The NBA trade deadline unveiled a hidden strategy: Disguised tanking.
The numbers were 3, 5, and 2. These were the lowest, and the teams with the worst records, thus the highest odds in the annual NBA draft lottery. The lottery typically assigns these low combinations to the teams.
One number remained.
Justin Zanik, the general manager of the Utah Jazz, leaned on his elbows, examining his flip card with the assigned numbers. Will Dawkins, the general manager of the Washington Wizards, sat with his hands folded, staring ahead. Rick Schnall, co-owner of the Hornets, put on his glasses and made a note next to the numbers he needed.
They sat stoically, adhering to decorum, but this moment could change the direction of billion-dollar businesses. The three teams with the highest odds, none of whom had been lucky in the first three drawings that night, faced their last chance to move up.
Matt Doria, an NBA vice president, pulled the next number from the machine.
'Charlotte Hornets.'
Schnall took off his glasses and leaned back, the weight falling from his shoulders. Dawkins offered a handshake. Zanik smiled flatly. Schnall returned a sympathetic shrug.
And that was the difference between getting a player like Kon Knueppel, whom the Hornets took at No. 4 and who is among the favorites for Rookie of the Year, and not.
It's also the difference between instant returns and attempting the NBA's emerging tanking trend: the flip.
Knueppel is having one of the greatest rookie shooting seasons in league history, shooting 42% on eight 3-point attempts per game (Steph Curry shot 43% on five as a rookie).
Though the Hornets have been building this roster for years, with four top-six selections in the past six drafts, Knueppel's arrival has turbocharged a turnaround, putting them on their longest winning streak (nine) in more than two decades.
At the trade deadline, Charlotte made an aggressive deal for guard Coby White as part of what it hopes is a real postseason push.
Meanwhile, the Jazz drafted Ace Bailey at No. 5, and the Wizards took Tre Johnson at No. 6. Their teams are high on their futures, and a season or two from now, they could be neck-and-neck with Knueppel in terms of their impact. However, neither has allowed for such a pivot yet.
Instead, the Wizards and Jazz are leaders in this new-age hybrid: actively tanking while hedging, and in their cases, trading for stars amid a sunk season, so they can make a quick turnaround next season. The flip.
'How can you blame them?' one Eastern Conference general manager said. 'The difference between getting a top-four pick last year and not was huge. And this year, we all know being in the top four and missing out is massive.'
The Wizards have traded for multitime All-Stars Trae Young and Anthony Davis, two players expected to help them return to the playoffs for the first time in five years... next season.
Young returned from a quad injury and played five out of six games for the Atlanta Hawks in December. But after being traded to Washington, he hasn't played in six weeks, and there's no timetable for his return.
When Davis suffered a hand injury last month, the Dallas Mavericks put out a news release saying he was expected to miss six weeks. After trading for him last week, Dawkins told reporters in Washington that Davis would be going back to Dallas to rehab, and his timetable to return could be closer to 10 weeks.
All of this puts the Wizards in position to get the highest draft pick this year, but then quickly make a move to contention next season when Davis and Young would, in theory, be healthy.
'You may think your fans are the toughest ones to answer to when you're rebuilding,' one longtime league executive said. 'But it's really your owner. And owners want to know when a rebuild will end, and it's clear some of these teams have a deadline.'
The Jazz, for their part, appear to be in the same position, hoping for their own flip from tanking to playoffs as soon as possible.
Utah's pick is top-eight protected, and the Jazz are the living embodiment of what a few spots in the lottery can mean. The team's coaches and front office rave about Bailey's future, but he wasn't invited to participate in the league's Rising Stars Game at All-Star Weekend, while former Duke roommates and top-four picks Cooper Flagg and Knueppel are headlining.
The Jazz, like the Wizards, made a major splash at the trade deadline, shocking the league by trading for Jaren Jackson Jr. in a draft-pick-heavy deal with the Memphis Grizzlies.
In his first game with the team, Jackson scored 22 points in just 25 minutes, and then he was benched in the fourth quarter of an eventual three-point loss in Orlando.
His new teammate, Lauri Markkanen, recently missed seven consecutive games due to an illness and regularly has been pulled from the lineup at the end of close games. Markkanen scored 27 points in 27 minutes against the Magic and was seated next to Jackson for the fourth, a scenario that will likely be repeated down the stretch.
'Trae and AD plus a top-five pick in this draft, or Jaren and Markkanen plus a top-five pick, and you have something that could be special,' one Eastern Conference head coach said. 'No stud from this draft, and you have teams at the bottom who maybe can just get to the middle.'
Based on their actions, it seems other teams are planning similar strategies. In this category are teams like the Brooklyn Nets and Indiana Pacers.
The Nets did something unprecedented this season, acquiring and using five first-round picks and routinely playing the youngest lineups in the league (the Wizards started a lineup with an average age of 20.6 years old at one point).
Without control over their first-round picks for the next several years, the Nets are highly incentivized to get as high of a pick as possible, then immediately slingshot themselves into relevance. That's a strong reason Brooklyn kept forward Michael Porter Jr., in the midst of a career season and in some demand, at the trade deadline.
He is needed for the flip, which is what the Nets hope to do by aggressively using the nearly $50 million in cap space they have this summer. The Pacers are hoping for the same, except they're a few years ahead: a quick bounce next season when star point guard Tyrese Haliburton returns from a torn Achilles.
And Indiana took a step in that direction by getting a new franchise center in Ivica Zubac from the LA Clippers at the deadline.
After playing 15 out of 16 possible games before being traded, Pacers coach Rick Carlisle announced Zubac will miss some upcoming games to take care of a sore ankle that wasn't previously on the injury report. He also recently became a father.
There are other teams that could benefit from short-term losses, such as the Milwaukee Bucks with Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Dallas Mavericks with Kyrie Irving.
'You know what's ironic?' one Western Conference executive asked. 'Charlotte trades for White hoping to use him right away, and they find out he's actually injured. And you have Utah, Indy, and Washington trade for players and find ways to keep them out.'
Indeed, when the Hornets put White through a physical last week, they found a previously undiagnosed calf injury that forced an amendment to the trade, with Charlotte removing a second-round pick from the deal with the Bulls.
Needless to say, there's some irritation within the league, even if the flip strategy has some intellectual merit. The topic of these long-range non-competitive maneuvers was raised at a recent NBA competition committee meeting, sources said.
But any meaningful rules change to address this pathway won't be able to stop it this season.
And the tanking is likely to get more obvious and perhaps more widespread.
This leads to some philosophical questions about the overall direction of the league.
'You've heard of Icarus and what happens when you fly too close to the sun,' one team president said. 'I think some teams are in danger of flying too close to the ground.'
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