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In real basketball, the Golden State Warriors can go play at the Boston garden against a non-banged up Celtics team and steal a win they have no business getting. In BB this doesn't happen, because there can only be so much randomness in the game. If you reduce HCA but do not affect the degree of randomness, the best team would finish the season 21-1: so here you have a choice point.

I think this is a good point, but the other side of it is that one of the reasons Golden State has a chance to go on the road and steal a game from a superior team is the long 82 game schedule...Perhaps Boston just got back from 5 road games in 9 days, and are whipped, and Golden State hasn't played a game in 3 days?

I think if the NBA played a BB schedule, 22 games, just 2 games a week, you'd see teams like San Antonio, and other elite teams never lose a home game. Take this NBA season for instance how it was reduced to 66 games, and they kept making a big deal over and over and over how important each game is, because of the condensed schedule. This is even more true in our 22 game schedule.

I think without question HCA is very strong in BB, but like you pointed out Coco, you can win on the road if you are better than everyone else. I think the bigger issue is the effect that tanking is having on the competition, the economy, and other variables. Just focusing on tanking, and I agree with Red, a team should have the choice to do what they feel is best for their franchise...however, because tanking is viewed as financially prudent, many teams in most leagues are now tanking, all that same time.

This requires less Normals and more Ties for the better teams in the league knowing they will get free wins. If the competition were stronger from top to bottom, you would have a bigger variation of enthusiasm management, and this would also open the door for more road wins.

Tanking could lower HCA in next game...

I think without question HCA is very strong in BB, but like you pointed out Coco, you can win on the road if you are better than everyone else. I think the bigger issue is the effect that tanking is having on the competition, the economy, and other variables. Just focusing on tanking, and I agree with Red, a team should have the choice to do what they feel is best for their franchise...however, because tanking is viewed as financially prudent, many teams in most leagues are now tanking, all that same time.

I agree with everything except something in this passage. The point is that HCA and tanking are intertwined. Only one or two teams can be better than everyone else. And this has become harder as the prices of quality big men have plummeted. For the teams that aren't better than everyone else, there is only the prospect of 5-15 points defeats when playing away to a roughly similar team.

I do not think it will be productive to isolate tanking from the rest of the picture of things that do not work and make a local intervention.

Maybe I am missunderstanding you....but what I was intending to convey in that part of my post is that currently we have more tanking/rebuilding teams at one time in each league, than ever before. As a result, the compeition is very much watered down on a game by game basis. So teams at the top, get "free wins" meaning they can Tie, even play their B and C lineup and still get the win. Which keeps their enthusiasm high, and their best players available for solid opponents that come to visit.

If tanking weren't such a viable strategy, of course you will always have your teams at the bottom, but those middle 8-12 teams will still be competing and trying for wins. If that were happening, beause HCA is so strong in BB, beating those teams on the road, when they are trying, would no longer be a guarantee or a "free win". So teams at the top might be required to Normal more often, lowering their enthusiasm, making them more vulnerable for when a tougher team comes to visit them at their place.

I agree (if I am underestanding you correct) that HCA and tanking have no direct relationship to each other...but I do think both afffect the level of competition on a game by game basis.

I actually think tanking is likely the end product of everything else that is wrong, and not the other way around.

agreed, fix the economy and training (at least personally, those are the 2 biggest reasons ive tanked) and I think you'll see a reduction in tanking.

Fixing training could wind up helping the economy a lot. People pay far too much money for an 18 year old, and in some cases more than a capped out perennial allstar guy. If the money could shift a bit towards paying for completed training as opposed to potential training, then the economy would probably look better.

There needs to be some way to make training a bit easier in higher leagues. We can't afford to put an 18 year old into a league game. And if we toss him into only cup games and scrimmages, he'll have piss poor experience levels. I know cross training was supposed to help versatility, but its negligible.

Sorry to bud into another league, but I couldn't help but notice the debate on tanking. You have glossed over some other issues regarding the matter though. For instance the bobcats did not only have 3 players on their roster for the season and they also had to sell their tickets at record low prices. So to realistically emulate the what a true tanking team goes through the gm would be required to actually have a complete roster to pay for, in addition to lowering their prices far below the current minimum to get the percentage of attendance that the bobcats got.

On another note: teams that tank often have negative earnings. The wizards, hornets and bobcats all lost money (the bobcats actually posted a -25 million operating income in the most recent Forbes report). So if you want to compare BB to real life, then tankers would lose money and be required to maintain a full roster as well as giving away tickets. Season tickets for the bobcats are going for a 'buy one get one free deal' and their regular season tickets are the cheapest in the league.

The main difference being the draft in real life vs BB, teams that are terrible get to draft players that can turn the franchise around like Kevin Durant or Tim Duncan. I really feel that the draft needs to be improved as to feature players that can actually make a difference when drafted as opposed to always being projects.

Tankers should at least have to pay their dues. No one would pay to see a terrible team with only 3 players or none in some cases of tanking. Also teams tanking in BB are much worse, many go 0-22 for multiple seasons without any attempt at improvement until loads of cash are piled up, at least the bobcats won games. In BB teams get away with too much when tanking. Machines in II.4 is 0-6 and tanking, but still gets a high percentage of attendance without the prices having to be at minimum levels which is just unfair as he will save up so much that he can drop to a low league and crush all of the players in each one who actually took the effort to be competitive. If you look at the teams with the highest profit in the NBA they are all competitive teams: the Lakers, Knicks, Thunder, Spurs.... That is just how things work, bad teams improve through development of players, making good signings and good coaching, not by tanking.

In fact many teams that tank season after season stay there in every professional sport. Look at the Warriors, Wizards, Clippers (pre Chris Paul).

Last edited by Persephone at 6/8/2012 2:35:41 PM

I think there's a good point here that income should end up lower than the salary floor for teams that are tanking, so that there's actually a real risk of losing money.

I still think my solution above could do that (and address just about all the tanking-related concerns that have been raised), just by imposing harsher penalties on huge losses. HCA is another beast entirely, of course.

Indeed, I agree that your proposal is very good and the idea of actually adding the chance to risk losing cash while tanking would really put the breaks on. Huge losses should be penalized and the 0-25 forfeits should forgo all ticket sales as they did not present their fans with a game.

Right now the difference in attendance after a single loss is really high and the idea of rewarding close games with less of an attendance decrease would be very welcome and being harsher on huge blowups is a good way to limit the success of tankers. :)