Should more teams “trust the process” of tanking?

IF 1.9 4区经济学 Q2 ECONOMICS

Contemporary Economic Policy Pub Date : 2026-04-03 Epub Date: 2025-06-07 DOI:10.1111/coep.12705

Eduardo G. Minuci, Alexander Cardazzi, Candon Johnson

引用次数: 0

Abstract

In many professional sport leagues, the worst-performing teams receive higher probability of earning top draft picks. This provides teams incentives to purposefully lose, or “tank,” if they are not likely to contend for the playoffs or championships. We evaluate the effectiveness of tanking to improve team outcomes by examining the most explicit tanking case in the NBA: the “Trust the Process” Philadelphia 76ers. Using synthetic control, we demonstrate that tanking caused the 76ers to be more successful in terms of winning and operating income. However, only operating income had a plausibly positive present value when calculating discounted present values.

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是否应该有更多的球队“相信烂队的过程”？

在许多职业体育联盟中，表现最差的球队获得状元选秀权的可能性更高。如果球队不太可能争夺季后赛或总冠军，这就会激励他们故意输掉比赛。我们通过考察NBA中最明确的“信任过程”费城76人队，来评估烂打对提高球队成绩的有效性。使用综合控制，我们证明了76人在赢球和营业收入方面更成功。然而，在计算贴现现值时，只有营业收入具有合理的正现值。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Contemporary Economic Policy Multiple-

CiteScore

3.10

自引率

6.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： Contemporary Economic Policy publishes scholarly economic research and analysis on issues of vital concern to business, government, and other decision makers. Leading western scholars, including three Nobel laureates, are among CEP"s authors. The objectives are to communicate results of high quality economic analysis to policymakers, focus high quality research and analysis on current policy issues of widespread concern, increase knowledge among economists of features of the economy key to understanding the impact of policy, and to advance methods of policy analysis.