Should the Lakers Tank?

It is by attempting to reach the top in a single leap that so much misery is produced in the world.

-William Cobbett

Should the Lakers Tank?

Have you ever taken a good, long vacation? Did you get married and have a wedding? Do you remember graduating from any level of class or training? Remember that feeling after you finally settled at home after that vacation; that very moment when the wedding or honeymoon was over; or that time soon thereafter graduating college? There was this sort of "umph" feeling as there was a settling of reality. This is the aftermath or comedown after experiencing the euphoria of being at the top via the vacation or celebration or whatever the occasion was that brought euphoric feelings.

The Lakers were a respectable power soon after moving from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. Once the 80s came, they took off and have been the best NBA franchise since the 80s. The 80s saw the Lakers winning five championships. Their run of championships waned as they slowly deteriorated once the 90s came. The Bulls finally put an end to this run with their 4-1 Finals defeat of the Lakers. 

After the Bulls killed what was left of the 80s mojo, there was a dead period of mediocre teams that featured the likes of Sedale Threatt, Sean Rooks, Cedric Ceballos, Elden Campbell, Tony Smith, Nick Van Exel, Anthony Peeler, George Lynch, Jon Barry, Doug Christie, Anthony "Pig" Miller, et al. This was a sharp contrast to Showtime. 

Things looked bleak until the cunning Laker organization, led by the late Dr. Jerry Buss, held their cards and landed a gentleman by the name of Shaquille O'Neal. Then Jerry West pulled this seemingly pedestrian deal at the time by sending Vlade Divac to the Charlotte Hornets for the rights to a 17 year old 13th pick of the draft, which turned out to be one Kobe Bryant. 

The young Kobe and Shaq battled and steadily increased their playoff run year after year. After three years, Phil Jackson is hired and 4 NBA Finals appearances and 3 titles ensue. 

After the embarrassing loss to the Pistons in the 2004 Finals, the team is decimated and things looked bleak again. It was Kobe and a supporting case worst than those 90s teams. Nonetheless, Phil Jackson returns two years later and the rights to Marc Gasol and Kwame Brown, et al are traded to Memphis for Pau Gasol. The Lakers go to another three Finals and win two. This is followed by two second round exits and a first round exit. The current Lakers are more than likely not going to make the playoffs this season. 

Notice a pattern?

Laker fans and many pundits are calling for the Lakers to tank, or set themselves up to lose to get a better chance at gaining a very high pick to get a one of the great prospects they may enter the draft this years from college. This may be a viable option, but there  are some things to keep in mind.

• Not a single elite prospect in college is a senior. This is probably not worth mentioning since virtually zero elite prospects actually stay in college for three or four years. Nonetheless, it cannot be guaranteed that any of these prospect will come out. Jabari Parker may decide to stay another year. People cannot not know for sure. 
• "Earning" more ping pong balls do not guarantee a top pick. Surely the most garbage of the garbage teams are all but guaranteed a top three to five pick. I like using the 2007 draft as an example. Memphis had a 25% chance to draw the number 1 pick while the Boston Celtics had the second best probability to earn the top pick at 19.9%. Theoretically, Memphis should have had the first pick while Boston the second pick. However, Portland ended up earning the top pick (and unfortunately taking Greg Oden over Kevin Durant) with just a 5% chance of getting the top pick. The lottery can be volatile and the results are random. Boston banked on getting a top two pick as Oden and Durant were, at the time, the clear two best prospects in the draft. They overcame this misfortune by trading for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. 
• A smart, efficient front office is more important than earning the top draft pick. Charlotte, Sacramento, Cleveland, Washington, Milwaukee, have been perennial lottery teams the last half decade and beyond for a couple of them. What do these teams have to show for it? Cleveland has had the top pick in two of the last three drafts and a fourth overall pick in the other year. They are still a struggling Eastern Conference team. On the other end, you have the Spurs that maintain success and still find players late in the draft. Tony Parker was passed up 27 times in the first round before San Antonio took him and Manu Ginobili and astounding 56 times. What does this say about these teams?
• The Laker Way. The Lakers have always brought about a culture of winning. While there are going to be hard times in which rebuilding needs to occur, it is not in the organization's DNA to deliberately set themselves up to lose for the sake of gaining more ping pong balls for the draft lottery. Once that mindset creeps in, it will get easier for the organization to just start tanking anytime things get difficult. Also, that puts too much stock into one player rather than having an overall plan that involves great scouting and wily free agent acquisitions to build a team backed by a philosophy. Cleveland did that in the year of LeBron, but that is an aberration. The Lakers drafted Magic first overall in 1979, but that pick was one of three first round picks sent as compensation from Utah after Utah signed Gail Goodrich (Utah also got two first round picks from the Lakers in return). 

In this social media era, people have a tendency to want to get their thoughts out in the world in an attempt to be the first to get it right or figure it all out. These same people want results now sans The Process. Like coming home after experiencing the highs of a nice vacation, Laker success is going to be complemented by an ebb as players from the championship run get older and more expensive, which puts a strain on the team's financial flexibility for roster improvement. The Bulls went through it before they got Rose. San Antonio will experience this more and more as Duncan and Ginobili, followed by Parker, wane. It happened to Boston and will happen to Miami at some point. It's inevitable. 

The Lakers, as history suggest, will most likely be fine eventually. There is no LeBron looming to be the savior of the franchise, so they will have to lay in the weeds and continue to hold their cards until the next situation that is attainable arises. They had Chris Paul, but that did not work. They had Dwight Howard, but that did not work. Rather than making a rash move in free agency or tanking for a pick that may not exist or pan out, they should continue to calculate their situation and make the best moves possible. The Knicks have shown what having unlimited funds and unlimited ineptitude can do, cause years of mediocrity if not futility. We would not want that, would we?

Let us be patient and see what happens. The Lakers are only three and half years removed from a championship and have almost flushed out that roster completely with only Kobe on the books next season (and Kobe getting that money is not bothersome as NBA superstars are ghastly underpaid by their teams, but I digress and shall pick this conversation up elsewhere...). Coming home from that vacation may be tough at first, but you will adapt and respect The Process it will take to get to the next vacation.