Former Phoenix Suns and Toronto Raptors front office executive Bryan Colangelo admitted to "tanking" during the 2011-2012 season while speaking at a panel during the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference on Friday. He also stated that he was also making it a point to develop young players on the roster by giving them playing time during the season, though he did not ask head coach Dwayne Casey to purposefully lose games.
Bryan Colangelo admits he tried tanking during Raptors 2011-2012 season
The former Raptors executive admitted to tanking during the 2011-2012 season.
Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sport
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Per Matt Dollinger of Sports Illustrated:
“Admittedly, I tried to tank a couple of years ago,” Colangelo said during a basketball panel at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. “I didn’t come out and say, ‘Coach, you have to lose games.’ I wanted him to establish a winning tradition and culture, but I wanted him to do it in the framework of playing and developing young players.”
Toronto has been out of the playoffs since the 2007-2008 season. Colangelo was replaced by Masai Ujiri as Raptors general manger in May 2013 and he resigned from the team one month later. The team's record during the lockout shortened '11-12 campaign was 23-43, the eight-worst record in the NBA. The team went on to draft Terrence Ross with the eighth-overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, unable to get into the top-five of the draft despite the "tanking" effort.
DeMar DeRozan led the Raptors in minutes through the season, and Toronto had four players 23-or-younger averaging a minimum of 23 minutes per game. The team ended the season with a 31-point victory over the Nets, snapping a four-game losing streak to finish the year. Colangelo cited that victory as "critical" to the team failing to improve its draft odds and potentially being the most costly factor in the franchise's chance to draft Damian Lillard.
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An anonymous general manager admitted to tanking in an interview with ESPN the Magazine last October. The source discussed acknowledging his team wasn’t currently good enough to compete and recognizing the value in losses in order to secure an top draft pick in a highly-touted 2014 NBA Draft class. The NBA has not punished teams for “tanking,” though the league has considered alternatives to the current draft system which gives incentive to losing.
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