Last year, the NBA fined the Utah Jazz for sitting healthy players in an effort to lose games. This season, the Jazz are tanking by benching their stars for the fourth quarter instead.
For three straight games, the Jazz have benched Lauri Markkanen for the entire fourth quarter, seemingly to make sure the team doesn’t win too much. While the tactic failed in Monday’s 115-111 win over the Miami Heat, it’s a troubling precedent for a team that still has 28 games left to play.
ESPN’s Bobby Marks said the Utah Jazz are ruining the league’s integrity
The NBA has rules in place to limit tanking, though those regulations are limited to players considered stars. That’s any player who has made an
All-Star team or All-NBA team in the previous three seasons. Markkanen qualifies as a star for this purpose, as does newly acquired Jaren Jackson, Jr.
Sitting Markkanen cost the Jazz a $100K fine last season, after which the forward made a miraculously recovery from whatever injury was supposedly keeping him on the bench and played 28 minutes in Utah’s next game. The Jazz still managed to finish with the NBA’s worst record, 17-65, but got unlucky in the draft lottery and ended up with the No. 5 pick.
On “NBA Today,” ESPN’s Bobby Marks argued that what the Jazz were doing in benching stars late in games was “messing around with the integrity of the NBA.”