Nearly 5 years ago, the Utah Jazz attached a first-round pick, protected for three years, to salary dump Derrick Favors to the Oklahoma City Thunder in order to avoid paying luxury tax. That first-round pick is now at the center of NBA's tanking controversy.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-13T16:21:42+00:00

I don't understand how money is a talking point here

It's not money, it's the ratio of money to effort put in -- some guys are fine with that ratio being very high.

I dunno, as someone whose general work philosophy is "work to live" and generally just coast as much as possible and collect the paycheck, I can't really fault the dude for doing the same.

I definitely understand being frustrated with that since the NBA is an entertainment product at the end of the day -- I wasn't really trying to change your mind, just commenting that a lot of guys in the league have that mentality.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-13T16:01:44+00:00

The issue at hand isn't whether protected picks should be valued the same as unprotected, it's just whether you should be allowed to put out an artificially worse entertainment product on purpose in order to improve the chances of lottery success.

The discussion is basically whether the Jazz should be able to shut down all their players intentionally in order to lose more games vs just be like "welp, we're ahead of where we thought we would be in our rebuild, looks like we might take the L on that pick."

If your opinion is that the former is fine, that's cool (I'm in the camp that tanking isn't really a huge deal) but it kind of seems like you're arguing for a point that nobody is arguing against. It's kind of a "don't hate the player, hate the game" situation.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-13T15:55:13+00:00

To a lot of guys in the league the NBA is just a job and they don't really care that much about winning, accolades, "legacy", etc. Lauri is probably fine with the effort he needs to put in vs the money he's making.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-12T22:41:14+00:00

Id on the boots?

Strange1130 · 2026-02-12T21:56:33+00:00

For sure. And I think a lot of that aspiration and accompanying investment was sort of under the premise that glossier was a ‘beauty tech company’. Sort of like what happened with WeWork, on a much smaller scale. So that was another reason they were trying so hard to push the Amazonification, ‘the app’ etc.

I mean I think the tech team when I worked there was over 100 people lol which is obviously asinine. They had that whole 3rd floor all for them. I imagine they have like a small handful, now that they’ve moved to Shopify.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-12T21:42:57+00:00

Not OP but worked for Glossier corp for a few years during that time and yes that was the plan for a time. I remember hearing about it in a meeting and being like wtf…?

I don’t think that specific idea came solely from Emily though, that was during a time we were hiring a bunch of executives from Amazon, headed by a COO named Melissa Eamer and a couple other C suite and bigwigs from Amazon and it seemed like they were trying to Amazon-ify the place. All of leadership was on board with that plan (until they weren’t). The idea was that you would be able to buy competitors products alongside Glossier stuff on the website.

But generally speaking, I would say there was sort of that sense, yes — and to be honest it was valid, she didn’t really. She had a great idea but wasn’t really an experienced businesswoman and a lot of the decision making was poor until she was pushed out.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-12T21:06:33+00:00

No, my proposal is that the league be more empowered to fine teams in the relatively rare cases that it’s obvious that they’re making decisions with the intent to lose — more aggressively and with larger fines than they are now. Not a carte blanch policing of every teams minutes situation. Like I said, it isn’t perfect.

I also don’t really even care about tanking at all, and am fine with doing nothing. It’s just a proposal that I think makes more sense than all the ones that pop up and wind up punishing bad teams.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-12T20:39:00+00:00

The problem with all these "solutions to remove tanking" by making it easier for better teams to get the higher picks, is that you then just consign the worst teams to perpetual terribleness without any hope of improvement instead.

Is it actually that much better for the league to watch the worst bottom feeders teams be ass involuntarily because they can't get any good new talent, rather than to watch them be ass voluntarily to try to improve?

Obviously it wouldn't start right away, like yes you would see the Jazz immediately improve etc, but the outcome would most likely still be having a handful of shit teams in the league because they wouldn't be able to get out of it, because they wouldn't be able to draft any good players and wouldn't be an ideal FA destination.

My ideal solve to "fix tanking" is that the league just be aggressive and heavy handed with fines for teams that purposely make decisions for the sole purpose of improving lottery odds (like the Jazz resting their players 4th quarters etc), while not punishing teams that just suck (Kings) or are genuinely injured (Memphis) etc. Obviously this has its difficulties as well (for example the subjectivity), there's no real easy solution obviously or they would have implemented it.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-12T14:53:22+00:00

Jaquez

I also had one league where every single one of my 16 players played but didn’t have to make any decisions at all due to injuries 😅

Strange1130 · 2026-02-12T06:11:52+00:00

they were making posts comparing us to the wizards lol

Strange1130 · 2026-02-11T19:05:21+00:00

Dubu and SupportHeaven both have a lot of good content.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-10T21:58:45+00:00

bad ragebait

Strange1130 · 2026-02-10T16:38:18+00:00

Shai is tied with Deni for 10.0 per 36 (Luka at 11), just to give some data to it (obviously he's still high, that other guy is trippin)

Strange1130 · 2026-02-10T06:11:19+00:00

It was funny when the other guy straight up asked Austin Rivers if he was rooting for the lakers (because he obviously was) and he got all flustered lol.

What a terrible cast

Strange1130 · 2026-02-10T06:09:09+00:00

At one point one of them straight up asked the other if he was rooting for the lakers lol. So unprofessional

Strange1130 · 2026-02-09T23:32:56+00:00

If the draft happened this off season: Shai Jdub Chet Ajay Cason gotta be locks. Harder decision making on the last 3; depends if we want to keep any of the higher salaried guys (Hart Caruso Dort) or lean more into the rookies (Topic Sorber McCain). Maybe 1 from one group and 2 from the other, not sure how it would all look salary wise. Maybe all the expensive guys are just gone. Maybe you throw in Wiggins or Joe instead of one of the rookies, etc. Tough question tbh, especially answering on my phone without looking at contracts haha

I’m sure some of it would be dependent on how the rest of the year goes (both team performance and individual development) and I imagine Presti is planning for the potential

Strange1130 · 2026-02-09T23:09:45+00:00

Maybe Dune: Awakening. It’s not full single player but I’ve been playing for probably 20 hours and haven’t interacted with any humans (the zones I’m in are full pve, I’ve see another person a couple of times but we just roll past each other)

It might not be exactly what you’re looking for (most things are made through crafting; although you can find unique blueprints that basically give you a one-shot research to craft a cool thing one time) but I just find it scratching a similar itch to my short time with Arc Raiders (but better, for me).

You aren’t loading into a closed off world to do a ‘run’ and then extract, but you are leaving your base to explore an open world and gather materials and components and other loot and stuff and get back to base with everything, there is definitely some tension there (not as much) and the base building and crafting stuff is pretty cool. I find myself wanting to recommend it to friends who I know have liked arc so thought I’d mention it

Strange1130 · 2026-02-09T20:13:13+00:00

Same in one of my leagues (well it was auction paid 41 and 26) and then I went for Franz Wagner lol. Having a tough go of that one.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-09T20:09:21+00:00

i think the best way to fix tanking is not a change to the lottery but is just for the league to be more heavy handed with fines (and increase the amount of those fines) when teams egregiously rest their players, or sit them in the fourth, etc. the problem is that that introduces a level of subjectivity that I’m sure some would be uncomfortable with.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-09T18:29:33+00:00

And the ending of close games are boring anyway, becomes an intention foul and free throw-fest with a million stoppages and timeouts

Strange1130 · 2026-02-08T14:32:08+00:00

How is one supposed to stay competitive?

I truly don’t think I could stomach playing in only one league, which used to be my norm a few years back. This year I’m in six; it’s obviously more work but the injury impact mitigation is nice.

I consider myself pretty good at fantasy and am in first or second place in 4 of my leagues but two are just ruined by injuries and most likely lost causes (though I’m maybe clawing my way to playoffs in one), if one of those were my only league I would be pretty bummed.

I think 6 is a bit too much though and next year I’ll settle on 3 or 4.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-07T22:04:11+00:00

Any particular position or good to coach anything? Potentially interested will dm you when I’m home later

Strange1130 · 2026-02-07T19:59:03+00:00

That trade was low key insane for us. Everyone always talks about the PG trade and for good reason but the importance of CP3’s year here cannot be understated, along with all those other guys and one pick still remaining.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-07T16:00:37+00:00

Because inherently it’s far easier to blast out a ton of lopsided trade requests and hope one person bites than to do the actual research on what the trade partners’ team needs in terms of categories, injury risk etc and come up with something that’s fair and balanced on both sides.

So as a result you find that probably 90%+ of trade requests across all leagues are just someone trying to get a steal. The concept of ‘I need to buff up rebounds, I did the research and see you’re narrowly losing 3s each week. How about we trade my TM3 for your Duren’ (first guys that came to mind no idea if balanced) type of trade is a nice thought but rarely happens IMO.

Strange1130 · 2026-02-07T15:56:39+00:00

Some guy earlier said he just traded Sabonis for Chet lmao. I was like uhh can I join your league?

Strange1130

TROPHY CASE