Michael: News in the NBA world regards tanking, yes tanking is an issue that has been going on for years, years, and years.

And now more than ever it has become a bigger issue according to the commissioner Adam Silver. He has recently fined two teams that are the Indiana Pacers and the Utah Jazz for purposely tanking games.

Now with this tanking issue has come conversations between both sides, there’s a side that believes tanking is a good thing in the NBA and there is a side that believes tanking is a bad for the NBA.

Arguments that are made for the good things are well, these teams are tanking to secure a bettie spot in this years draft, not only that but to secure a better position for their team in the future. Which is a reasonable reason to tank.

And of course the argument is not one sided as I said, there are media members that believe that tanking is a bad thing and for some valid reasons of course. They believe tanking is a losers mentality, they believe tanking is bad and ruins the competitive nature of the NBA.

Which yes it is true, I do agree with that to a certain extent because you are essentially losing games on purpose, you are going out there not trying to win because you are trying to secure a better pick in this years draft or just any draft in general.

So yes, your going into these games like “look, we don’t want to win, lets purposely lose these games, lets purposely sit our best players in the fourt quarter so we can lose these games”, and yes essentially lose these games, and yes it is a losers mentality and it is taking away from the competitive nature, but at the same time there’s only about maybe 5-6 teams that are constantly doing this compared to a league that is 30 teams.

We’re complaining about five teams losing on purpose where there is 30 teams in the NBA, so that’s where I kinda have my issues with this argument because the media is making it seem like all teams are tanking and that’s why its bad for the league and in reality, its only five teams compared to a 30 team league.

So that is the argument that is made that it takes away from the competitive nature, its taking away from the league in general and that’s where I have my issue because its not like its the whole league doing this.

But the main argument that I have an issue with, that I have seen a lot of media members try to push and its really irks me, its the argument is that tanking is taking away from the fan experience. The main argument that I see with this one is that well, fans are paying to see their team lose and that’s not what you want to do, you don’t want to see your team lose, you want to see your team win, you want to see your team compete in the playoffs and essentially you want to see your team win a championship.

And yes that is true, I want to see my team win a championship, I want to see my team compete, I want to see my team win, but I want to see my team win when the time is right. If I am a fan of a team like the Washington Wizards or the Utah Jazz or the, whatever team that is tanking currently right now. Yes it would be nice to see my team win a championship, yes it would be nice to see my team compete, yes, but if I see in this season that we have no shot of winning an NBA championship, we have no shot at competing in the NBA playoffs, what is the point of competing for a play-in spot if its going to lessen our chances of getting a good draft pick?

And the reason this argument irks me the most is because media members are not fans of certain teams so you don’t know exactly what a Utah Jazz fan is feeling like right now, you don’t know what a Washington Wizards fan is feeling like right now. You think a Washington Wizards seriously right now wants to win basketball games? No, of course they don’t want to win basketball games because what’s the point of winning a basketball game if its just going to lessen that chances a goo pick in the draft.

And it just blows my mind on how suddenly media members care about fan experience and now suddenly teams are ruining fan experience by tanking when essentially the NBA has been ruining the fan experience for NBA fans for a very very long time. Especially in the 2020s decade. For example, the NBA finals, the presentation of the NBA finals and the feeling of the NBA finals has not been the same for a very very long time. We use to have NBA finals logos on the court, we use to have a big ass trophy in the middle of the court for the NBA finals.

And now we just get a green screen NBA title, Larry O’Brien title on the court, or we get an NBA finals logo that’s green screen but it’s not even an NBA finals logo, its an NBA finals logo AD. It says, “The NBA Finals presented by YouTube TV”. So the only reason why it’s on there because it is a paid advertisement. And yes the overall presentation of the NBA is key to the NBA fan experience.

And continuing this conversation about NBA fan experience lets talk about the NBA All star game, the NBA All star game has been a joke for the past, God knows how long and yes I will give the NBA credit they did decide to make a different change this year and it did work, I will give them credit, and I will give them flowers for that.

But outside of this past year what has the NBA All star game been like or just the NBA all star weekend, it’s been a joke. Even accessing games in this day and age is hard to do. You have to have a League pass subscription, you have to have a Peacock subscription, you have to have an Amazon prime subscription, you have to have a ESPN subscription to even access these games. It has become impossible to access these games because it has become so expensive to watch NBA games now.

And even with an NBA League pass subscription, it’s still hard because sometimes your games will get blacked out because you are trying to to watch you’re favorite team for example, the Los Angeles Lakers, your trying to watch a Lakers game in the city of Los Angeles, you can’t even watch it because the game will get blacked out so your paying for an NBA League pass subscription for no reason because you can’t even watch you’re favorite NBA team.

So that’s why this argument that it’s ruining the fan experience is complete bullshit because the NBA media members have no idea what they are talking about, they don’t. Now all of a sudden the idea of tanking is ruing the fan experience when tanking has been in the NBA and in sports for a very long time now. And now all of a sudden it’s ruining the fan experience? And no that is not why tanking is such a big issue, it’s not because of fan experience, it’s because of losing the competitive nature or a losers mentality. The reason why tanking has become a big issue in today’s NBA, specifically today’s NBA, its one particular reason and that is gambling.

In today’s world gambling has been a big issue, not only that but especially in the NBA world, the NBA is constantly exposing gambling to a lot of NBA fans. As they are throwing multiple gambling ads at your face every single game you watch. You will at least see five to six NBA gambling ads in a game, whether that’s a Draft Kings ad, FanDuel, PrizePicks, Underdog, whatever it is, you will see a gambling ad while watching an NBA game, not only that but you will see a gambling ad in the middle of a NBA game it sounds ridiculous but it is true.

In the middle of a game you will see, I don’t know, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith talking about, “Oh should we bet the under on Luka Doncic’s points” and one will say under and the other will say over, its ridiculous. And this recent surge in NBA pushing gambling ads has been a lot more evident in recent years, especially knowing that in the 2021-2022 season, the NBA officially became partners with Draft Kings and FanDuel, not only that but these gambling companies invested $300 million to promote gambling sites on NBA products.

So don’t you think now that there’s a recent surge in gambling ads and now that gambling sites have been putting more money than ever to promote their product on NBA games, NBA products, or whatever the case may be. Don’t you think it would be super convenient for them to say “Hey, Adam Silver uhh, we’re losing money because teams are constantly tanking. You are costing us money, we paid you so much money for you to promote our gambling ads, our gambling sites on your NBA games and you have teams constantly throwing away games, which is costing us millions, and millions of dollars.”

And of course people are smart and they realize “Hey, I could just bet the under on Lauri Markinen points at Utah Jazz game because he’s not gonna play the entire game”. So if he’s at 23-25 points, I’m gonna go with the over, excuse me I mean the under because well he’s not gonna play the entire game. And of course the more money people win on gambling sites the more these gambling sites lose, that’s why they always promote it, they want you to deposit money just so they could make more money.

That is essentially the reason why you see so many gambling ads saying, “Oh deposit this much money and you’ll get this money back”, cuz they want you to deposit money because thats how they make their money. And when teams are constantly tanking and people are realizing I could just bet the under on this player because he’s not going to play the entire game, its causing these gambling sites tons and tons of money because I’m pretty sure it’s a lot of people that have picked up on this tanking situation.

So no tanking is not suddenly this big issue because it’s ruining the competitive nature of the NBA, or it’s a losers mentality, or it’s ruining the fan experience, no that’s not the case at all. It has suddenly become such this big issue out of nowhere even though tanking has been a thing forever, now all of a sudden it is a big issue, and it is simply because of gambling.