The "sometimes when you lose, you really win" tanking paradox -- The Week in Green

The Week in Green traces a long history of sporting underhandedness, from the 1920 World Series fix by eight Chicago White Sox conspirators to modern NBA tanking discussions. It highlights Eddie Cicotte’s 1920 confession and Landis’s lifetime bans, then jumps to the 1980s, when Donald Sterling and other figures flirted with losing games to improve drafts, including the Rockets’ 1984 top-pick tally that yielded Hakeem Olajuwon and the Bulls’ Michael Jordan pick later. The piece also notes late-1990s tanking for Tim Duncan and Sam Hinkie’s 2010s Philadelphia 76ers push for multiple top picks. It argues that tanking and gambling share a moral calculus, challenging readers to consider integrity in sport.