Cuban admits to Mavs’ tank tactic
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said on Wednesday he made moves to lower his team’s chances to win in order to “tank” games after being eliminated from NBA playoff contention.
The famously outspoken owner said told radio interviewer Dan Patrick he made the moves to obtain a poorer record in order to improve the team’s chances of gaining a high pick from the NBA Draft lottery.
“Once we were eliminated from the playoffs, we did everything possible to lose games,” Cuban said.
Cuban did not say players deliberately dropped matches, but pushed to have younger, less experienced players on the court more in the late-season contests after Dallas’ playoff hopes ended on April 1.
“Once guys walk on the court, they’re going to play their hearts out, particularly the young guys because they have something to prove,” Cuban said.
The Mavericks went 2-5 after being eliminated from playoff chances to finish 33-49, having started the campaign a woeful 3-15.
But it didn’t help them. They had a 6.1 percent chance of obtaining a top-three pick in next month’s NBA Draft from Tuesday’s lottery but did not move up and will select ninth overall.
“It works well enough, I guess,” Cuban said of the lottery system.
“It obviously creates some misincentives toward the end of the season for teams that aren’t going to make the playoffs.
“Until you come up with a better solution, that’s what we’ve got.”
NBA commissioner Adam Silver has ripped any sort of intentional losing to improve lottery chances.
The lottery was developed to prevent the top pick from being assured of going to the worst overall team, removing incentive for finishing last by removing the ensured reward of the top pick.
“We’re going to have to react and change incentives a bit,” Silver told ESPN Radio in April, bringing up the notion of soccerstyle relegation.