Amidst all the reports, rumors, and controversies surrounding certain teams and how the league should move forward with their draft and combating blatant efforts to tank to secure better draft positioning, Mark Cuban says the NBA should embrace tanking while focusing on different areas to elevate the product for fans.
Commissioner Adam Silver said over the All-Star break that the league will look into curbing team’s abilities to tank, which prompted a response from former team owner Cuban about whether tanking is bad or not.
“Why the NBA should embrace tanking,” wrote Cuban on X (formerly known as Twitter).
“The NBA has [sic] been misguided thinking that fans want to see their teams compete every night with a chance to win. It’s never been that way that way.
“When I got into the nba, they thought they were in the basketball business. They aren’t. They are in the business of creating experiences for fans.
“Few can remember the score from the last game they saw or went to. They can’t remember the dunks or shots. What they remember is who they were with. Their family, friends, a date. That’s what makes the experience special.
“Fans know their team can’t win every game. They know only one team can win a ring. What fan that care about their team’s record want is hope. Hope they will get better and have a chance to compete for the playoffs and then maybe a ring.
“The one way to get closer to that is via the draft. And trades. And cap room. You have a better chance of improving via all 3, when you tank.
“We didn’t tank often. Only a few times over 23 years, but when we did, our fans appreciated it. And it got us to where we could improve, trade up to get Luka and improve our team.
“The nba should worry more about fan experience than tanking. It should worry more about pricing fans out of games than tanking.
“You know who cares the least about tanking, a parent who cant afford to bring their 3 kids to a game and buy their kids a jersey of their fave player.
“Tanking isn’t the issue. Affordability and quality of game presentation are.”
As fans continue to look forward for the postseason, this will be a topic of interest and conversation from now well into the offseason. It’s unclear whether the NBA will take Cuban’s comments into consideration, but this definitely will be discussed throughout the league for quite some time.
