Have any sports teams ever tanked successfully, i.e. purposely playing for a very poor record to get a top draft pick that eventually materializes into a championship within a reasonable time frame?
There are many in the NY-area that think the Knicks should tank. They appear to be doing so by playing a bunch of D-league players. But I can’t seem to recall this ever actually working.
Hell yes. How do you think the Colts got Andrew Luck?
The Celtics have done it a couple of times too, but got stiffed in the lottery.
You overestimate Curtis Painter and Dan Orlovsky
In this context, the success threshold is winning a championship as a direct result of the tanking. So these don’t qualify.
The San Antonio Spurs managed to have an awful season thanks to David Robinson being injured the year before Tim Duncan came out for the draft. Prevailing wisdom seems to be that this wasn’t an intentional tank but it worked out pretty well for the franchise. Turns out that the Celtics did try to tank for Duncan that year (admitted to openly later), but karma made them lose the draft lottery.
Then your Knicks getting Patrick Ewing don’t, either.
I agree. Plus, they’re not my Knicks. I’m a Nets fan, which has been even more painful recently.
Houston Rockets getting Hakeem Olajuwon? NBA changed the draft after that.
Robinson hurt his back in preseason, returned in December, played 6 games and then broke his foot. May just be one of those things-I don’t remember how severe the injury was.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are the canonical example in hockey. They bottomed out, drafted Malkin 2nd overall one year and Crosby 1st overall the next year. In their sophomore year, they made the playoffs, the next year they lost in the Stanley Cup Finals, and they won the Stanley Cup the next year.
People have said similar things about the LA Kings (drafted Doughty 2nd overall in 2008, won Cups in 2012 and 2014) and the Chicago Blackhawks (drafted Toews 3rd overall in 2006, Kane 1st overall in 2007, and won the Cup in 2010 and 2013).
I’ve only been tanked a few times, and they always go in in the end, and it’s always my high pair versus their Ace-broadway off, so I always double my pot or eliminate them.
It’s really only a viable strategy in basketball. Baseball and hockey take too long for a player to develop, and one player in the NFL (even a QB) is not a sure thing. Draft a superstar quarterback? Great, but you also need receivers and an offensive line – plus defense.
In the NBA, there are only five players on the court (and without the free substitution in hockey). One player is 20% of the team, and can indeed make a difference.
I was going to bring up the Penguins too, but I was thinking about the time they tanked so they could draft Mario Lemieux.
That was my thought, but I’m not sure whether the Rockets deliberately tanked or just happened to suck.
I don’t think it was deliberate, but the Penguins can thank all three of their Stanley Cups to the fact they were able to draft 2 of among the top players in the history of the game, Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby, because they sucked so bad the year of those drafts.
As a matter of fact, the Penguins were so bad and their attendance was so bad that a little over ten years ago, the NHL was considering folding the franchise or moving it to Portland Oregon before they got Crosby. Mario Lemieux even became part owner and the Penguins tried to sell tickets by advertising “Help Mario Make it Work!”
This is why I get so annoyed when douche Penguins fans rub their Stanley Cups in my face and talk about what a great hockey town Pittsburgh is when in reality, they bailed when the team need them the most. :mad::mad::mad:
1988: Dallas Cowboys finish last in league, draft Troy Aikman #1 in the 1989 draft.
1989: Figuring they will be bad, the Cowboys fleece my Minnesota Vikings with the infamous Herschel Walker trade. With a ton of draft picks, they get Emmitt Smith in the first round of the 1990 draft, and a ton of other players.
After the 1991 season, they make the playoffs.
The next two seasons, they win the Super Bowl.
Remember two things though that would put any ‘intentional’ aspect into doubt; Jerry Jones purchased the Cowboys in 1989, so new ownership, Jimmy Johnson’s input into drafting, etc. Also, serious consideration was given at the time to them picking Tony Mandrich with the #1 pick. He went #2 to the Packers, ahead of Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders.
Three out of the next four, even.
I don’t have any team to mention, but a lot of the teams that are listed have mostly been saying “the team sucked” and not so much “they intentionally lost games to get (insert player here)”.
Based on the reading so far I don’t think OPs question has been answered
To be fair, it’s still not proven to be a viable strategy in basketball.
I’d think that intentional tanking, if done right, might be pretty effective, but hard to distinguish from “just sucking”.
I mean, to tank “right”, you give your starters a rest, and let your backups play a lot more, and/or try your teams out in different combinations, so that your players get more experience playing with each other, and overall. Seems like a logical thing to do if you’ve decided you’re not going to win.
So when the next season rolls around, your team should be better than it was, just by virtue of the in-game practice they got the previous season, even if the roster didn’t change at all. Usually though, they get some better than average new blood, and the team is considerably improved vis-a-vis the previous year.
I’m honestly surprised more non-playoff teams don’t do more of this- why risk your marquee players getting hurt once you’ve been eliminated from playoff consideration?