J. Kyle Mann

Yeah, you're not blind to it.

You're watching these games or not, but you're generally aware of how they're managing the rotation to lose these games more or less intentionally.

But so long as it gets you Darren Peterson, no one really gives a shit.

And this is kind of one of the problems with trying to fix this is history forgets shamelessness when it works.

And if it gets you the guy that you want, no one really cares about how shameless it was in the first place.

I also think, weirdly enough, the NBA gets a lot of cover from the fact that those undecideds that Kyle is talking about, like the casual sports fans who might be trying to figure out how they feel about tanking, are probably just casual sports fans across the board.

And the point at which this is the most egregious is happening basically during March Madness.

And so there's just like a lot of other sporting stuff in the ether where if it was as simple as like, we're recording this on Super Bowl Sunday and starting tomorrow, everyone was paying attention and locked in on the NBA without like to a fault, then that might be one thing.

But there's about to be a big shiny distraction.

with all of the most appealing college players on full display, while the Jazz and the Nets and the Pacers and the Mavericks and the Grizzlies, and as Justin's alluded to, the growing list of teams that have no real incentive to win, are going to be kind of doing their stuff in the shadows.

And then by the time the tournament is over, the NBA playoffs are here.

And then that's really the time for those casual fans to migrate back anyway.

I think what you're recommending is totally reasonable and will probably never happen.

Because in order to pass, it would have to go through the competition committee, which means all of the team governors for the exact small markets you already identified will never vote for it.

I think that's ultimately why... I don't believe we're going to get a fix on tanking for the same reason I don't think we're ever going to get a shorter season.

And that's because...

The people who run and own teams are incredibly stubborn, especially with whatever they consider to be their market advantage or whatever equalizes the market for them.

And the other part of it is NBA leagues run on inertia.

Like that is, or sorry, sports leagues in general run on inertia.

Like they don't want to change.