Stephen Lew-Imagn Images
The NBA has made it clear it’s planning to crack down on tanking, and it recently made an example out of the Pacers and the Jazz to drive that point home. However, Indiana coach Rick Carlisle suggested the league had already made up its mind while recapping the questionable investigation that led to the franchise being hit with a $100,000 fine.
As things currently stand, NBA teams that are on track to miss the playoffs have a fair amount of incentive to finish the season with the worst record possible in order to increase their chances of landing the top overall pick in the draft.
It’s been a little more than 40 years since the league instituted a lottery to discourage tanking (the NFL is the only one of the “Big Four” leagues that bases the order of its draft entirely on record as opposed to a weighted drawing that leaves things up to chance), but the current system is designed to benefit the teams that end up in the basement of the standings.
That naturally results in teams engaging in a race to the bottom in an attempt to salvage a season that’s otherwise lost, and while it’s usually pretty easy to spot the ones that are actively trying to lose, they need to avoid taking an overtly shameless approach if they don’t want to attract the ire of the NBA.
Earlier this month, the Jazz and the Pacers were fined $500,000 and $100,000, respectively, for roster management decisions that Adam Silver characterized as “overt behavior…that prioritizes draft position over winning.” However, it doesn’t sound like the coach of that second team agreed with that assessment or the route the league took to come to the conclusion that it did.
Pacers coach Rick Carlisle claims the NBA refused to speak with the team’s doctor before fining them for resting players who were injured
Utah was fined for “conduct detrimental to the league” over what the NBA determined was suspicious roster management in two games toward the beginning of February, while Indiana was dinged for violating the Player Participation Policy, which primarily stemmed from the decision to sit Pascal Siakam against the Jazz at the start of the month.
The statement that the NBA issued while announcing the punishment asserted Siakam and two other players “could have played under the medical standard in the Policy, including by playing reduced minutes,” but head coach Rick Carlisle disagreed with that assessment while discussing the fine during an interview with 107.5 The Fan on Tuesday (the segment in question kicks off at the 2:51:45 mark in the following video).
Carlisle made it very clear he was not a fan of how the situation was handled while relaying details of the NBA’s investigation into the matter. He specifically cited the injury that Aaron Nesmith was dealing with, saying:
“There was a league lawyer that was doing the interview that kind of unilaterally decided that Aaron Nesmith, who had been injured the night before and couldn’t hold the ball, should have played in the game, which just seems ridiculous…
We asked them if they wanted to talk to our doctors about it, because it’s something that was documented by our doctors and trainers. They said no, they didn’t need to. They talked to their doctors, who did not examine Aaron Nesmith. We asked them if they wanted to talk to the kid, and they said no, they didn’t need to.
So this was shocking. This was shocking to me. They also asked if we considered medicating him to play in a game when we were 30 games under .500. So I was very surprised.”
It’s easy to understand why the NBA wants to discourage teams from engaging in tanking, but if Carlisle (who acknowledged he was not in the room when that conversation took place) is telling the truth, that’s a very rough look.