- Jack wrote:
- I think the NBA should penalize the worst record team with the 5th pick in the draft, you have to have some incentive not to lose every friggen game.
- John Cena wrote:
- Of all the tank teams, we're the only team (Lakers) without a front office that's trying to lose as many games as possible. Philly, Boston, and Orlando in particular have zero shame about their strategic losing. We have the disadvantage of being an organization that cares about giving paying fans a win. The other teams are not confined by this thing called pride.
- Burdur's mom wrote:
- some facts for you tankers since the current system has been in place in 1990 only three times has the team with the worst record won the draft lottery last time was Orlando in 2004 (Howard)
The second worst team has won it only four times and the third worst 6 times including last two years in a row
so 13/24 or 54% of draft lotteries winner have been teams with the worst three records 46% teams that where higher than the top 3
just some interesting stats
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Settle down, big Pau. Sit down Swaggy P. Grab a jersey, Kendall Marshall!
For the Lakers, currently 19-39 and a half-game behind Boston for the fourth worst record in the league, now is where the tank tread meets the road. No more jerking around with upsets in Memphis. To ensure a top-five pick in June’s NBA draft, some serious losing has to occur between now and April 16.
According to the L.A. Times, if they finish with the fourth-worst record, the Lakers have a 82.8 percent chance of ending up with a top four pick. Finish with the fifth worst record, and those odds drop to 55.3 percent. Improve to the 6-9 slot, and the odds drop to 2 percent and below.
Make no mistake, when it comes to talent like Andrew Wiggins, Dante Exum, Marcus Smart and Jabari Parker, you can win for losing, big time. For a team with only one pick — and which isn’t exactly known for being masterful in the draft — this matters, a lot.
With two more games each against top playoff contenders Portland, Oklahoma City and the Clippers, not to mention three more contests against the defending Western Conference champion San Antonio Spurs, looking unintentionally not-so-competitive should be as easy as it is for Jerry Jimmy Buss to put on a baseball cap in the morning and leave it there until he goes to bed.
But ineptitude will be a competitive proposition, with games still on the schedule against fellow tankers Sacramento, Milwaukee, Orlando and Utah.
You think that fourth-quarter implosion by Boston last week was a fluke?
For their part, the Lakers have been in lock step since training camp about not throwing games — a collective mindset that looked noble enough in December, when their scrappy lineup was keeping things afloat at .500 and Kobe Bryant looked poised for a solid return.
But now, subtly — or not so subtly, perhaps — some maneuvering seems to be occurring. Gasol took some post-game shots at D’Antoni Tuesday after the Lakers used a small lineup in a losing effort against the big Indiana Pacers. D’Antoni defended the tactic by stating the team needed to get counter-intuitive with a Pacers squad it couldn’t match up with size-wise anyway.
As Gasol noted, Indiana’s 62-42 rebound advantage pretty much rendered that strategy farce.
Beyond what Gasol noted as a general lack of “discipline,” the brakes also seem to be getting applied to injured players seeking to return to the lineup. All mumblings have Bryant sitting the rest of the campaign out, while it was just announced Wednesday that leading scorer Nick Young will be returning to the sidelines with a sore knee.
Meanwhile, after conceding that slumping point guard Kendall Marshall is tired, D’Antoni emphatically noted Tuesday, “He’s going to keep on playing.”
Subject: Are the Lakers really tanking or do they just actually suck this bad? 
