New York Knicks: The Case for Not Tanking
With the Knicks currently standing at a wretched 2-8 record, third worst in league behind Sixers (0-9) and Lakers (1-8), some fans are starting to talk themselves into believing that tanking is the best course of action. I’ve always fancied myself as a pragmatic fan, but I’m not on board with this philosophy.
If you look at how bad the Knicks are and then remind yourself that they will have a first round draft pick this summer, tanking might seem like a rational plan. Add in the fact that the Eastern Conference seems to be much more competitive than probably anticipated, the thought of tanking seems even more logical. Still there are some very valid and credible reasons why the Knicks should still go out there and give their best that I think outweigh the tanking strategy.
Reason 1: The Knicks aren’t good enough to tank.
Let’s be clear on what tanking is. Tanking is when a team makes a conscious choice to do whatever they can to lose as many games as possible in order to improve their draft odds. It’s a viable plan that exploits the holes of the leagues draft lottery system that essentially rewards losing, and it’s one that many teams have resorted to before as seen here.
Honestly, the Knicks are so bad this year that tanking isn’t even necessary since they are perfectly adept at losing on their own. The Knicks can play as hard as they want and will still probably end up with a top ten draft pick. I’m not trying to be funny here; this is actually a very serious and objective assessment.
Reason 2: This year’s focus should be on building something for next year.
We all knew this was going to be difficult year but there can be many positives to losing, and the biggest one is learning something from habitual mistakes. A bevy of things like overcoming third quarters of doom, effective substitution patterns, better end of game possessions, and of course instituting the triangle are all challenges that can be improved upon even through losses for both the players and coaches alike.
When a team makes a choice to tank, the areas mentioned above can be overlooked all in the name of ensuring a loss. So far this season the Knicks have struggled with these issues, and like most obstacles in life, problems quietly allow for unique opportunities of tutelage. When the Knicks signed a 30-year-old Melo to a massive contract this past summer, it was out a promise to make sure the ebbing years of his prime aren’t wasted. He made it clear he wasn’t going to waste his final years on a rebuilding team, and in return, Phil made it clear to him that the Knicks will not only build for future, but that cap space also meant the Knicks would be in reach of contention sooner than later. In the end, Melo was sold on this and decided to stay with Knicks instead of signing with the current conference leading Chicago Bulls.
The Knicks cap space allows them to be in a position to withstand a bad year and still be in “win now” mode. Teams that are tank mode are different in that sense since it could take years to have enough young pieces to field a respectable team. Look no further than perpetually bad teams like the Magic and Sixers to see how long it takes to tank themselves into contention, or just look at the Cavs who despite two #1 picks and 4 years of losing only became relevant again by Lebron’s return. Even now LeBron has made references to how difficult it is to overcome the bad habits a losing culture perpetuates, so its not like tanking doesn’t leave residual costs. Once a team decides winning isn’t their goal, bad habits like the ones that plague the Knicks, don’t get fixed until they are exorcised, and that’s exactly what the Knicks should be focusing on now instead of punting on the rest of the season.
Reason 3: The Knicks haven’t been at full strength yet.
Jose Calderon and Andrea Bargnani aren’t going to save the Knicks, but they are still two valuable pieces that could have been a significant help so far this season. Comical end of game possessions like the ones we have seen this past week don’t happen when Calderon is on the floor, and Bargnani can still pose matchup problems for other teams. Also worth noting is that the Knicks sit at 14th in assists per game and have two players commonly cited as being ball hogs, Melo and JR, tied for team leaders in assists at 3.7 per game. This doesn’t mean that Melo and JR suddenly became more pass friendly, its just means the Knicks suck pretty badly in this area. Calderon alone will dramatically change this so it’s important to take into account the Knicks missing players when making any assessment about their performance thus far.
Reason 4: Tanking isn’t foolproof.
Tanking isn’t nearly as academic as people make it out to be. The gold standard in tanking success stories is almost always reserved for the 1996-97 Spurs, but that’s actually a myth. The Spurs still tried to win games that season and got extraordinarily lucky in wining the draft lottery. It’s also important to stress the word “lottery” because that’s exactly what the draft is, a gamble. Despite the slightly greater chances of getting a high lottery pick, often times it’s just a stroke of luck to fall in the first three spots. Having the worst record only gives a team a 25% chance at winning the lottery and that’s a very low percentage to hinge an entire year on.
Think about it this way, say some wacky Silicon Valley CEO made a new rule in which he told employees that receiving the worst work performance review from your boss resulted in a 25% chance of receiving a raise. Is that a high enough percentage to even consider being the worst employee of a company? That still leaves a 75% chance of year gone to waste and an ungodly amount of work productivity left on the table.
When it comes to top picks, for every Duncan, Shaq, and LeBron, there is a Kwame Brown, Greg Oden, and Michael Olowokandi. Of course tanking isn’t only about netting a top pick, but when a team has a mandate to win now, the risk of sabotaging an entire season for an unproven player is usually too great to even consider, especially in big markets like New York. And speaking of New York…
Reason 5: This is New York City, we don’t tank here.
Lastly, and to me most importantly, Knick fans have suffered enough through the years to accept tanking. We’ve been extremely patient, we’ve been willing to overlook horrendously bad basketball, and through it all we’ve been fiercely loyal. We’ve dealt with tolerating a cavalcade of buffoons like Thomas, D’Antoni, Woodson, and of course Dolan himself navigating the Knicks ship. Many of us still refuse to sell ourselves on the emerging “cut the cable” movement and continue to pay ridiculous cable packages solely to watch Clyde and Breen curate our games. We’ve succumbed ourselves to ignore lawsuits and guys like Marbury desecrate the jersey that once meant something to those old enough to remember “When the Garden Was an Eden.”
To ask fans to sell themselves on tanking while ticket prices for games at the Garden continuously grow out of reach is not just embarrassing, its damn near shameful.
Its still very early in the season, but the chances that the Knicks fix this mess are slim. That doesn’t mean we should expect anything less than players working through these struggles and giving it their very best. As Knick fans, we have earned that right to expect that. The minute fans begin to accept their team tanking, they are giving their team, the lead way to tell fans “Guys we don’t have a plan at all but if we keep losing, maybe we’ll get lucky,” and that’s not acceptable. From the very top of an organization, down to the bottom, fans should demand that everyone be committed to winning, always.
Don’t settle for tanking fans. We are better than that.
Follow Richard Bertin on Twitter @RichardBertin and check out his Knicks’ blog “Starks Raving Mad” or email him at richbertin@gmail.com