Tired of Tanking

 I can't wait until next season. I feel like once a week I hop on here to vent about how much I hate tanking in the NBA. Maybe it's just because my team is participating in the nonsense, but to me it seems like this season the tanking has gotten particularly out of hand. The Raptors are at the end of the deadly stretch if you're a tank fan: Utah, Washington, Washington, Philly, Utah. Some absolutely disgusting basketball has been played in this stretch and I have a lot to complain about. 

As the Raptors got into their final quarter of the season, it became evident that the goal is to lose games to improve their draft position. Early on, their strategy was to just play their starters and then pull them all in the 4th quarters and close the games with the third stringers. The Raptors starters, playing against some pitiful competition, managed to build leads up so big that the third stringers couldn't blow them. The first instance of pulling absolutely everyone resulted in rookie Ja'Kobe Walter hitting a game winning 3 against the Magic to take back to back games in Orlando. The Raptors then realized that any amount of time with all their starters out there makes the Raptors too good to lose to teams like the Jazz or the Wizards, so they decided to strategically rest guys. RJ, Poeltl, Scottie and IQ all took turns resting. Not only did the Raptors do this, but they also signed Collin Castleton to a 10 day contract in order to have another G-League caliber body to throw into the rotation. This still wasn't enough, the Raptors get past the Jazz who are being even more egregious with their tanking efforts.  The next game against the Wizards, the Raptors close the last 6 minutes of a close game with Jamal Shead, Jared Rhoden, AJ Lawson, Orlando Robinson and Collin Castleton. Jamal Shead on the final play crossed over Marcus Smart, got all the way to the rim and hit a tough layup. Upon review the ball was on the very tip of Jamal's finger as the buzzer sounded, the Raptors essentially lose by 0.01 seconds. Close call right? The next game the Raptors easily beat the Wizards, I've heard it said and I agree, it's impossible to lose to the Wizards twice in a row especially at home. The urgency is starting to kick in now, the Raptors had been winning despite their best efforts to lose, and Philly who is neck and neck in the standings with the Raptors is coming to town. 

The Raptors now pull out their most aggressive tank maneuver yet. At a home game, where fans are paying at least $50 CAD to get into the arena the Raptors started: Jamal Shead, AJ Lawson, Jared Rhoden, Colin Castleton and Jakob Poeltl. To put this in perspective, they started a second round rookie, a 2 way contract, 2 10 day contracts along with their regular center. As the game went on, it became clear that Jamal Shead was playing far too well to keep in there, so he's limited to just 12 minutes. Poeltl provides far too much stability so they take him out after just 17 minutes. Chris Boucher, who is on the last year of his contract, provides far too much hustle and energy so they decide he's not seeing the court again this season evidently. So now with all of that out of the way, the Raptors have 6 guys available in the second half of that game. 5 of the 6 spent the majority of this season in the g-league and the 6th was 38 year old Garrett Temple. The Raptors still went on to win easily 118-105. 

My question here is why? Why do all of this? Even if you're going to bench 4 of your best players, who are all healthy and able to play, you're also going to pull Jamal Shead after just 12 minutes? Losing a game in March to the 76ers is apparently more important to the Raptors than giving a rookie who's breaking out an opportunity to lead a group as the first option in an NBA game. The crazy part is, they punt on this development opportunity and don't even come away with their desired result which is a loss! I want to be on here getting excited about AJ Lawson's hot couple of games or get hyped that Orlando Robinson seems to be figuring it out, but realistically I doubt any of these guys are going to be seeing the floor in any meaningful capacity next season, so what's the point? At this point, the Raptors are an insane Coby White 4 point play and 0.01 seconds on a Jamal Shead layup away from a 7 game winning streak, and they're trying desperately to lose. 

Winning is a rare and precious opportunity in sports. The Wizards haven't been above .500 since 2018, and here they are still with very little exciting young talent, still trying to lose to hit it big in the lottery. Throughout the majority of Raptors history they have been a bad team. Until 2014, the Raptors were straight up a joke organization, they wanted to win but they were never good enough. Now the Raptors are clearly good enough to win and go on a run at the end of this season, but the front office has decided no lets not do that. The NBA changes so fast, look at the Pelicans, a team with a great young core just a couple of years ago has been ravaged by injuries and are now one of the worst teams in the league despite coming into this year trying to win. Look at the 76ers who signed Paul George with the hopes of being title contenders and now aren't even good enough to beat 40 minutes of Colin Castleton. All it takes is 1 injury to a key guy and everything you've been trying to build falls by the wayside. I think giving up opportunities to win games is going to come back to bite this team when they actually do want to win. I hope like heck that the Raptors G-Leaguers keep pulling off these victories so the front office is forced to just play our guys down the stretch. 

Finally, the NBA needs to do something. The Utah Jazz just got fined $100k for resting Lauri Markkanen, I guess that's something but realistically it's not enough of a deterrent. People are throwing around ideas surrounding flattening the draft odds even more or a mini tournament to determine the #1 pick, but I don't think that's enough. I feel like the NBA needs to consider player contract structures, though I know this is wildly unpopular. The NFL has contracts that are only partially guaranteed, if a player misses a bunch of games, he loses a significant amount of money. This makes it so that at the end of a season, even the bad teams are still playing all of their guys because no coach is going to tell a player he doesn't get half his salary since the team wants a better draft pick. This is radical, stands to hurt players who are frequently injured, and is a greedy option that an owner stan would suggest, but I think it's effective. I am open to other ideas, feel free to hit me up if you have any. 

That's that. Screw tanking, be good again next year Raptors so I don't have to participate in all of this. Go Raptors!