adam Silver was asked about the perception that certain teams are tanking to improve their chances in the draft lottery:
“The coaches and players, or some subset of that group, trying to lose, I don’t think that’s going on anywhere in the NBA,” he told reporters after a speech to the Chief Executives’ Club of Boston at a downtown hotel. “And I would take action immediately if I thought it was.”
Silver didn’t rule out changes that would eliminate the perception that teams aren’t trying to win.
“We have a system in place that encourages teams to rebuild,” he said after the talk sponsored by Boston College in the hometown of the Celtics, who are among the league’s rebuilding teams. “They are responding to the incentives that are built into the system. If the incentives aren’t right, we have to change them.”
Silver doesn’t need to “take action” because his predecessor handled that by instituting the lottery in 1985. Teams were going in the toilet so they could have a better shot of drafting franchise cornerstone players such as Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing. David Stern declared the lottery necessary to preserve the “competitive integrity” of the league.
Fast forward 19 29 years and suddenly there are no concerns about competitive integrity? If that is true, why doesn’t Silver abolish the draft lottery?
Cut the bullshit, Silver. When asked about tanking, simply state the league has measures in place to handle it.
I don’t want another commissioner who is more concerned with image than quality of the product.
I still have a pipe dream that the NBA will one day address its awful officiating.
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