OOPS MARK CUBAN OWNER OF DALLAS MAVERICKS FINED $600K JUST FOR TANKING

MARK CUBAN

                                                           
A week after the NBA fined Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban $600,000 for his public admission of tanking, the race to the bottom has continued in full force.

Entering Wednesday, just six games separate the last nine teams in the league — from the New York Knicks on down to the Atlanta Hawks. The combined record of that woeful group since the All-Star break? 3-25.

But while losing is one thing, losing on purpose is quite another. And therein lies the league’s legislative challenge in these final six weeks.

This is a Happy Hour of sorts for the league’s worst teams, the end of a draft era that changes next year when the value of sustained failure will take a major hit because of reformed rules. Starting in 2019, the last-place team’s odds of landing the No. 1 pick drop from 25% to 14% — the same odds that will apply to the bottom three teams in this new structure. The “Trust the Process” Philadelphia 76ers are largely to blame for all of this, of course, as they took tanking to a whole new low under general manager Sam Hinkie from 2013 to 2016 and inspired change.