Cuban remark sparks concern
Owner walks back his comment about tanking games.
It’s called click bait, and Mark Cuban helped cast the hook.
Maybe I’m too old-school, but I thought the strategy of “tanking” games revolved around a deliberate attempt to lose.
An intentional air ball, for example. A willful fumble inside the 10-yard line. That kind of stuff.
Playing your rookies and young guys after you’ve been eliminated from playoff contention?
Yawn. T h a t s h o u l d b e every responsible team’s game plan after it realizes it won’t be playing in the postseason.
But when Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban tried to answer a question about the NBA draft lottery on the “Dan Patrick Show” on Wednesday, the click bait headline writers pounced.
The headline on the Patrick radio show’s own webs i t e r e a d , “Ma r k C u b a n admits Mavs t anked thi s season.” Click bait. But i t was Cuban who made it sound worse than it was. He was trying to point out the holes in Patrick’s endorsement of the so-called Gold Plan of determining a league’s draft order finish. In Patrick’s plan, teams would be rewarded for victories accrued after they had been eliminated from playoff contention.
“The problem is,” Cuban a ns were d , “i f you k now you’re in rebuild, then you tank super early so that you get eliminated from the playoffs early and get more pingpong balls.”
The notable thing about that quote is that it’s the only time Cuban used the word “tank.” Patrick responded: “But I don’t know if you’re going to be that good that you’re gonna be winning games, if you’re not that good in the first place.”
“Well, no,” Cuban said, “I mean, it’s like, look — we all, the Mavs, once we were eliminated from the playoffs, we did everything possible to lose games.”
Cuban continued by comparing that scenario to the option of being rewarded for being eliminated early.
“How did you tank?” Patrick asked.
“Play all our young players,” Cuban said.
Patrick responded, “OK. That was it? But did you send out a memo or did you just say ... ?”
“No, no, ” Cuban s a i d, “because once a guy walks out on the court, they’re going to play their heart out, particularly the young guys because they’ve got something to prove.
“So Dorian Finney-Smith, Yogi Ferrell — there’s nothing you can say or do to them to say, ‘Don’t play hard’ or ‘Try to lose this game.’
“That wouldn’t be right, and I don’t think any NBA team would ever do that.”
There is tanking, though, a n d t h e r e i s “t a n k i n g . ” While Cuban said his team did “everything possible” to lose games, he watered down the remark by saying the Mavericks’ way was to play young players.
I d o u b t C u b a n wi l l b e fined, not once the league hears the entire interview. But as an NBA owner, TV s t a r a n d e v e n p o s s i b l e future presidential candidate, Cuban should know his words feed headlines.