The Grizzlies Are No Longer Hiding Their Desire To Tank

The NBA's dirty little secret (or perhaps not so secret) involves the word tanking.

Let's be honest, all hoops fans know that the association’s bottom teams are trying everything they can to land the top pick. During the 2018 draft lottery, the team that has the worst record owns a 25 percent chance of garnering the number one slot. Starting in 2019, the top three teams will each have the same 14 percent chance of getting the top spot.

However they slice and dice it, the lottery-bound teams will continue to tank, and each and every year, there will be some really obvious cases. 

Monday night, in a very important contest for the Timberwolves, who have not yet clinched a playoff spot and who currently sit eighth in the West, are playing a bad Grizzlies squad, who are clearly not trying to win.

The below tweet, sent out by the team’s PR department, discloses how the squad is willfully playing a G League or practice squad lineup versus the Wolves.

.@memgrizz injury/status report, April 9 at @Timberwolves:

OUT
M. Conley (L heel)
M. Gasol (rest)
J. Green (R/L knee soreness)
A. Harrison (R wrist/L shoulder)
J. Martin (L ankle)
C. Parsons (R/L knee soreness)
W. Selden (R knee soreness)

T. Evans (personal) remains NWT.

— Grizzlies PR (@GrizzliesPR) April 9, 2018

If the NBA is trying to get rid of tanking, their efforts are clearly not working.