I’d have to disagree on that. Yes, tanking is cheating. It undermines the integrity of the game.
We’re not talking about just trading away a good player when you know your season is shot so you can stockpile picks. We’re talking about losing games on purpose.
No, you are talking about a situation where a team knows its season is shot before it even started.
As I said about the Buffalo Sabres, the team on the ice did not try to lose games. The management put the worst possible team on the ice. That involved getting rid of players who would not be around long-term and stripping the team down to its foundation to rebuild it. The Sabres were past contending for the playoffs and had a rebuild in front of them.
And, the Sabres did trade players away during that season.
Fear of teams tanking late in the season is the main reason that the NHL changed their draft order from being based solely on the season record to a lottery of the teams not making the playoffs. Buffalo has done well in those lotteries but haven’t made the playoffs since 2011 (despite half the teams making it).
None of them were losing on purpose, they were just making a conscious choice not to spend money on payroll to field a competitive team.
The Players Union is pissed about it because it drives down salaries when you remove a chunk of teams from the bidding market.
They did well recently when they got the number one picks for Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power. Before that they twice finished with the worst record but got the number two pick in the lottery when there was a big difference between the number one and two players taken.
I personally don’t think a draft lottery discourages tanking. If anything it increases it, since more teams have a shot at the number one pick via the lottery and can position themselves for better odds. In Los Angeles during the years the Lakers were awful and did not make the playoffs that was the big subject late in the season.
And it gets better.
I don’t think the Browns needed to pay Jackson for losses. Just having Jackson as head coach served that purpose. Ditto for Freddy Kitchens, who followed him as the next full-time coach there.
That’s why the players unions in some sports want a salary floor in addition to a cap. Some owners don’t care about winning or even fielding a decent team.
The NFL has that, I don’t know about the NBA.
But the MLB Players Union has fought for decades against a salary cap, so they don’t really have a valid complaint.
Just looked, the NBA does have a floor.
Not sure why the players in the MLB would be opposed. As you noted, small market teams can’t compete in the current market.
With a salary cap, the way to winning is to find a good combo of young players and veterans, getting the most value you can.
Because up until recently, large market teams (LA, NY, Boston, etc) would overpay for marginal players to push them over the top in pennant races.
This seems to have subsided in recent years, so the Players Union may shift their views.
Unless baseball owners agree to meaningful revenue sharing, the players will never agree to a salary cap, nor should they. That would only serve to keep money in the big market teams’ pockets at the expense of the players.
I believe Ewing Kauffman tried to get that going but was blocked by Steinbrenner.
Here is a really good story explaining the current attempt at a “soft cap” and what both sides are looking for.
I remember many years ago seeing Marge Schott interviewed in the subject. She said that she did not want any of George Steinbrenner’s money but that she needed a salary cap. That alone made the union’s case against it.
Just figured this out.
Flores is saying that his interview with the Broncos was a “sham”.
But the Broncos had just hired head coach of color, so where is the racism?
The two are not related. If the Broncos had made up their minds to hire Vic Fangio and only went through the motions with Flores to satisfy the Rooney Rule requirements, that was a sham interview. That the Broncos had previously employed Vance Joseph as their head coach is irrelevant.
Related example: The Raiders previously employed Art Shell and Hue Jackson as coaches, and Mark Davis had previously hired Reggie McKenzie as general manager. However, Mark Davis was fixated on Jon Gruden, and the Raiders only interviewed Bobby Johnson and Tee Martin to satisfy the Rooney Rule. I say “the Raiders” because Mark Davis did not do the interviews himself.
Would you call those sham interviews or not? I most certainly would.
Here is an article that I found.
May or may not have been a sham interview to satisfy the Rooney Rule, but race was irrelevant other than the requirement.
Race is the only reason those two interviews took place. Otherwise, do you seriously believe that the Raiders were considering hiring their tight-ends coach or USC’s offensive coordinator as alternatives to Jon Gruden? They were sham interviews to satisfy the Rooney Rule, and race is at the heart of that rule.
Similarly, if, and I use the word “if,” the Broncos only interviewed Flores to satisfy the Rooney Rule and had already made up their minds to hire Fangio, that was a sham interview. The only difference is that the Broncos chose a person who could plausibly be considered a legitimate head coaching candidate, whereas the Raiders didn’t even bother to do that.
Update: SI now has several pieces posted online,
Race is the point of the Rooney rule. Flores is not accusing the Broncos of being evil racists who discriminated against him. They’re accusing him of conducting a sham interview, which if true, would mean they were violating the spirit at least, of the Rooney rule.