What Happens When You’re Tanking and Everybody Draws Attention to It?

Sam Hinke’s tanking with the 2013 76ers was very obvious. Sam wasn’t hiding the fact that the Sixers were losing to get a better draft pick and the basic logic still holds to this day: lose for sure now, win big maybe later. Okay, maybe he over-milked the sophistication of it by dubbing it “The Process.”

Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Anyway, in the end, Philadelphia got their fairy tale ending. They failed miserably on two #1 overalls but landed Joel Embiid and, later, nabbed Tyrese Maxey at #21 and now they’re pretenders.

But how does that translate to the 2023 Spurs with the righteous and legendary Gregg Popovich presiding over the Silver & Black manor, a manor which houses the league’s #1 most coveted asset?

Can “The Process” be acknowledged by Adam Silver the way it was when Philadelphia was losing on purpose?

Back then Adam Silver definitely didn’t make the Sixers hire Jerry Colangelo as an “advisor” and definitely didn’t make them fire Hinke.

But what about now?

What about the 4–25 Spurs — do they get a we-can’t-see-you pass from the league?

We know the league gives them out to their favorites. Like Lebron and Rich Paul. Like Lebron in bigger, stronger bold font. Like Draymond Green (but to a point, come on Draymond).

But do the Spurs get a pass this year?

Didn’t they already have a talent reassignment program going on last year that happened to coincide with their stroke of good fortune in landing Wemby?

Wouldn’t it be perhaps a little too greedy to forge ahead with a more direct vision board of putting a power forward who’s never played point guard in his life at point guard during Victor Wembanyama’s rookie season?

Media commentary is seemingly getting looser these days — to the point where liquid courage and hiding behind Twitter is no longer necessary for saying the quiet part out loud.

Just recently, Richard Jefferson openly shook the elephant in the room’s hand:

You can’t just walk into an elegant cocktail party and do that.

And, yet, Richard just did.

And others are doing the same.

Sure the egg accounts on Twitter and my Medium column don’t have the same number of electoral college votes as Richard, but we still influence the general floating NBA opinions and right now it’s Wikipedia knowledge that Pop and the Spurs are immersed in an all out second tankathon.

If anyone can bite down hard and absorb the criticism, it’s Pristine Pop with his 5 championships and maybe even some Golden Globe awards for his work in taking the political opinions Facebook comment bots are most likely to agree with.

But even Pristine Pop is starting to get scathed and we’ve still got another 2/3 of the season to go.

So, the question becomes, what happens when you’re tanking but you’re supposed to be righteous and you already got away with it last year and now you’re just being greedy?

Don’t be mad at me for asking.

They’re 4–25.

That’s on pace for 11 games.

Are we just supposed to pretend that the elephant didn’t just double dip?

Richard didn’t. Neither should the rest of NBA Internet.