State your case: Which NBA GM do you think anonymously said his team was tanking this season?
Phoenix Suns
by Logan Jones
An NBA general manager has anonymously admitted to purposefully “tanking” this season in an effort to secure a high pick in next year’s draft. Several GMs may secretly intend to tank, but Ryan McDonough’s every action as new manager of the Phoenix Suns has matched the words of the anonymous report.
The Suns have been steadily circling the drain since 2010 when Amar’e Stoudemire left for the Knicks and Lance Blanks tried being a GM. Blanks was canned last April after the second-worst season in franchise history and replaced by McDonough, who has done nothing but deal veterans and acquire draft picks ever since.
In McDonough’s short time as GM, the Suns have dealt Jared Dudley, Caron Butler and Luis Scola with nothing to show for it but a protected first round pick. Furthermore, McDonough waived Michael Beasley and traded center Marcin Gortat and three other players for Emeka Okafor and another protected first round pick. Sensing a theme yet?
Nothing McDonough has done as GM has placed Phoenix in a position to win. He’s shed every one of his team’s best players and intends to sacrifice this season for a potential franchise-saving draft.
The Suns aren’t a big enough market to attract what the anonymous GM calls the “superstars” of the league, the organization knows they’d never make it out of the first round of the playoffs, and another season as a league bottom-feeder could result in a major draft pick.
– logantjones@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @Logantj
Utah Jazz
by Brady Clark
At the start of the season, I initially thought the “tanking” general manager in the NBA belonged to the Philadelphia 76ers, but looking closely at the quote, it strongly resembles the Jazz.
The quote read: “Our team isn’t good enough to win and we know it, so this season we want to develop and evaluate our young players…”
Utah ranks sixth in average team age, with the 76ers, Cavaliers, Rockets, Blazers and Pelicans in that order ahead of them. Of those teams, only the 76ers can actually say they “tanked” the offseason. The success of the 76ers this season is deluding this theory.
“…the last place you want to be is in the middle…make the playoffs and be first-round fodder for one of the premier teams or miss the playoffs and pick somewhere around 11th to 14th in the draft…”
The Jazz have either picked between 14 and 11 in the past five season or they were bounced out of the playoffs in the first round. Jazz are the premier middle-of-the-pack team.
“You need superstars to compete in this league, and the playing field for those guys is tilted toward a few big-market teams…”
Obviously, the Jazz are not a big market team; in fact, they rank 27th of the 30 teams at a team average of population in the city. The 76ers rank ninth.
The Utah Jazz meet every point that this GM described. It only makes sense that the Jazz’s Dennis Lindsay is the mystery GM.
– braden.clark@aggiemail.usu.edu
Twitter: @bradyclark19