NBA

Luke Walton: “I Don't Believe in” Tanking

The Los Angeles Lakers sit at the bottom of the Western Conference and talk of "tanking" has come up.

At the final buzzer of the Los Angeles Lakers' historic 49-point defeat in Dallas, LA dropped to second from the bottom in the Western Conference. Later that night, the Phoenix Suns won a game, so the Lakers dropped one slot lower to last in the West and third from bottom in the NBA. By Monday night, a Miami Heat win pushed the Lakers into a tie for the second worst record in the NBA.

Talk of "tanking" could no longer be ignored. "Tanking" is the name given to teams strategically losing games on purpose by fielding weakened teams or leaving key players out of the rotation late in the season with an eye towards landing a higher spot in the NBA's draft lottery. Constructing a team designed to finish at the bottom of the league, which was the premise of the famous sports film Major League, could also be considered tanking.

"I don't believe in it," Lakers coach Luke Walton said on the topic of tanking following Tuesday's practice. "I believe in trying to play the right way and have a culture that you're going to try to win no matter what. If you start losing on purpose, I think the basketball gods comeback and get you in the long run and good things aren't going to work out for you."

Walton added, "We try to do things the right way around here, which means we're going to play to win, but that's just us."

Of course, former Lakers coach Byron Scott uttered similar words on the topic, but the Lakers often looked like they were tanking, though it was tough to make out since those teams played consistently awful basketball. An argument could be made that the two years Scott coached the Lakers, the teams were constructed to finish near the bottom of the league, which is another definition of tanking in of itself.

In addition, Scott's final year on the sidelines ended with a 17-win season which featured former Sixth Man of the Year Lou Williams curiously not playing any part for the final seven games of the season due to the team opting to play younger talent. Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak has always contended that the Lakers do not tank and will not tank, but an argument could be made that his team did do just that to land two straight no. 2 overall picks.

As is widely known, the Lakers only hold onto their first round draft pick in 2017 if the team lands a top three spot following the 2017 NBA Draft lottery. A quick check on social media and various team blogs makes it obvious that a sizable segment of the fan base has shifted its focus from possibly making the postseason to praying for losses and the keeping the team's 2017 draft pick.

As such, the Lakers wouldn't exactly draw overwhelming criticism if they did the undercover tank. What does that mean? Well, starting 19-year-old Ivica Zubac in place of Timofey Mozgov would be move that could be sold as providing the young center experience, but the young Croatian is obviously not yet ready to play 25-30 minutes on a winning NBA team. Giving Tarik Black the backup center minutes and shutting down Mozgov for no obvious reason would not draw the ire of fans, but it would also not necessarily help the team win games in the short term.

Similarly, pushing 19-year-old rookie Brandon Ingram into the starting lineup following the All-Star break and sacrificing a veteran like Luol Deng would be widely applauded by the fan base, but dropping Deng out of the rotation to provide Ingram even more minutes on the court would not necessarily give the Lakers a better a chance to win games this season. Ingram is playing enough minutes at the moment and needs to grow into his body and gain strength more than anything else.

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Replace Nick Young with Jordan Clarkson in the starting lineup, and Walton can sell the full move to youth movement. If Walton sells lineup changes as long terms moves for the growth of the team, the Lakers would suddenly have a starting lineup that features two rookies, one second-year player and two third-year players. LA has lost 16 of its last 22 games, but these moves would likely lead to even fewer wins than previously projected.

Even more subtle, if Walton limits Williams' play off the bench, the Lakers could remain competitive but struggle to pull out wins. Williams leads the team with 17.9 points per game and ranks sixth in the NBA with 7.3 points per fourth quarter. Simply resting the best fourth quarter scorer on the team in a move to provide the younger players opportunities to finish games could be enough to pull off a subtle tank. Fans would likely applaud the move to give D'Angelo Russell and Clarkson more time together on the court in crunch time.

"I would prefer to not be stuck in the lottery for very long," Walton said before boarding Tuesday's flight to Portland, where the Lakers face the Blazers on Wednesday evening.

The inconvenient truth, however, is that the quickest way to get out of the lottery is to draft the right, franchise-elevating talent. Ingram could potentially fill that role, as could Russell and Julius Randle. Getting one more top-three draft pick would increase LA's chances to escape the lottery for the foreseeable future by another 33 percent—or it could provide one more trade chip to finally trigger a move and launch the Lakers off the bottom of the Western Conference.

With 34 games remaining in the 2016-17 season, talk of the Lakers tanking has only just begun.

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