Report: Tanking NBA owner caught 'berating' coach for team's late-season win
Tanking is the NBA’s biggest open secret.
Franchise players are the league’s most valuable assets, and losing games is the best way to land a whale. Teams that come out of the All-Star break with no playoff hopes have every incentive to lose games. This is a strategy known and openly embraced by fans hoping to land a high lottery pick. Even if commissioner Adam Silver is warning teams against doing the very thing league rules incentivize them to do.
What can’t be done without scrutiny is visibly looking to lose a game on the court. Tanking decisions are made before the ball is tipped with coaches finding a reason to rest a top player. Once professionals take the court, it is still their duty and in their best interests to try and win the game.
Apparently, an NBA owner got angry with a coach this season for trying too hard in a game that his team won. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski noted that instance in his podcast, which was picked up on by a keen Reddit user.
“I never heard more talk from front office executives’ frustration with coaches who were winning games that they didn’t want them to win. And owners, I know of an instance of an owner berating, really berating his coach here in the last several weeks of the season for going in and beating a pretty good team on the road, going ‘what are you doing?’ And think about that, that should not be going on.”
Wojnarowski did not note which team’s owner was angry about the win, so fans are left to speculate. The Suns, Grizzlies, Mavericks, Hawks, Magic and Kings were the teams down the stretch with dashed playoff hopes and best chances at landing higher lottery odds for the top pick in the draft and appear to be the most likely candidates.
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