MIAMI — The rumbling you are hearing is the tank rolling into South Florida, to arrive on Monday night at Kaseya Center in the form of the Philadelphia 76ers, having shut down Joel Embiid, Paul George, Tyrese Maxey, and anyone else who might get in the way of losing, reverting to The Process of again coveting draft-lottery chances.
It’s the same sound that the Heat will be hearing when they roll into New Orleans on Friday night, where the Pelicans have decided that there is no need to have Zion Williamson and CJ McCollum get in the way of losing, putting the two on ice the rest of the way, as they, too, try to increase lottery odds.
In a vacuum, that would seem like a net gain for the Heat in their last-gasp battle to maximize seeding for the play-in round.
It is not.
Because the teams the Heat are battling for play-in seeding also are facing how-low-can-you-go lottery capitulators, such as the Chicago Bulls still to play the 76ers, Charlotte Hornets and Washington Wizards; such as the Atlanta Hawks still to play the Utah Jazz, Brooklyn Nets and 76ers; such as the Orlando Magic coming off games against the San Antonio Spurs and Wizards.
As in opponents so far down in the standings that they only can win by losing.
Think of it as New England Patriots coach Jerod Mayo having the temerity to win his team’s final game of this past season and therefore cost his team the chance at a top pick … and immediately getting fired.
NBA tankers know better, which is why many currently are fielding lineups of ushers and vendors.
Unlike the NFL, the NBA has attempted to dissuade such heavy-handedness when it comes to losing on purpose with the random-but-weighted lottery, to at least mitigate some of the race to the bottom.
The difference is that in the NBA, with only five starters, unlike the NFL with 22 on both sides of the ball, a high draft choice can immediately be franchise-altering.
In turn, what the NBA has been left with for weeks has been teams bailing on the season as if skydiving without parachutes, to get to the bottom as fast and forcefully as possible.
Which brings us back to the Heat — but in a different light.
For years, and even this year, a constant during the team’s Pat Riley era has largely been a refusal to tank (with 2008 and … Michael Beasley an exception).
But a few years back, at the NBA’s league meetings, the Heat did offer up a proposal to mitigate and perhaps even eliminate the tanking.
The approach was this: Allow the standings to play out over the first 50 games of the regular season, with the bad teams falling to their level and the injury-plagued teams enduring their suffering.
And then … put everything in reverse, in terms of the lottery race, for the regular season’s final 32.
The Heat’s proposal: Lottery standings would be determined by losses in the first 50 games and wins in the last 32.
As an example, the Heat offered up, “So a team that has 40 losses in the first 50 games and 10 wins in the last 32 would have 50 points. A team with 25 losses in the first 50 games and 15 wins in the last 32 would have 40 points.” The math would only pertain to the lottery, not the actual standings.
The point being that when football is over, when the trading deadline is past, as the NCAA Tournament winds down, when the focus is back on the NBA, teams would have incentive to win.
As in those upcoming games for the 76ers, Pelicans, Wizards, Jazz and Hornets against the Heat and the teams they are battling for play-in seeding.
Would Maxey summarily be shut down if winning would benefit the ...
