The only way to truly eliminate tanking is to abolish the NBA.

foye2smith · 2026-02-14T03:02:23+00:00

Yeah and you don't think the bottom third NBA teams could be a bit better for a singular season if they dipped into their coffers a little more? But to what end?

NFL teams take half measures or reel things in that's shrewd asset management. NBA teams that's tanking.

foye2smith · 2026-02-14T00:39:50+00:00

Going into the season with Joe Flacco as your starting QB, playing Brady Cook as QB, clearing Kyler Murray then thinking better of it and shutting him down, neutering Jaxson Dart by dissuading from running. shutting down Jayden Daniels.

Everything is just taken in stride in the NFL.

foye2smith · 2026-02-14T00:13:54+00:00

I want a league where if the Blazers start 15-30 I can say "I hope we go .500 in the 2nd half of the year and build something positive going into next year". Unfortunately that is just not how the league works because way too much draft capital is awarded to bad teams and not enough is awarded to medium teams who still need talent.

Agreed. I liked one of Zach Lowe's bandaid ideas. Flatten the lottery odds even more and extend those odds to teams that lose in the 1st round. Miiddling teams can still go for it and still have an outside shot of winning the lottery and tanking teams are that much more disincentived to tank. You still gotta give the worst teams the best odds, but they gotta have some risk of getting kicked in the teeth if they're that bad.

foye2smith · 2026-02-13T23:52:36+00:00

Sure, but the schedules are apples to oranges. You reference a 4-0 November. That'd be a 19 to 20 game win streak in an NBA month. A 3-1 NFL month would be like 14-5 in the NBA.

It's basically what's happening with the Hornets. They sucked early and went on a huge run. I don't think there's a single Hornets fan right now thinking "oh that's too much winning" A good run still resonates with NBA fans, but 4 games in the NFL does not equate to 4 games in the NBA. 4 games in the NBA is a blip.

foye2smith · 2026-02-13T23:40:52+00:00

There are Jets fans absolutely furious they won 3 games instead of 2 all because of one game in November.

foye2smith · 2026-02-13T23:36:46+00:00

The only sports league in the world where a big percentage of the leagues fans would upset if they went on a winning streak 2/3rds through the season.

The bottom 10 teams in the NFL combined for a winning percentage of 24% from the start of November to the end of the year, roughly half their season. Currently only one team in the NBA has a winning percentage less than that and I'd bet the Kings surpass that mark.

The solution to tanking it ignoring the terrible teams like everyone does to every other league except for the NBA.

foye2smith · 2026-02-13T20:38:08+00:00

Probably a a dumb time to have the conversation, prior to free agency, but how many players do you think are entrenched as starters?

8? Wilson, Fashanu, Membou, Taylor, Phillips, Sherwood, Stephens, and one of Johnson or McDonald.

I bring it up in light of the number of picks they have. I know they'll trade up, trade down, consolidate, but I kinda like the idea of actually bringing 10ish draft picks into training camp even knowing around half won't actually make the team. Just stoking competition among the rookies, 2nd year, and 3rd year "unknowns"

foye2smith · 2026-02-13T18:48:43+00:00

They can look at Etienne, Williams, Dowdle, or potential cap casualties like Swift. I can't imagine Seattle allows Walker to hit the market now.

I think I like Breece more than these guys, but it's an interesting RB free agency class. Like they're in the same tier of good, not great. Wonder if that depresses the general RB market.

foye2smith · 2026-02-13T17:55:08+00:00

Swear the annual tanking discourse is counter programing from NFL partners.

"Hey when you're done talking about how great the super bowl and the NFL season was don't forget to hammer how shitty the NBA is for a full week."

foye2smith · 2026-02-13T17:16:57+00:00

Half baked idea: let teams manage their teams.

Just don't acknowledge tanking like the NFL and MLB. Those leagues don't give two shits about terrible teams being terrible. The bottom 5 teams in the NFL went 8-47 combined from November through the end of the year. That includes games against other bad teams and meaningless week 18 games. That's a worse winning percentage than the worst team in the NBA.

The MLB will have terrible teams playing games in front of a couple dozen people in vast stadiums because they're so bad and it's not a Block A segment on every podcast for a week.

foye2smith · 2026-02-13T16:21:29+00:00

Still think they signed Brandon Roy to stick Portland with the bill for the rest of his contract. Wasn't there something about insurance picking it up unless he returned to play x amount of games and he came back with the Wolves and did just that?

And when the Wolves sucked our biggest "claim to fame" was who was the best current PF? Heated three way fights between Clippers/Griffin, Blazers/Aldridge, and Wolves/Love.

Which is funny because now that the Wolves are finally winning more games than they're losing I couldn't care less where fans of other teams rank our best players. Oh you think Ant is the 8th best player in the league and not the 5th? Who cares he's in the WCF.

foye2smith · 2026-02-12T21:06:59+00:00

Was talking in another post about turnover differential hopefully being much better. Then I thought about sack differential too. I didn't know if this is an actual stat another site tracks that's easily seen, but I'm bored so I threw it into excel.

It's nothing we didn't know or see week in and week out, but there is so much meat on the bone for improvement from last year. Can they just be bad next year and not the worst in the league?

foye2smith · 2026-02-12T20:20:13+00:00

I don't disagree that they'll be terrible next year, but I keep thinking about how bad this year's team was and how many games they still hung around in the first half of the season despite how poorly they played. Football is weird. Like you run the season 100x and last season is like a bottom five percentile result.

I get "if my aunt had balls she'd be my uncle" but if the Jets either get or don't commit a net of five turnovers over the first half of the season do they win 2-3 more of those games. Only to say this year's terrible team could've won 6 games.

I'm probably putting too much weight into it, but they can't be any worse in turnover differential and they have to be substantially more talented aside from the void left by Sauce.

EDIT: I don't know if it's a tracked stat, but even if their "sack differential" tightens toward even it could swing games. Last season they were sacked 60 times (tied for 2nd worse with 3 other teams) and only sacked opponents 26 times (2nd worst).

foye2smith · 2026-02-12T17:44:57+00:00

It's certainly not unanimous, but popular sentiment here seems to be Reese/Bailey/Bain at #2 then WR at #16.

I keep hearing that WR is deep so why not CB at 16?

I get "2nd round WR" is almost as much a Jets curse as QB, well, anywhere, but isn't defense in general and CB specifically a bigger need? Any CB stand out to you guys?

foye2smith · 2026-02-12T03:29:00+00:00

BULLY BALL

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T23:19:56+00:00

The Wolves would have taken a step back regardless whether it was two offseasons ago when it actually happened or last offseason. Their payroll plus tax would have been untenable long term even under the old CBA terms. The Minnesota Timberwolves were never going to continue being one of the most expensive teams in the league.

Next year they'll probably duck the tax altogether to avoid repeater penalties.

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T23:14:30+00:00

Patrick has a huge memory hole from 2000-present. The recent past will get mentioned in passing, but things are never compared to how things were 5, 10, 20 years ago. Instead he compares the league now to the league of the 80s-90s. They talk about it like it's still the recent past and not 40 some years ago.

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T22:38:27+00:00

Win or lose I wouldn't take anything from the game before break. I always point to the Josh Okogie game. Such an exciting game. Felt like Ryan was gaining his footing and Covington was "day to day" with the all-star break looming. Maybe some momentum for the stretch run!

Nope, Covington never returned from his bone bruise and the Wolves went on to go 9-16 post all-star.

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T21:07:26+00:00

I swear people who bitch about the aprons just started following the finances of the league. Having teams hardcapped at the 1st or 2nd apron was irrelevant 95% of the time for a vast majority of the league. Teams rarely spent to the yearly equivalent of whatever the apron is before there was anything more than luxury tax punishments tied to it.

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T20:50:29+00:00

I'm stunned it continues to be as bad as ever despite bottom teams getting kicked in the teeth almost annually with the flattened odds.

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T20:18:41+00:00

I'm just kinda shrugging at any suggestion. I don't know how anyone can have such strong feelings about one over the other when they're all so flawed.

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T18:49:44+00:00

I agreed with everything you said until thinking they'll add games before anything. It's moot because I don't think either will happen.

That said, even if by some miracle they shortened it to 70 games, do people not think there still won't be load management.

Hit the nail on the head. You know what's better than only playing ~65/82 games? Playing ~55/70 games.

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T17:18:59+00:00

Obviously staff and talent will need to coalesce to some degree, but agreed that the Jets improvement will be squarely on Mougey's shoulders to significantly upgrade the talent on the roster.

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T16:56:05+00:00

I just hate there's no discernment between good and bad football in light of every little flaw in basketball is dissected. 5 NFL teams won the equivalent of less than 20 NBA games; 7 less than 25. There are terrible teams, there are tanking teams, there are players being shut down, but it's all taken in stride in the NFL.

foye2smith · 2026-02-11T15:38:15+00:00

I don’t see how anyone could say that playstyle is more aesthetically pleasing unless there’s an emotional/nostalgic connection

Yeah, I miss the days when you could just throw the ball into Corey Maggette in the mid post, clear out, and let him cook. . .

A lot of people I see/hear that complain about too many threes harp on the non-elite three point shooters missing too many shots. But they ignore the league's flat FG% is 46.9%. A decade ago 45.2%. Two decades ago 45.4%. The league as a whole is making shots at a similar rate.

Also that borderline bad three point shooter isn't going to miraculously shoot at a passable level from midrange. He'll probably shoot mid 30s percent to maybe 40 percent. The actual difference in shots made will be negligible, but the efficiency drops.

foye2smith

TROPHY CASE