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On this date in 1995, the Miami Heat became the first team to sweep the All-Star Saturday night festivities, with Harold Miner winning the slam dunk contest and Glen Rice capturing the 3-point shootout. This is a vivid memory for me, further evidence of my basketball nerdom. I remember recording these events on a VHS tape and then labeling it “Heat Wave” because of the Miner and Rice wins. I was 13 years old. I regret nothing.
Inventive Losing
The Jazz have found a creative way to tank
The NBA does not want star players sitting out games while their teams pile up losses in the hopes of chasing luck on draft lottery night. My NBA Radio cohost Marc Stein calls it “Draft Positioning Prioritization Mode.” That’s a nice way of rebranding something most of us refer to as “tanking.” Tanking is the scourge of the second half of the season, and it becomes so much more blatant for the teams that possess a roster that could and should be better.
The problem with tanking isn’t the idea itself. If you want to sacrifice quality on the court in the short-term in the hopes that you’ll land the next Victor Wembanyama for the long-term, it’s not a terrible strategy. It’s far better than just being a treadmill team that does a whole lot of running without really going anywhere. With the current rules, I think it’s foolish not to tank in years when the draft class could be franchise-changing. And this star-studded 2026 class looks like it could be just that.
The problem with tanking is two-fold. 1) The league pretends that it doesn’t incentivize the practice with the draft process itself. It does. 2) Fans are still paying full price for tickets to attend the dreadful product. It’s one thing for an injury to actually knock a guy out and your money spent just ends up being a tough gamble later on in the season. It’s another thing to hold that player out, charge full price for tickets and pretend none of that is happening in the first place.
The league’s relatively new Player Participation Policy adds another wrinkle to the mix. The league now punishes teams for improperly holding players out with big fines. We’ve seen it levied for teams not properly disclosing injury information in the mandated time, although that might be more about gambling issues than about tanking.
The Utah Jazz have found a brilliant loophole around that policy while still finding a way to tank. In the last two games, the Jazz started Jaren Jackson Jr., Lauri Markkanen and Jusuf Nurkić . Granted, Nurk isn’t a star player, but he’s being lumped in with All-Stars Markkanen and JJJ for a reason here.
All three players started in Orlando and in Miami this past week. All three combined to play zero fourth-quarter minutes. In both games. All three clocked in at 25 minutes in the first three quarters and then sat in the fourth quarters of both games. In Orlando, the tanking worked like a charm. The Jazz gave up a 33-23 quarter to the Magic and lost the game by three. It did not work Monday night against the Heat. Utah accidentally won that game 115-111.
When Jazz coach Will Hardy was asked after the Heat win whether he considered putting Markkanen or Jackson back in the game in the fourth, he answered simply: “No.”
Stein wrote about this on his Substack on Monday and had this quote from a Western Conference executive:
“Yet one executive I spoke to from another team in Utah’s conference defended what the Jazz just did, saying: ‘They played all those players against Orlando. They didn’t just sit everybody. You can’t tell a team how to use their guys during a game.’”
They’re following the rules. They’re playing their guys. Those guys are playing over 20 minutes in the games. But the league can’t tell Hardy, Danny Ainge and Austin Ainge that these players must play in the fourth quarters of tight games.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver will likely get asked about this or tanking in general on Saturday when he addresses the media at All-Star weekend. More than likely, Silver’s answer will be unsatisfactory for most. To be fair, Silver is a little handcuffed here because of what the executive told Stein. The league can’t tell teams how to play their guys. If only there were a way to disincentivize losing in the league …
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said tanking is bad for fans. The rest of this season could be an all-time race to the bottom, our Sam Vecenie says
The last 24
🏀 You there? John Hollinger has a question post-trade deadline. Where were the contenders?
🏀 Singular shooters. Joe Vardon has a fun story looking at a select group of former NBA players: those who made only one 3-pointer in their careers.
🦵 Leg up. Kevin Durant knows about the memes that have spotlighted his ashy legs. He’s learned that sometimes it pays to laugh at yourself.
🙏 He’s back. Thunder guard Nikola Topić was diagnosed with testicular cancer in October. He played in a G League game this week.
🎬 Film study. The Wizards’ second-year big man Alex Sarr is turning into something special. Josh Robbins has a thorough breakdown of the 7-footer’s progress.
Stream the NBA on Fubo (try it for free!) and catch out-of-market games on League Pass.
End of an Era
Have we seen LeBron’s last accolade?
Last night, LeBron James missed his 18th game of the season. He sat out the Spurs game with left foot arthritis after missing a lot of other games this season with sciatica. After recently turning 44, I’ve never identified more with an NBA legend. Why is it significant that he missed his 18th game of the season? LeBron is officially ineligible for All-NBA consideration, which requires a 65-game minimum. In his beyond-historic NBA career, James has made 21 straight All-NBA appearances.
That’s ridiculous for so many reasons, but to put that in perspective, the last time LeBron wasn’t named to an All-NBA team, Facebook was about four months old. It was TheFacebook back then. James has six more All-NBA selections than second place all-time. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan all have 15 selections. LeBron has 13 first-team selections alone.
LeBron has been good this season for a 41-year old, but there was no real chance of him making All-NBA. Still, his official elimination from awards feels like it’s worth mentioning, because I’m not sure we’ll see him get another accolade in his career, unless he plays next season and is named to his 23rd All-Star Game in a celebratory manner. Kind of like when Silver put Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki in the All-Star Game to celebrate their phenomenal careers.
LeBron may not even play in this Sunday’s All-Star Game if his body doesn’t allow him to. LeBron has the greatest resume of all time (the GROAT) in the NBA. I think his accolades might be finally capped with 21 All-NBA selections, 22 All-Star Games, four MVPs, four NBA Finals MVPs, six All-Defensive selections, three All-Star MVPs and a Rookie of the Year award. Not a bad mantle to have!
Victor Wembanyama scored 25 points against the Lakers in the first eight minutes on Tuesday. (Gary A. Vasquez / Imagn Images)
About last night
Wemby breaks scoring record in rout
Luka Dončić, Austin Reaves, Deandre Ayton and Marcus Smart all joined LeBron in not playing against the Spurs last night. The Lakers started Jaxson Hayes, Jake LaRavia, Rui Hachimura, Luke Kennard and Kobe Bufkin (signed a couple of days ago). That meant the opportunity for Wembanyama to put on a show had been shot toward the moon.
That’s exactly what Wemby did. In the blink of an eye, he had 14 points before the Lakers even got to five. With 4:01 left in the first quarter, Wembanyama exited the game up 25-20 on the Lakers. The Spurs had 33 points. Wemby had 25 of them by himself. In the play-by-play era (1997-98), Wemby is the first to score 25 points in under eight minutes. He had 37 points at halftime, bumping Tim Duncan out of the Spurs record books for most points in a first half.
He finished with 40 points in 26 minutes, going 13-of-20 from the field and 10-of-12 from the free-throw line. He also had 12 rebounds. It was utter domination of a barely second-unit Lakers squad. The Spurs won 136-108, and that blowout margin is the only reason he didn’t approach 50, 60 or maybe even more. San Antonio improved to 37-16 and is just 3 1/2 games behind the Thunder.
Rockets 102, Clippers 95: This was an ugly one. The Rockets were up 94-79 with 5:12 left. The Clippers started clawing their way back with Bennedict Mathurin, Dalano Banton and Isaiah Jackson leading an 11-2 run to make things a little antsy. But Houston cobbled together a couple of buckets to avoid an embarrassing collapse.
Kawhi Leonard scored 24 points, John Collins added 17 and no other Clippers player cracked double digits in points. Kevin Durant led the Rockets with 26 points on 8-of-22 shooting and had five turnovers. Alperen Şengün had 22 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Amen Thompson had 16 points, as did Reed Sheppard off the bench. The Rockets (33-19) moved up to third in the West with the win.
Pacers 137, Knicks 134 OT: Even in a down year for the Pacers (14-40), these two teams can’t play a game devoid of chaos. Karl-Anthony Towns knocked down two free throws after being fouled on a game-tying putback attempt at the buzzer to force overtime. Then in overtime, Indiana was up nine points with 24.3 seconds left. The Knicks (34-20) got a Jalen Brunson layup, a Landry Shamet 3 off an immediate steal, two Pascal Siakam missed free throws and then a Brunson 3 to cut it to a one-point game with 5.6 seconds left.
Quenton Jackson righted the ship with two free throws, and Shamet couldn’t execute a proper missed free throw to try to get another chance to tie it. The Pacers held on for the dramatic win. Siakam finished with 30 points, and Andrew Nembhard had 24 with 10 assists. It was enough to overcome 40 from Brunson. Josh Hart had a 15-11-11 triple-double. The Knicks aren’t contenders, according to the Phil Jackson test.
Suns 120, Mavs 111: Cooper Flagg had 27 points, and Naji Marshall put in 31 off the bench. But even a big fourth quarter by Dallas couldn’t keep Phoenix from getting the win. Dillon Brooks’ 23 points led seven Suns players in double-digits. The Suns (32-22) are a half-game behind Minnesota for sixth place.