Mark Cuban Offered A Unique Perspective On Tanking And Why The NBA Should Actually Embrace It

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Until we get to the back half of this week and NBA games finally return, the discourse around the league is still very much focused around "tanking". We're getting it all at the moment, from takes that the NBA should abolish the Draft and just have rookie free agency, to potential Lottery tournament ideas, to changing the pick percentages, and entirely new Lottery formats like Mike Zarren's wheel idea. The list goes on and on. Something that, in my opinion, isn't even that big of a deal, somehow should lead to drastic and league-altering changes. Maybe people are just bored with no games on, who knows.

But for the moment, tanking is what's hot in the NBA streets at the moment. And while a lot of the takes and solutions seem to end up doing more harm than good, I did find it interesting what Mark Cuban had to say on the matter. As someone who was in charge of a Mavs team that had a couple of tanking seasons in recent memory that helped the future of his franchise, he's someone who provides an interesting perspective.

Why the NBA should embrace tanking 

- The NBA has kate been misguided thinking that fans want to see their teams compete every night with a chance to win.  It’s never been that way that way.   

When I got into the NBA, they thought they were in the basketball business.  They aren’t.  They are in the business of creating experiences for fans.   

Few can remember the score from the last game they saw or went to.  They can’t remember the dunks or shots.  What they remember is who they were with.  Their family, friends, a date.  That’s what makes the experience special.   

Fans know their team can’t win every game.  They know only one team can win a ring.  What fan that care about their team’s record want is hope.   Hope they will get better and have a chance to compete for the playoffs and then maybe a ring. 

The one way to get closer to that is via the draft.  And trades.  And cap room.  You have a better chance of improving via all 3 , when you tank.   

We didn’t tank often.  Only a few times over 23 years, but when we did, our fans appreciated it.   And it got us to where we could improve, trade up to get Luka and improve our team.   

The nba should worry more about fan experience than tanking. It should worry more about pricing fans out of games than tanking.   

You know who cares the least about tanking , a parent who can't afford to bring their 3 kids to a game and buy their kids a jersey of their fave player 

Tanking isn’t the issue.  Affordability and quality of game presentation are

Tanking Part 2: 

Why it’s “worse” now 1.  College basketball players are pros.  They are paid for performance more than potential.   So while the nba values younger players who will continue to develop , they are now playing against bigger, better, higher BBIQ players because most are staying for as long as they can get paid 

2.  Young players are far more skilled than 10 years ago.   Every kid copies what they see on YT AND they have trainers.  The skill levels will continue to improve.   You can find game changers that are young 

3.  The 2nd apron/new CBA has fucked up team building with vets. In the past you could have a couple 35pct max players, and if one declined for any reason, the tax wasn’t onerous and there were no draft , trade and apron considerations.   Now, players ain’t getting the 35pct unless they are in their prime through the contract, or, it’s a one or two year deal, possibly with a partial guarantee in the second or out years. 

Which is why it’s been harder to trade max players. Teams don’t want those contracts unless maybe they are getting off their own problem contracts, have a hard time getting free agents ,  or are under the salary floor for next year Think about it. If the 2nd apron is 207 and a super max is almost 60.  Add a second max at 58m.   Thats less than 90m left to sign up to 13 players.  And you have diminished exceptions to sign players.  So it’s mostly minimums and maybe a partial tax payer MLE.   

With 2 Max guys you better be trying to go deep in the playoffs.  So you sign more experienced guys that other teams undervalued or didn’t  get the contract they expected.  Then you cross your fingers. One of your two Max guys underperforms or get hurt , now you are struggling. You hope your injured player comes back before you are out of it.  If he can’t.  The only smart thing to do is tank.   

It’s the only way to really improve your team since you are at or near the second apron. Which means there is a HUGE premium on great players in their rookie deals.   And the way to get those great players on their rookie deals is to Tank and hope the lottery gods are on your side.   

4.  Finally, the worst shit  that the nba dishes out, is that if you don’t lie to your fans about what you are doing , even though it’s obvious to them , you get fined.  And the threaten you with losing picks.   A couple years ago, We tanked for about a week and I got fined 600k.   It’s a joke.   

You can’t tell the truth to your fans.   

If instead , you could say “ this team isn’t what we thought it would be.  Injuries. Whatever reason.  Our scouts think this upcoming draft is really really good.  Top 6 could be all stars.  Top 12 strong rotation players.   Maybe a break out player. We can’t sign a player for more than the tax payer mid level and even then , not the full amount because we are so close to the 2nd apron.   

If we can get a top 4 or 5 pick , we actually can pay that rookie more than we can pay anyone else in the nba.  Yes we have to make some moves, to slot him in, but worst case we can stretch one or more players. 

Our goal is to win a championship.  We are never going to get everything right , but this is our strategy.  We wanted to be straight up with you. 

We will be having a strategy session with our season ticket holders (I had these all the time ) and I’ll answer all your questions. And then after that we will have the same with all fans. 

This wasn’t the season we wanted or expected , but I promise you that whoever is on the floor will be playing their hearts out.

Hate Cuban or love him, you have to admit

Giphy Images.

The Mavs winning 33 games in 2018-19 is what helped set them up to be able to trade Luka. In 2022-23 it was very clear the Mavs were tanking at the end of the season to keep their pick, which landed them Dereck Lively, who many viewed as their center of the future when they then made the Finals in 2024. When it came time to make sure they got into the Lottery last year following the Luka trade, we all know how that worked out. 

At the same time, the Mavs were also competitive in the seasons around those tank years. 

What Cuban talked about in that post is how I feel a lot of the current bottom-of-the-league fanbases feel. Do you think Jazz fans hate what the team is doing? No chance. Do we think Pacers, Wizards, or Nets fans care? No. Why? Because it's like Cuban said. When you're a fan of a bad team, you just want the hope of one day being good. In today's NBA, there are only so many avenues to improve, which is why I hate the idea of abolishing the Draft. What hope does that give a fan of a dogshit team that things will get better? There's still no guarantee they win the Lottery anyway, but I think any rational fans can understand that in the NBA, the worst place you can be is stuck in the middle, and with no Draft it feels like you're creating a world where more teams are bad/stuck in the middle than actually getting out of the mud.

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When it comes to the fan experience, there is a "tanking" element to it that Cuban didn't talk about, though. Say you drop all this money to bring your family to a game, and then you learn that the star is being load-managed because the team is tanking. That stinks. I'm not really sure how you get around that outside of just accepting that, as a fan, there's a chance you could be spending a ton of money just to see the star player in street clothes. That's sort of why it's bullshit the NBA penalized the Jazz for what they did. At least their star players played! Fans who were maybe in attendance for the first and only time at that game got to see the best players play, even if it was for only 3 quarters. That's a much better fan experience than if those guys just sat out the entire game.

I think there's a case to be made that the fan experience and accessibility are much more of an issue for the NBA than a handful of teams tanking in what is projected to be a generational Draft. 

If I had to guess how this all ends, I'd bet that the league goes back to the Lottery odds format pre 2019, and adjusts the pick protection language on future trades. Those seem like the least drastic measures that should in theory help outside of just gong by worst record. Even then, there will always be tanking to some degree, so maybe Cuban is right that the focus should shift to things that the NBA can actually change and improve.