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NBA Tank Rankings: Cleveland Cavaliers make an appearance

By Matt Rutkowski

Jun 23, 2016; New York, NY, USA; A general view of the podium and stage before the first round of the 2016 NBA Draft at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports
Jun 23, 2016; New York, NY, USA; A general view of the podium and stage before the first round of the 2016 NBA Draft at Barclays Center. Mandatory Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports /
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Sacramento Kings, Sam Hinkie
Feb 10, 2016; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia 76ers general manager Sam Hinkie prior to a game against the Sacramento Kings at Wells Fargo Center. Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports /

2. Sacramento Kings

Reaction traction from the distraction faction – 100/100

This is how it’s done. Trade the star player, make ill-advised comments in the following presser, lose a bunch of games in a new building, have your owner say the kind of words he does that are then recorded and written down, etc. Just do you; for the Kings that’s all perfectly reasonable distraction fodder.

This week they went supernova though. Reports state that the league contacted them with strong admonitions to be more professional from the top down. The top is the ceiling, and the ceiling is the roof.

How does one fix a ceiling? By lowering it, I think. Bring it way, way down. You know who has done that before? One Samuel Hinkie.

Sacramento knows him well. In fact, he’s about as responsible for anyone for the hope-shaped hole in the Kings’ future. Were they to bring him on, he’d be trying to de-bury-alive himself. Maybe he knows some secret loopholes in the deals he made to actually make it so the Kings are better. Maybe there’s a button on the bottom of a secret pinball machine in some secret math lab somewhere that immediately reverts all assets to their original owners. The longest view in the room probably sees far enough ahead to realize that most Americans change jobs once every 114 days according to some statistics I made up.

But there’s another level of genius to this so crystalline that it almost has to be accidental and in fact is. The conversation about Hinkie will always be about tanking. However, in discussing Hinkie, the conversation is about tankings past and the potential tankings to come. The tanking of the present is not mentioned at all. It’s there, hiding in plain sight.

In almost any other scenario, this would put them at the top of the bottom of the NBA.

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