The NBA has a Competitive Problem
Too many games, not enough incentive to win, too many blowouts. What are we doing here?
One of the inherent joys of watching the Celtics play basketball this season is that you know they’re going to give you an honest effort. While the C’s have their share of bad nights at the office like everyone else in the league, those days tend to be few and far between. That honest level of consistent effort – call it professionalism – is the biggest reason the Celtics won a lot more games than people thought they would.
Playing with effort shouldn’t be this much of an advantage, but it seems far too many NBA teams view the simple act of competing as an unnecessary hindrance in respect to their larger operating goals. When winning isn’t the main thing, other things start taking priority. Losing, for one. Sitting veteran players for nebulous reasons when they should be on the court gaining valuable experience with their teammates, for another.
The effect of having some teams try to win while others don’t seem to care is there are two different NBA’s happening concurrently. When competitive teams match up against one another, the games generally tend to mean something. When a team that’s trying meets one that it clearly isn’t, the result is a lopsided blowout that has you checking the baseball scores by halftime.
Tanking is bad, everyone but the worst contrarians agree on this point. It’s unethical, unhealthy for a franchise’s “culture,” and generally pretty gross to sabotage your own chances of winning in front of 18,000 people paying insanely high ticket prices ostensibly to watch you compete. Let me rephrase: Tanking is bad unless it’s your favorite team trying to improve its draft order. Then it’s a strategy. A far more useful one by this twisted logic than actually trying to win.
It’s not just losing. It’s losing by astronomical margins with a roster full of guys straight outta the G-League. No offense, I’m glad many of these players are getting an opportunity, but this isn’t the exhibition season. There are (allegedly) real stakes involved, and not just the kind involving prop bets and totals.
For years, NBA heads such as myself defended the league against these types of charges by insisting the detractors didn’t understand the subtleties of the NBA product. No more. It’s become impossible to regard 40-point blowouts and bogus scoring records as anything other than farce masquerading as a legitimate contest.
You’d like to think the postseason would address this problem, but in recent years, playoff series have tended to become battles of attrition rather than skill. There’s too many semi-meaningful games to get through before the ones that actually count take place. By that point, we’ve already got tired bodies and minds, worn down by seven months of non-stop travel requirements.
The realities of an 82-game schedule are in no way a defense for not trying, by the way. They’re the by-product of an antiquated scheduling philosophy that serves nobody’s purpose. Before you go on about the money, there’s plenty of money to go around in this league. Figure it out. Be sensible. It shouldn’t be that difficult to divide billions of dollars in the name of structural integrity and long-term sustainability.
Salute to the Celtics and all the other franchises that try. May your example light the path of awareness for everyone else to follow. The alternative is too subversive to continue much longer.
