[The Allen Iverson trade] could backfire [for the Philadelphia 76ers] if [Andre] Miller makes the Sixers too good this season. Too good meaning "not the worst team in the league."
At this point, Philly should be playing for the top pick in (what they hope is) the Greg Oden Draft. If Miller leads them to far more wins than Charlotte, Memphis or any other bottom-feeder, it will be a failure.
No athlete, no team, should ever play to lose. That attacks the very concept of sport. A team should "earn" the top pick on "merit"; they should play their hardest, their best, and still end up last, because that's as good as they are. For a team to tank just to try to get the top draft pick is unsporting, unprofessional, and not entertaining. It's an insult to the paying fans. And i never want to see you advocate this again.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 04:51 am (UTC)Also, there is no Santa Claus.
This isn't the first time I've heard of someone at ESPN suggesting with the appearance of seriousness the idea that a team should tank the remainder of a season to skim the cream off a thin draft. And I haven't paid much attention to Greg Oden, but he is apparently this year's LeBron James, or something like that.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 01:08 pm (UTC)"Whee! Let's tank the season in order to move down two spots and get an 8% better chance of a #1 pick as our reward!"
Not exactly a shining example of a measureably positive return on effort.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 01:47 pm (UTC)People pay an extra ten thousand dollars over asking if a house has crown mouldings; they buy the magazines that report on Tomkat and Brangelina; and they buy Eggos, not waffles. People are suckers for window dressing, and show no signs of changing.
These are the people to whom basketball teams owe their loyalty; there aren't enough people like you (re: basketball) or me (re: hockey) to change that. And if professional sport is no longer a bastion of sportsmanship and is instead a refuge for gamesmanship, then that is just the way it is. Until we capture the hearts and minds of the people again; convince them that for a sport to be worthwhile as a sport, the thing which they believe they are paying attention to, it must be fair and honest.
The ESPN jokers are a symptom of a disease; unfortunately the disease is degenerative precisely because its symptoms corrupt the body further. Enlisting the anchors to our cause is just and right; but let's at least acknowledge that the owners are not insulting the paying fans (or at least that such an imagined slight is not the reason why Broussard needs to change his tune); they are doing precisely what is required to keep the paying fans paying, because you and I aren't the statistical paying fans. What is insulting is that so many of these statistical fans care first and foremost about crown mouldings and could give two shits about the termites in the studs.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 05:04 pm (UTC)(I hope they lose every single game.) The "tanking debate" will go on forever, in every relevant sport.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 05:31 pm (UTC)What do you think about the theory that the Raiders O-line intentionally underperformed while Walter was in, out of some kind of misguided loyalty to Aaron Brooks? If they'd done that, surely they too would have been violating the concept of sport?
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 06:10 pm (UTC)