Longtime NBA veteran Evan Fournier is back in Europe hitting the hardwood in the Greek professional league this year. The Frenchman, whose dynamic play for the Boston Celtics made him a target for the New York Knicks, where he subsequently played but never quite shined as in Boston, says he’ll miss playing against the best competition in the world.
But Fournier won’t miss some other aspects of the NBA.
Specifically, Fournier reveals that “one of the dark sides” of NBA life “is when teams are losing on purpose” to get higher draft picks.
“Tanking,” Fournier admits, “it’s real.” Fournier played with the Detroit Pistons last season, who lost as if it was their mission to lose, especially after it became apparent that rising star Cade Cunningham would miss large portions of the season due to injuries.
Fournier, not subtly, says losing actually was the mission, even if fired head first year Detroit head coach Monty Williams — the highest paid coach in the association during the win drought — likely wouldn’t admit it. Fournier says Detroit “was a young team that wasn’t necessarily trying to win.”
Fournier added: “When you’re my age, it’s hard to go through that.”
“One of the dark sides of the NBA is when teams are losing on purpose to get higher draft picks. Tanking is real”
–– Evan Fournier pic.twitter.com/flGXTGPQEB
— New York Basketball (@NBA_NewYork) September 23, 2024
Tanking, of course, is the art of losing while looking — sort of — like you’re still competing, and it is a valuable strategy in the multi-billion dollar National Basketball Association, where a superstar can change the fate (and value) of an organization.
Because in the NBA, the last place teams get the first choices in selecting new talent for the following season (after some randomizing ping-pong ball modifications for “fairness”).
Outside of the Bible then, the NBA is one of the few places where it’s true that the “last shall be first” — and, accordingly, teams can get pretty religious about getting a top draft pick.
The most famous — or egregious — recent example is the much-maligned and much-celebrated (depends on who you ask) 76ers teams of about a decade ago, which got two top-3 picks in succession for finishing in the basement and hardly competing — a tanking that went by the name “The Process.”
Yup, Sixers management had the audacity to give their tanking a name and assuaged fans during the losing and suffering by asking them to “trust the process” which eventually yielded future MVP Joel Embiid and future DNP Ben Simmons. And, notably, zero championships.