First thing I would say about ethics and morals in basketball is that I don't think anyone really cares about that. For example should a player like Kevin Durant join the Golden State Warriors when they already had an all star trio, one NBA championship, plus had just broken the Chicago Bulls' regular season record and narrowly lost their finals rematch against the Cavaliers? Look at how they've managed to re-sign players like Iguodala and Livingstone, while adding the likes of Swaggy P, David West and Omri Casspi. Their existing salaries is over $137 million and the league happily allows and aids a team like this to build up a roster despite having a salary cap and them already being over it when they made some of these moves. Now ok all of this is above board but from an ethical and moral standpoint it does make a mockery of the so-called level playing field. Now they aren't the only team, the Cleveland Cavaliers are another example, because they have a similar level of salary and have managed to extend players and bring players in like Wade, Rose, and Green. So in all honesty I would not worry about ethics and morals because a number of other teams don't and the league certainly doesn't seem to care about maintaining an even playing field, in fact they seem quite happy to promote super teams in this era.
Now that doesn't mean we should compromise our ethics and morals because others do. If I was head coach I don't think I could pull a player to guarantee a loss, however I would have the veterans on minute restrictions (so this would mean Temple would never have had 40 minutes in that big game) with a ceiling around the 20 minute mark, because my intention would be to give the young players more minutes to aid their development. Admittedly you don't want to put them in a bad situation on court with the opposition bullying them, but at the same time they need to learn and develop and the best way to do that is on an NBA court competing against other teams.
The second thing to consider here is that I don't think the majority of our fan base have given up on our young players by looking at the draft. What they see is a team with 14 wins and 33 losses with no realistic chance of making the play offs. Now perhaps we can win at least 28 of our remaining 35 games to see us finish with a winning record and sneak into the play offs as the eighth seed. It would be great to see that turnaround unfold and see our young players thrive. However, that type of turnaround is unlikely and that is why I think a lot of our fans are focusing on the draft and wanting this team to finish with as high a pick as possible because this is a lost season. We can make an argument over whether going 25-10 and getting a pick outside the top ten is better for this team's future than going 10-25 and getting a top five pick. Which would I prefer to see? I really don't know. If we win that many games it means our young players have improved and are getting it done, but we potentially miss out on a franchise changing talent; however if we lose that many games we miss out on that develop, while gaining a chance at getting a franchise changing talent. It's tough to know or say which is the best route for this team to follow for the rest of this season, but by no means do I think our fan base has given up on our young players. I think most of us are still excited to see what future the likes of Fox, Bogdanovic, Willie and co have with our team, but would love to see another young piece (potentially a star) added to the mix.
Well, alrighty then, where do I begin? I read your post several times and I am still having a hard time wrapping my head around what you are trying to say. First, you say that nobody cares about ethics and morals in basketball, but, then you turn around and say that doesn’t mean we should compromise our ethics and morals because others do.
Maybe the majority of people don’t care about ethics and morals in basketball and maybe that translates over to our society in general. I know that after 63 years I am more disappointed than I have ever been in the lack of ethics and morals in our society in general almost as much as I am in the hypocrisy of the very people who should be setting the examples for society.
However, I digress, I have no intention, no way, no how, of devolving this into a political/religious/philosophical discussion of our society.
Back to basketball. I do think that sports are a microcosm of our life, our society. Sports should provide some structure that supports basic values and builds and reinforces character. We like to hold up sports to our children as a way of developing character, understanding team work, and learning how to interact in a meaningful way with people.
I am not a religious person, but I have a moral and ethical center that I try to operate from, I draw a line in the sand so to speak on what I consider to be appropriate behavior. That does not include supporting the idea of deliberately “throwing” a basketball game to cheat the system to gain an advantage. That crosses the line with me.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that some people on here were advocating pulling a player, particularly a veteran player, to prevent the team from winning, to guarantee a loss. In my book, that is just wrong.
You also say that if you were the coach, it would never be a problem because you would put a minutes ceiling on the veterans in order to provide more minutes for the developing players.
I think you have to ask yourself, though, would this hypothetical strategy really be that restrictive a part of your philosophy, if there were no lottery considerations? If, the number of losses had no bearing on the draft pick? No matter how the game was going, the veteran would never get more than that hypothetical 20 minutes? If so, then we should really have this discussion in a player development strategy thread instead of a tanking thread.
Finally, as part of what I consider ethical, moral, appropriate behavior, is how you treat people. You don’t treat people as disposable, and certainly not in order to assist in the production of an inappropriate action. Yes, I realize, the NBA is a business and people get cut, demoted, benched every day. But that should be performance driven not cheating the system driven.
Artificially restricting veterans’ minutes for the primary purpose of guaranteeing losses crosses that line again. These guys have lives and families and careers. Now, both Z-Bo and Carter are near the end of their careers, but Temple and Koufus still have productive years left.
It would be terribly unfair to artificially restrict their playing time and deprive them of the opportunities to demonstrate their abilities, as well deprive them of the enjoyment of the game solely for the tainted purpose of guaranteeing a loss.
Temple had the game of his life, he will never forget it. It was a big moment for him. All of us live for our occasional big moments (and they may be trivial compared to other’s big moment, but they are our big moments). His team mates and the majority of the fans who watched the game will remember it for a long time. I am glad he was not deprived of it in order to facilitate a dishonest strategy.
