tanking Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Rest Of The Pelicans' Season Is Going To Be So Bleak
Now that he has to wait until this final third of the NBA season is over before he becomes a Laker or Celtic or something other than a Pelican, Anthony Davis is in the incredibly awkward position of having to play out the rest of the season alongside teammates he publicly dissed, in front of fans wh...
The NBA's Anti-Tanking Reform For Sure Hasn't Solved Sucking
The NBA recently messed with the odds in the draft lottery in order to discourage teams from tanking, but the real fruits of that move will be revealed over time, and anyway certain teams—looking at you, Phoenix—need no promise of draft lottery gold in order to just profoundly suck and lose all the ...
The Situation In Post-LeBron Cleveland Has Become Very Grim Very Quickly
Here is some fresh news about the Cleveland Cavaliers:...
Nick Kyrgios Is Just Another Grump Railing At The Umpire Now
Nick Kyrgios is no longer playing well or amusingly enough to justify the usual apologist disclaimer, so let’s just get to the point. On Monday at the Shanghai Masters, where he has tanked for two years running, he once again flirted with nihilism as he lost to world No. 104 Bradley Klahn, 4-6, 6-4,...
Tanking Master Bernard Tomic Is Back On His Bullshit
After what feels like an eternity of emotionally disintegrating in public, Bernard Tomic is somehow only 25 years old, with plenty of talent to spare, and was as recently as last season a top-30 player on tour. This season he’s been fighting to qualify for the majors, though the tortured former No. ...
Which NBA Owner Reportedly Berated His Coach For Winning And Harming The Tanking Campaign?
ESPN basketball reporter Adrian Wojnarowski dropped an enticing little anecdote on his most recent podcast, which was noticed today by an astute Reddit sleuth. Woj was talking to Bobby Marks about the NBA season’s hotly contested tank-off and said an owner recently yelled at his coach for winning a ...
I Am So Incredibly Ready For NBA Tanking To Be A Thing Of The Past
The 2018 NBA Draft Lottery, held just over a month from today, will be the last before the NBA institutes the new odds formula cooked up last September, designed to reduce or eliminate tanking. Spoiler alert! The new formula will not solve tanking, an inevitability that Adam Silver recently acknowle...
Tank Warfare, Or A Night At Mavericks-Suns
DALLAS — If the Mavericks were going to do what needed to be done on Tuesday night in the finale of their 2018 season, it would take an almost herculean effort. A guaranteed share of the NBA’s third-worst record and the attendant lottery-odds boost was on the line, but they would have to lock in, fo...
Gaze Upon This Mavericks Box Score, And Despair
The Dallas Mavericks, who have spent most of the season doing everything they can to lose games on purpose, fucked up big time on Tuesday night when they beat a very good, playoff-bound Blazers team. This gave them 24 victories on the season, and put them in danger of being passed in The Great Tank ...
This Ridiculous NBA Season Can At Least Serve Up A Lot Of Hilariously Unwanted Final Scores
A fun thing to track, this time of year, is NBA games that produce outcomes that, purely from a standings perspective, are catastrophic for both teams. This season offers plenty of potential on this front: 18 of the NBA’s 30 teams are firmly in the playoff picture; all but the top two of each confer...
Grizzlies Valiantly Hold Off Bulls To Remain Lords Of The Tank
The Memphis Grizzlies came into last night’s slate of NBA action riding an 18-game losing streak and with firm command of the NBA’s tanking crown. Surely no team can match the raw, losing prowess of a Grizzlies squad that routinely and intentionally plays JaMychal Green and Jarell Martin next to a t...
The Memphis Grizzlies, Losers of 17 Straight, Are The True Tank Lords
The Grizzlies have had an absolute nightmare of a season. Because they came into the season with Marc Gasol and Mike Conley and Tyreke Evans and [gulp] Chandler Parsons on the team, they started with the goal of making the playoffs. But Conley played just 12 games this season; Gasol’s efficiency and...
NBA To Tanking Teams: Stop Being So Obvious, Dummies
USA Today’s Sam Amick obtained a memo that Adam Silver sent to all 30 NBA teams a week ago, warning them that they faced the “swiftest and harshest response possible” from the league office if they get caught outwardly trying to lose games. The memo was sent on Feb. 21, the same day that Silver fine...
Get Ready For The NBA Tanking Campaign Of A Lifetime
By the time the NBA’s All-Star break usually rolls around, the standings are more or less set. It’s typically obvious which four or so teams will be contending for a championship, and it’s also apparent who will be spending the rest of the year in the toilet, tanking for superior lottery odds and dr...
Nick Kyrgios Retires From Match After Losing First Set To Luigi
Thursday will mark an important anniversary in Nick Kyrgios’s life: Last year in Shanghai he openly threw a match, abused fans in the stands, and earned eight weeks of suspension plus $41,500 in fines (later softened to three weeks after he agreed to meet with a tour-appointed sports psychologist). ...
Report: NBA Board Of Governors To Vote On Lottery Reform
ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that a new NBA draft lottery system is one step closer to becoming a reality. According to Woj, the league’s competition committee has recommended a reform proposal that was created by the NBA, and the league’s board of governors will now vote on the proposal o...
The Jets' Offense Has A Chance To Be Historically Awful
With Quincy Enunwa now out for the season with a neck injury, the Jets’ wide receiving corps will be led by ... well, um, let me know whether you’ve heard of any of these jamokes:...
Adam Silver Doesn't Seem To Want To Talk About Tanking
NBA commissioner Adam Silver spoke to reporters in Las Vegas yesterday, and fielded questions on topics ranging from playoff re-seeding to the NBA’s age limit. One topic he did not seem too interested in talking about was tanking....
Mark Cuban Details How The Mavericks Tanked At The End Of The Season
The Dallas Mavericks started out this season as a very bad team gnashing around in a garbage heap and losing oodles of games. They enjoyed a brief period of relevance and even fought for a playoff spot after trading for Nerlens Noel, but they eventually settled back towards the bottom of the standin...
The Tanking Lakers Made Metta World Peace Shoot A Ton Of Threes But They Still Won Anyway
Despite their best efforts, the Los Angeles Lakers can’t stop winning games. They entered tonight’s game against the Pelicans on a four-game winning streak, and they extended it to five with a 108-96 victory. They absolutely did not want to beat the Pelicans, as the win put them out of reach of the ...