In my second piece about incentives to lose in the NBA I’ll focus mainly on extremes. Because even though it is a well known strategy I don’t think there is any research on… pointing fingers to actual offenders!
In other words, are there teams which tank more often than others?
Or is it simply year-by-year case-by-case strategy?
The data, timeframe and [simple] methodology used is exactly the same as in my previous post about tanking so I won’t repeat myself here and I’ll go straight into IMHO interesting curiosity…
# Worst Record | Total Difference | Biggest Minus | By Team | During Season |
1 | 6 | -9 | Blazers | 2005-06 |
2 | -19 | -9 | Warriors | 2000-01 |
3 | -14 | -6 | Bucks | 2006-07 |
4 | -12 | -10 | Nuggets | 1991-92 |
5 | -32 | -8 | Clippers | 2003-04 |
6 | -10 | -9 | Sixers | 1993-94 |
7 | -35 | -10 | Cavs | 2000-01 |
8 | -3 | -9 | Clippers | 2009-10 |
9 | -7 | -10 | Lakers | 2004-05 |
10 | 29 | -7 | Bucks | 1996-97 |
11 | -7 | -4 | Nets | 2008-09 |
Conventional wisdom, and frankly my assumption before this project, was that teams tank mostly for the worst record in the league but according to this measure it’s not true. Worst record usually belongs to either actually really bad team or one which started tanking very early so other teams can’t catch it… and the real tank-fest goes on between 2nd worst and 7th worst team each year.
When you check example of odds for Top3 pick it makes a lot of sense. First of all, there are a lot of ties in that range and second of all, team can almost double it’s odds for Top3 by moving up just one spot!
OK, and into the main point of this post [Warning! Some long tables ahead!]:
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