The San Antonio Spurs are not tanking. The San Antonio Spurs are not a very good basketball team. The Spurs are doing everything they can to win basketball games, and they do not care if that makes you upset or not.1
Let’s quickly talk playoff and draft scenarios
San Antonio has nine games remaining. At best, they will finish the regular season 38-44, and if every Western team ahead of them lose the rest of the games they play this season, San Antonio would land in 8th place and have two shots at clinching a playoff spot. It is very unlikely that this will happen.
Should they make the playoffs, they’re out of the lottery. Should they lose their play-in games, they would likely have somewhere between 9th and 12th best odds (or 4.5% to 1.5%) of securing the top pick in the 2022 NBA draft.
At worst, they will finish 29-53, and if every team behind them in the standings win out, they’d be 14th in the West and have the 4th best odds (or 12.5%) of securing the top pick in the 2022 draft. It is also very unlikely that this will happen.
If the standings remain the same as they are today, well, our good friend Josh Paredes already made a cheat sheet for that so I’ll just go ahead and drop a lil’ Twitter URL here for ya… (as a bonus it includes the Boston and Toronto picks they may claim by season’s end)
Okay, let’s talk about tanking
Spurs fans seem to be pretty divided on whether or not San Antonio should continue doing their best to win basketball games. As we know, the worse you do, the more likely you are to get a top 4-6 pick. Some folks out there would prefer if the Spurs lost all nine of their remaining games on purpose to get there.
Some folks want to see their team win all nine games because, well, when you cheer for a team it’s only natural to be excited about seeing them win and compete in the playoffs.
Something I haven’t seen many consider is the fact that San Antonio could try their little hearts out and still lose all nine games. Seems unlikely. They still have two more against Portland and based on the other night, it’ll be hard to lose twice to the Blazers, unless half of the team comes down with gastrointestinal stress a few hours before tip-off. But hey, anything can happen!
But let’s go back to tanking, because I just have this nagging feeling that a lot of you don’t understand what tanking really means. Tanking doesn’t just mean losing games. Tanking means purposefully putting out a lineup that gives you the best opportunity to lose.
If you want San Antonio to tank, it means you don’t want to see Dejounte Murray, Keldon Johnson, or Jakob Poeltl to play a minute for the rest of the season. And you want those three to be okay with that.
To me, that’s insane.
You want to build around a point guard who is okay with having the ball taken out of his hands when it matters the most? As weird as it sounds, the Spurs are literally in a playoff race right now. If Pop and/or Brian Wright approached Murray to tell him to end his season with nine games left and a playoff spot on the line, I would expect him to demand a trade immediately.
I don’t want to cheer for a team that’s happy to lose games. I’m not here to police anyone’s fandom, so if that’s you, by all means go for it. Scream from the rooftops for Joe Wieskamp, Romeo Langford, Jock Landale, Devontae Cacok, and Josh Primo to play 40 minutes per game.
The Spurs are going to play their best players and try to win nine games in a row to close out the season. Six of those games are against teams in the playoff or play-in picture. San Antonio will make the playoffs by beating playoff teams (a good thing!) or miss the playoffs because they’re not ready to beat playoff teams (a realistic thing!).
I’ll be cheering for the former, life’s too short to place all your faith in a ping pong ball.
Thanks for reading, please be kind to each other out there.
Nor should they!