The Oklahoma City Thunder are a mess right now.
They fell to 2-6 on Tuesday night after losing to the Milwaukee Bucks. Reigning MVP Kevin Durant hasn’t played a game yet because of a broken foot and he’s out until at least mid-December. All-Star Russell Westbrook broke a bone in his hand and is out until at least mid-December.
What’s left is Serge Ibaka, Reggie Jackson and the corpse of Kendrick Perkins—wait, that really is Kendrick Perkins? My bad.
This team is so thin that they had to get a roster exemption to sign Ish Smith. This team is so thin that Sebastian Telfair—out of the NBA last season—is getting 26 minutes a game.
Sorry, but if you’re giving Bassy Telfair that much burn, you have officially hit rock bottom—except for Philadelphia, of course, which keeps redefining just how far down rock bottom really is.
Over the weekend, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wondered whether or not the Thunder should take a page out of the San Antonio Spurs playbook—and remember that Thunder GM Sam Presti used to work in the Spurs’ front office—by giving up on this season the way San Antonio did in 1996-97 when David Robinson went down early because of a back injury.
The Spurs tanked their way into the top pick in the draft, took Tim Duncan and the rest is history.
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Understand this: I hate tanking. I hate tanking with a passion that borders on pathological.
If I were named commissioner of the sports world for just one day, the first thing I would do is ban Sam Hinkie from the NBA for life for what he’s doing in Philadelphia.
So when Thunder coach Scott Brooks told reporters Tuesday, via The Sporting News, that the Thunder would in no way, shape or form give up on this season, I couldn’t help but applaud.
"“I love the group that we have,” Brooks said. “We would love to have all of our guys back, but that has never even been a consideration. It’s not even—I mean, we’re focused on getting better each day with the group that we have.“I love coaching this group, they have always given great effort. We’re not even worried about those things.”"
Yeah, the Thunder stink right now. They shot 33.3 percent against the Bucks.
But if they can get Durant and Westbrook back on their expected timetables, there’s still an awful lot of season with which to get healthy and start winning and maybe make a playoff run.
The Brooklyn Nets were 9-21 a year ago, figured some things out and made the playoffs, even advancing to the second round.
Intentionally putting a team together to lose as many games as possible just violates the spirit of sports. I firmly believe this.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s hard to make inroads in the NBA if you’re stuck in the middle of the pack—I get that.
But is it fair to the fans to do with the 76ers are doing, selling them an unwatchable product with a promise of being better real soon?
The future isn’t guaranteed. What if the great new players you promise turn out to be just as lousy as the lousy current players you assembled in pursuit of the great new players?
How can any self-respecting competitor ever embrace such garbage?
How can any self-respecting fan accept such garbage? Al Davis didn’t build the Oakland Raiders dynasty of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s by adopting the mantra, “Just lose for the No. 1 pick, baby.” (That came later, when he didn’t realize the game changed somewhere along the line and what worked in 1966 didn’t work in 2006.)
The fact that there are teams in the NBA that owe their success to a strategy of losing one for the Gipper drives me crazy.
Playing to win might not be the quickest path to building a title contender, but at least you keep your soul.
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