What is up! It feels good to be home. I hope everyone had a great February recess...my kids were off school the whole week. My son Dominic has been invited to his friend Gordon's birthday so I tell my wife you guys go ahead I'll hold down the fort. Then she tells me the party's at Dave and Buster's and my schedule sort of cleared up. Didn't know D&B were first grade friendly but apparently so.
Enough about my personal life I want to talk about tanking. It happens in all sports I'm sure, your team looks at how much schedule is left and realize they aren't going to make the playoffs and then it becomes a race to the bottom to try to secure that new draft pick. It's so obvious and prevalent in the NBA that it is truly pathetic and I blame the NBA more than any one team or player. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of blame to go around.
I blame the NBA the most because they didn't fix the problem a long time ago. I mean honestly, if you're the commissioner, how can you let it get to this point? My friends and associates tell me they don't watch the NBA at all. I wrote a report about this for another website a few years back about how the TV deals are great for the league but bad for the fans. The paying fan is no longer the No. 1 priority to the NBA, they make more money from the deals than the fans so that's who the NBA's loyalty is to and it's become apparent.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver informed the league's general managers on Thursday that the NBA will implement new anti-tanking rule changes next season. The following were topics discussed at the meeting:
First round draft picks can be protected only for top four or top 14 plus selections
Lottery odds freeze at the trade deadline or at a later date
No longer allowing a team to pick in the top four in consecutive years and/or after consecutive bottom three finishes
Teams can't pick in the top four the year after making the conference finals
Lottery odds allocated based on two year records
Lottery extended to include all play-in teams
Flatten odds for all lottery teams
These are the things discussed at the meeting so who knows what the NBA will actually implement to stop anti-tanking. I've been watching this documentary on the Corporatization of America in my spare time, a few minutes here and there, and if you take out the political spin it's a fascinating account of how corporations are running the country and the world. They in essence are who the politicians answer to and not the other way around. Also this began as early as the Industrial Revolution but in the 1980's it exploded which was another shocker because the documentary backs it up with details.
This all ties into the NBA and who's really influencing the decisions that are supposedly in the fans best interest. I don't know how Adam Silver can say that with a straight face when you need to search at least ten different platforms and channels to see the games you want and you could still run into a blackout. The NBA is making record profits but it's coming at the expense of their fans and Silver needs to understand that this is unsustainable. Talent needs fans to watch, if the fans stop watching the media rights deals go away. This may be years away but if nothing changes the outcome will be irrevocable.