You don't have to tank especially in the NFL. The Spurs have already been explained. The Cardinals are really struggling to compete with the tanking Cubs.

You don't have to tank to win a title. It just helps a lot especially in the NBA and MLB.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

They drafted Duncan #1 in 1997, and in 1996-1997 Robinson and Chuck Person were out most of the year.

Not exactly tanking.

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It's a big issue in the NBA but I don't even know if it really helps that much. Outside of the Spurs, only a couple titles in the past 20 years were the result of tanking.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's better to attempt a different strategy rather than being stuck in NBA hell, the NFL blob, or the MLB fringe society year after year with the same front office philosophies.

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Being a Bulls fan last year and this year hasn't been great, but it beats the hell out of being a 76er fan. Joel Embiid is prepping for yet another surgery as I type this.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Those couple months where Embiid was dominating had to feel like a dream to those fans tho. That rebuild was crippled by terrible drafting tho.

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I think feeling like a dream is probably overstating things quite a bit. I'm sure it was exciting. I'm equally sure it wasn't worth losing on purpose three straight seasons to get 31 games of a player who is good but never healthy.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Yeah the fans didn't know they would only get 31 games. I was specifically talking about the time he was dominating way beyond anyone's expectations. Would have felt like a dream come true for me, and then back to the nightmare after the injury.

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Barring injury Philly is set up to be major players in the NBA for a long time. That doesn't mean that tanking is necessarily a bad thing. Injuries can happen regardless of tanking.



Portland is another team that tanked it worked and injuries derailed them. Roy Oden Aldridge would have also been major players in the league. Tanking gets a bad name because of the Clippers more than anything.

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Philly is the textbook case AGAINST tanking! Who you crapping!??!?!?

Yeah, I mean, I was gonna say... As of now they have exactly one player who looks like he could be a star, and he will have played in a total of 31 out of 246 possible games after three years.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I suppose it was there in the past but well hidden but this tanking talk seems fairly new for fans to embrace this. it is frustration driven by people like Bernsie pushing all that matters are championships and sport hell talk.

Aside from outright mismanagement I think fans need a little perspective. Only one team per team, per league wins in a given year. Some are not even satisfied with first round playoff exits anymore. In baseball I have heard why even try for a wildcard. Today Marv Levy would not have had the chance to lose four straight super bowls. The fans would have had his ass fired after two.

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Elections have consequences.

Hence the barring injury tag. Simmons will be a player. Saric will be a solid stretch four kind of guy. They will get value for Okafor and this years draft is loaded.

I got this one on lock. Book It!

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Good point.

I hate that Nuevo Bernstein crap too. I think it is one of the reasons that I stopped listening to that garbage station. You are only relevant if you are winning championships. He never applies that logic to his 25th rated radio show however. It was always lazy radio to me.

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It is worse than that though really. Just look at how things like that and the Cub's plan influence everyday people. Read this thread and look at all the love of tanking that probably didn't exist ten years ago. At least not to this extent.

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Elections have consequences.

Yes, we've seen it work as an ideal example with the Cubs. Should we not embrace it more? Isn't that the natural reaction?

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Feel free but know that while it worked for the Cubs I think the odds of it working for everyone every time are low.

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Elections have consequences.

It has an insidious effect on sports and fandom, almost to the point where one can feel the Cubs championship was tainted, not just by their own tanking, but because other teams blatantly tanking (following the Cubs' lead) paves the way for an easier path to a title. If a team wants to tank, be upfront, lower your prices, and maybe change the rules like soccer where you are relegated to a lower division until you are willing and good enough to compete.

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Isn't that essentially what international signing is now (which is rendering talent in great percentages)?

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Great post.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I'm not a naive little boy here. I understand luck is involved heavily in a rebuild. I just embrace the change in strategy from Tribune Co. If a team ran by an old curmudgeon like the White Sox or Bulls wants to try it, than so be it. I honestly hope it works out well for them.

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Were the teams in the MLB playoffs tanking?

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That's semantics. The point is the same, finishing last helps win championships.

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Nice try...but the Cubs got to coast and set up their rotation by virtue of the fact that most of the NL was heinous. Clearly there will always be a few competitive teams with a shot at the title, though as mentioned, in the NBA it is safe to say we know for a fact there are maybe only three or four teams that have a chance.

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I wasn't making it personally about you.

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Elections have consequences.

I wasn't making it personally about you.

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Elections have consequences.

So were the Cubs the only team in MLB that benefitted from the shabby play of the NL? How can we find out if they benefitted most?

It's been that way in the NBA since maybe forever, give or take a few years.

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PM you know I love you man. It's not going to work for most teams for a variety of reasons, but to go from years of mediocrity to terrible for a few years and then set up to be great is something I'm behind for the Bears, Bulls, and White Sox for sure. I think it's worth a shot for either franchise compared to the garbage they've put on the playing surface the last few years or more.

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The Cubs had the massive drought obviously, but otherwise had moments (2003 etc) that would reflect the fact that only one team can win out of 30 or 32. I'd rather have modest hope every year and a serious run every 10 years, than the current system where you tank and pray for a few top draft picks (and even then nothing is guaranteed...Cubs could have easily lost to the Indians or Dodgers, and I think they won't be as good this year).

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