RACE TO THE BOTTOM

 

               A few weeks ago the Dallas Mavericks played the Chicago Bulls in the final NBA regular-season game for both teams.  The Mavs sat Kyrie Irving and three other usual starters and limited their best player, Luca Doncic, to the first quarter. Their remaining players made a game of it but eventually bowed, 115-112. A spot in the “play in” tournament, the precursor to the playoffs, was on the line, but while the loss cost the Mavs that distinction they gained a better place in the next player draft.

In a word, the Mavs “tanked”—lost on purpose. That’s not uncommon in our big-time professional sports but it was unusual that the team was frank about it — “an organizational choice,” coach Jason Kidd called it.

The league responded with outrage, fining the Mavs $750,000 and saying their action (inaction, really) “undermined the integrity of the sport” and “failed our fans and our league.” But note the careful wording of that statement, the “our” instead of “their.” Chances are that many if not most Mavs fans, aware that their mediocre team’s title chances were close to nil, thought that a better draft position was worth more than a play-in game or two. Likewise, the three-quarters-mil fine was a pittance to the team’s famously rich owner, Mark Cuban; indeed, he was docked $600,000 for doing pretty much the same thing in 2018. “Losing was our best option,” he said then.

               What we have here is a classic example of unintended consequences. All four of our major pro- sports leagues— in baseball, football, basketball and hockey-- replenish their rosters annually with a worst-goes-first amateur-player draft, designed with the laudable purpose of improving their laggard teams. But what we see annually is the unedifying spectacle of a race to the bottom among teams who believe that’s their best road to the top.

               Now, losing on purpose isn’t as easy as it may appear.  No athlete, pro or weekend hacker, wants to lose, and with few exceptions will put out his or her best effort once the opening bell or its equivalent sounds. Fact is, in contact sports like football and hockey, less than whole-hearted effort can lead to injury. What happens, then, is that clubs will pare their rosters by trading away useful players for prospects or draft choices, hoping that their fans will stick with them while the kids they acquire grow up to fuel a renaissance. If they pick wisely, it’ll work. If not, it won’t.

               That’s been an option for decades but it took the baseball 2006 Washington Nationals to formalize it. That team, transplanted from Montreal the year before, and with dim short-term prospects, embarked on what top execs Stan Kasten and Mike Rizzo publicly called “The Plan,” whose essence is expressed in the paragraph above. The Nats endured losing seasons from 2006 through 2010 but accumulated the wherewithal to draft such worthies as Stephen Strausburg, Bryce Harper and Anthony Rendon. A period of success followed, culminating in a 2019 World Series victory.

               Other teams took note. Theo Epstein tanked the Chicago Cubs in 2012 through ’14 while he put together the roster that won the 2016 Series, ending an epic, 108-year title drought. The Houston Astros were doing the same thing at about the same time, with longer-lasting results. It’s noteworthy that those things happened in baseball, where the gap between the Majors and draft-level players is the widest among our Big Four. That entrenched the lesson.

               Baseball and football have straight-out worst-goes-first rules, and the NFL’s exciting bottom race this season came down to the final game. The Houston Texans, who do few things right, led most of the way, but surprised by winning two of their last three games to finish at 3-13-1 in the won-lost-tied column. That allowed them to be aced out by the Chicago Bears, who came in at 3-14.

               The Bears, with a new coach on board, were not terrible to start, standing at 3-4 after the first seven games. Then they traded away (for draft choices) their two best defensive players—lineman Robert Quinn and linebacker Roquan Smith—and went into a 10-game swoon. Among the early losses in that stretch were a few in which they were competitive, but they finished in full fade, being outscored 39 to 105 in their last three outings. Of such performances are No. 1 draft positions made. The team being hard up all around, they traded that top spot for more picks, but their talent deficit is so large it’ll probably take at least one more quite-bad season to get them into any title mix.

               The NBA and the NHL have tried to avert too many overt tankings by creating draft lotteries involving the several worst teams every season (their number has varied), but last placers still have an edge for the top spot, so the races continue. In hockey this season three teams—the Anaheim Ducks, Chicago Blackhawks and Columbus Blue Jackets—battled to the wire for last. The Blue Jackets were bad, finishing 4-9 in their last 13 games. The Blackhawks were worse at 2-11, but the Ducks put the puck in the net by going out at 0-13. The Ohioans and Chicagoans tied for second-worst in the standings, with the former getting the best of the tie-breakers. Anaheim will have a 25.5% lottery shot at No. 1, the Blue Jackets 13.5% and the Hawks 11.5.

               The top draft prize in hockey this year is substantial. He’s Connor Bedard, a smallish, beardless Canadian youth of 17 years who averaged better than a goal a game in his last two seasons of junior play.  He’s hailed as a unique talent, one who can set the league afire, but there’s many a slip ‘twixt the juniors and Bigs and any sport’s draft remains a crapshoot. Remember that when the numbers are drawn and the names are announced.