Brooklyn Nets<\/a>. \u201cIt\u2019s so complex.\u201d<\/p>\nThere\u2019s a lot of moving parts with the tanking conversation, and not all of them have to deal with the draft.<\/p>\n
The current CBA has incentivized star players to leave in trades instead of free agency. This has created an environment where draft picks have arguably become more valuable in trades than ever. Messing with the odds would change the currency and value of those picks.<\/p>\n
Then, there\u2019s also the fact that it\u2019s hard to get talent to go to small markets \u2014 like Cleveland. As the Cavs have shown, the draft isn\u2019t the only way to bring talent in, but it is one of the easiest and simplest ways to do so.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand all sides,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cTeams, they want to get another James Harden, they want to get a Donovan Mitchell, so I understand that. But I also understand the side where we want a competitive game every night for the media, for the fans, for the coaches, right? Competition is the essence of the NBA.\u201d<\/p>\n
Figuring out how to make games matter, but also funneling talent to the worst teams in the league has been a difficult balance for the NBA to strike. Even if you found a way to get rid of tanking, you can\u2019t keep teams from being bad. Presumably, a healthy sports league that\u2019s gone to great lengths to ensure competitive balance doesn\u2019t want bad teams to stay that way year-after-year.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ll see what the league does to address this. There\u2019s a lot of potential solutions, but none that clearly help all parties involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen all the alternative proposals,\u201d Atkinson said. \u201cI wish I could sit up here and say, hey, I want to champion this one. I haven\u2019t studied it that deeply, but I understand the sentiment and the frustration.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND \u2014 Tanking has been a bigger issue this season than most \u2014 at least it is based…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3772],"tags":[7,306,147,305,193,3846,6,3101],"class_list":{"0":"post-612593","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cleveland-cavaliers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cavaliers","10":"tag-cavs-news","11":"tag-cleveland","12":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","13":"tag-clevelandcavaliers","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nba-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116100127070505829","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}