This post is going to discuss the validity of this strategy, tanking.
I think it is an interesting topic to look a bit deeper at. But before we go, we first examine how a team can get good players.
In general, there are only 3 ways:
A. Every year, each team has two picks. 1 and 2.
Cost: you have to lose a lot to get better picks.
B. Trade. A team can trade players/picks for another players.
Cost: The team has to have something other teams want a.k.a your players have to be valuable.
C. FA. Every off-season, Teams can sign UFA, RFA or someone overseas.
Cost: Caps. A team has to have salary caps to sign players.
Basically, one part of sport management is a game of resource management. We try to use our resources to get the best players we can, and there is where tanking comes in. When a team is not good enough to have a chance to win all, it is logical we try to find a way to "reload" and give us another shot in future. Sometimes, it looks like it is the only way we can get a young cornerstone player like KP.
Until now, everything is clear and well understood. However, everything has a cost, losing on purpose (tanking) has its cost as well, and I think very few talked about it. I do not mean something like the wrath of basketball gods because it is not scientific. I do not mean it hurts the players' morale either. Although it is valid, it is not about resource management which is the only thing I would focus on right now.
When tanking give us better Part A (picks), it damages our resources. When a team loses, it somehow makes everyone in it to be a loser. Is Phil a loser? Yes, he is. Is Rambis a loser? Sure, because he loses. Is KP a loser? well, I want to protect him but we have to say he is not a winner in NBA because, well again, he still does not win.
Losing is something no one wants, but when a team lose, it is something everyone have to own. Losing, indeed, tend to devalue almost every player we have, while wining would do the opposite. Look at Shump, is he loser? Well, as Knicks he was a loser but as Cav he is not. He is a "valuable rotation player" now, but the truth is that he is somewhat the same player, in fact.
What does it mean? It means a losing team has nothing to trade because its players to be looked as "cancers" or "losers". Tanking gives us better pick and it devalues everything we already have. It is probably why "tanking genius" like Hinkie could not succeed. He looked like he would ALMOST succeed if he was given a few more pick and few more seasons. He got a good pick, a very talented young guy. Not surprisingly the dude is not good enough to make a difference. I mean, no rookie can win if your GM is a tank god. Years after years tanking, everyone he has drafted is devaluing and he draft a new one to come in, helping Part A but hurting Part B.
Then, how about Part C? Free agents. Players tend to go to the place they can earn more. The superstars would go back to their teams because contracts have max value and because the home team would offer the most. Teams can only grab a superstar because they are already very good themselves, like GSW. Wining, indeed, attracts best players.
But it doesn't mean losing would push people away. You still can sign very good role players but you have to pay a little bit more to attracts them. Guys like Robin Lopez chose Knicks because we overpaid him at the time.
So, what does it mean? It means that losing would cost us more in Part C. Sure a tanking team can't attracts tier 1 talents. Equally, it has to pay tier 1 money to attracts tier 2 talents. A bad team has to overpay, it just has to.
In short, in resource management, tanking is very risky to do. You raise the value of one part, then devalue another part, and indirectly make yourself to have some overvalued players other teams do not want. (If they wanted them they could sign them right away, at lower price. )
People probably would argue, 1 + 1 is not equal to 2. One superstar is more valuable than all role players combined, as we can always trade for the latter. If you have LBJ, you have LBJ and everything else would be fall into its place. After drafting its best players, a tanking team can always trade its future picks and cap rooms for other pieces. Usually, a good tanking team has a lot of picks and a lot of rooms.
But, look at it this way, picks cannot dunk and cap rooms cannot pass. They are valuable but they cannot play simply because, you know, they are not humans. When a team trade its player for your pick, it doesn't have anything to show for it in THIS season. The team lose a player and that is it. It means that contending teams would not want to do that, as they need every bit help to get over the top. When they trade a player, they want a player in return, from you or three-ways. Then it leaves us to other rebuild teams as trade partners. Well, both teams are actually on the same boat. They have too many picks, but too few role players to be built on. Everything 76ers has, PHX has it too. It is pretty hard to make a trade with someone who have everything you have and want everything you want.
In short, only a team is about to reload a.k.a explode may be interested in to be a trade partner, but it is few and far between.
So, we can get a better idea why a tanking god like Hinkie failed. He failed because he had no idea what his end game was. He did the part A wonderfully. He even did Part B pretty good by disbanding his original teams. But then, everything stopped. What else could he do? Tank again to get another player? Sure, and he devalued everyone he had at the same time. He did Part C poorly because no FA wanted to come and the only one wanted to come hoped to be overpaid a lot. He could have traded away some picks for good role players, some good vet, but then again good teams were not interested as they wanted to win now. Bad teams were not interested because they had picks too. (Unless, well, you are nets)
He was like that:
Step 1: Tank!
Step 2: Tank harder! baby!
Step 3: ????
Step 4: profit!
IMO, he didn't work like a GM. He worked like he was a banker. He traded now for the future. He helped other teams to improve, get better, or get out of cap hell or something. But as a wining strategy, tanking is not proven it works.
When Phil said "we do not tank", I respect it and I can't believe he didn't think about everything I wrote here. In basketball, he is much smarter than I ever could. He must know it.