Dallas Mavericks owner and multi-billionaire Mark Cuban was fined $600,000 on Thursday by NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for comments made about tanking.
“I'm probably not supposed to say this, but, like, I just had dinner with a bunch of our guys the other night, and here we are, you know, we weren't competing for the playoffs… I was like, 'Look, losing is our best option.'" (Mark Cuban on “House Call with Dr. J” podcast)
Tanking appears to be a problem in many sports; the idea is that a team whose season isn’t going how they wanted may mail it in and intentionally lose games in order to receive better draft picks for rebuilding. The most positive correlation between a team’s lack of success and talent earned in the draft does come in the NFL, but the NBA is a close second. The only difference between the two in terms of the setup of the draft is that the NBA is a lottery draft, where the 14 teams who missed the playoffs receive a record-dependent number of lottery ping pong balls, as opposed to a traditional linear draft. The team who finishes with the worst record has the best chance at getting their ping pong ball drawn and consequently receiving a “lottery pick”––a first through third overall selection in the upcoming draft. While this process may seem left up to luck of the draw, NBA teams still buy into the chances of winning the lottery and getting that high draft pick they were looking for. After all, some of the best players in NBA history have been drafted with a lottery pick (see David Robinson, Shaquille O’Neal, Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Anthony Davis).
I have several takes on this: first off, I think it’s absolutely hilarious that Adam Silver thinks $600K is keeping Mark Cuban and his $3.7 billion net worth up at night. The NBA Commish has actually fined Mark Cuban several times; Cuban drew a total of $500,000 in penalties in 2001 and 2006 for criticizing referees. Each of these instances has catapulted Cuban to the top of the list of largest fines dealt out in NBA history––he’s now both second and third on that list. Sure, these bills might be a big deal for your average Joe, but I’d imagine Mark Cuban blows his nose into $600,000 when he feels like it. If I were the NBA commissioner and wanted to create a deterrent for this kind of ‘misconduct,’ I would have taken away future draft picks instead.
But unfortunately I’m not the NBA commissioner, nor can I tell Adam Silver how to do his job. However, I do have a problem with how tanking is viewed (not only by the NBA, but also by the NFL). You may be saying, “well Roger Goodell has never fined the Browns’ owner for his team going 1-31 in the past two seasons,” and you’d be right, but I’m specifically talking about the overall dialogue surrounding teams that have thrown in the towel. People seem to think that both draft systems are set up so that teams aren’t allowed to take advantage of it, and that somehow it’s cheating if you do. Sure, tanking may make for bad basketball (or football) in the short term, but if you’re truly a fan of the team, you’d be better off just agreeing with the move in hope of future success. At the end of the day, it comes down to the players and coaches, who have to decide for themselves if they want to extinguish their desire to win for a whole year so the team can tank. So who’s to say Mark Cuban will even get through to his team?
Overall, I would say that I don’t have much of a problem with tanking because it should really be an internal decision (within the team), but as NBA Commissioner, I can understand why Adam Silver would punish an owner for directly ordering his team to tank. It certainly can’t be great for ratings (something with which Third and Long has no problem). Next time though, Adam, I’d suggest providing a stronger deterrence for a guy like Mark Cuban.
(Photo via Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press)
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