SocraticGadfly: Is it time for the Lakers to tank? Riggin for Wiggins in LA?

December 19, 2013

Is it time for the Lakers to tank? Riggin for Wiggins in LA?

If you're any sort of NBA fan, you've heard that Kobe Bryant is out six weeks (optimistically) with a broken leg.

Given that Pau Gasol and Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni had just had a spat, before a kiss and make up session, about how Gasol wanted to operate in the Lakers offense, that Jordan Farmar and Steve Nash may be out for the rest of the year for all we know, and that at 10-15, the Lakers are already out of the Western Conference playoff hunt ...

Why not tank?

Enter the Riggin' for Wiggins sweepstakes to nail down a shot at Kansas freshman star Andrew Wiggins?

Yes, it's hard to get veteran players to tank, as well as a coach worried about job security.

But ... getting more of those Ping-Pong balls in front of the eyeballs of Adam Silver, replacing the lovely David Stern on lottery day, when you now know you're guaranteed to get a couple, is a no-brainer.

As for D'Antoni? Mitch Kupchak can offer him the appropriate guarantees of security.

That said, players are slower to heal as they get older, even Kobe Bryant. That just signed two-year extension has to look like an albatross in Kupchak's mind now.

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