I’m on a text thread with some of my high school friends, most of them Knicks fans, so the subject Sunday morning was a logical one: Death to the Dallas Mavericks.
Well, maybe that’s going too far.
But the fact is that when the Mavs decided to go into full-blown tank mode Friday against the Bulls — limiting Luka Doncic to a quarter, sitting the rest of their front-line players, all but retroactively trying to sit Ro Blackman and Derek Harper and Mark Aguirre and Jim Spanarkel — they did more than make a choice that they’d rather not make it to the Western Conference’s play-in tournament.
No, what they did was — wittingly or not — serve up a single-fingered salute to the Knicks.
By losing Friday — and, hilariously, as a tribute to just how thoroughly screwed up their season has been, they almost won the game — the Mavs eliminated themselves from the play-in and have themselves the No. 10 slot in the draft lottery. They owe the Knicks their 2023 No. 1 as part of the Kristaps Porzingis deal, but it’s top-10 protected.
Now, the Knicks could still get lucky and have one of the teams behind the Mavs in the lottery leapfrog to the top four, in which case the Mavs would drop to 11th and the Knicks would get the pick back. But since the Knicks haven’t moved up in the draft even once since winning the Patrick Ewing Sweepstakes 38 years ago, that isn’t actually likely.
So this was as blatant a tank job as there can be, and it’s right that the NBA announced Saturday that it’s going to investigate. Too little, too late.
Even Dallas coach Jason Kidd recognized the tanking.
“I can’t speak for [Doncic],” Kidd said after the tank was made official Friday afternoon. “But I think when you look at it, we all said we want to have the opportunity to find a way to get in [the play-in]. And we were gonna play until told otherwise. And today was the day that we were told we’re gonna do something different.”
And, look, I’ve said this time and again through the years: There is nothing worse in all of sports, to me, than trying to lose. I mean that when I speak of the 1919 Black Sox, I mean that when I speak of the 1984 Penguins-Devils death duel for Mario Lemieux, I mean that when I speak of the 2020 Jets being just awful enough to not lose enough to get Trevor Lawrence.
If games aren’t played on the level — whether to cash in a bet or to secure a winning lottery ticket for a franchise player — it shames the game.
But there’s a bigger problem, and it was also brought up in the text thread by a guy who loves the Knicks, but is also a resident of the real world of business:
“If you can have your cake and eat it too, why wouldn’t you do what they did? Until the NBA closes the loophole, it’s open to be used. Not doing it is almost as grievous.”
Which is 100 percent true.
What the Mavs did wasn’t illegal. But it sure stinks. And it’s profoundly cynical. And the fact is this is enough of a problem that the NBA — all sports, really — needs to find a way to penalize those who practice it.
Because all sports still offer rewards for active lousiness. Rage all you want about the Astros and cheating, the genesis of their dynasty was throwing three straight seasons in the garbage from 2011-13 to set up their championship resurrection. The NFL still rewards awful football, even if the No. 1 pick doesn’t always guarantee deliverance from the desert.
And though the NBA has been the most proactive league for years — starting with the coin flip that used to reduce the worst team’s chances of the No. 1 pick to 50-50, extending through the advent of the lottery — even still it’s plagued by this. At these prices, anything less than respecting the game is inviting the fans to spit on it.
And if you give them enough reasons to, eventually fans will do just that.
After watching the Mets’ Opening Day ceremonies, guess it’s time to update the old saying “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard” to “You can’t tell the sous chef until they take their place on the third-base line.”
The Opening Day sun-out Thursday was the annual reminder that for all the money invested in building twin ballparks 15 years ago, it’s amazing to think nobody thought it a good idea to spend a few nickels extra and build retractable roofs.
I was flattered as hell to hear Matt Damon was playing Vaccaro in a big new movie till I heard it was Sonny Vaccaro.
For all the craziness of the season, the Nets wind up in the main-bracket playoffs. Good for Jacque Vaughn and to a roster left for dead after the nuttiness.
The Sixers are in for a battle.
Alfred Angiola: The new pitch clock in baseball should be referred to as the Trachsel Rule.
I still can see Steve Trachsel on the mound at Shea, staring at the heavens between pitches, contemplating 1) the metaphysical implications of the universe, or 2) Chinese or Italian for dinner.
Vac: And after a while, I always thought there was 3) What did the catcher call for again?
John O’Shea: I enjoyed your article on the Valvanos.
Before Rocco Valvano coached at Seaford, he also coached at St. Nicholas of Tolentine in The Bronx until 1953.
A few of us even attended a college game at NYU’s Bronx campus where Coach Valvano was one of the refs.
Vac: Leaving Tolentine off Rocco’s résumé as I did in that column is like failing to mention Paul McCartney’s band before Wings.
@drschnip: No John Stearns in the In Memoriam montage on Opening Day.
The man practically left his deathbed to attend Old-Timer’s Day.
This makes no sense whatsoever.
@MikeVacc: I suspect the Mets would like a mulligan on that one.
Paul Rinaldi: I chuckled at your article last week that mentioned kids possibly skipping school to go to Opening Day.
It took me back to 1956 when I cajoled my mother into letting me stay home to watch on TV, Game 5 of the World Series, which turned out to be Don Larsen’s perfect game.
It was worth a day of hooky to get a lifetime memory.
Vac: That deserves first-ballot entry into the Hooky Hall of Fame.