Take my word for it, as I know this from experience: it is not all that enticing to go to your favorite NBA team’s games when they’re a pathetic excuse for a franchise, at least as currently constructed at the time.
That was the case for me in the 2015-16 season, when I watched the Process-era 76ers win 10 games (somehow) while dropping 72 of them. That’s the third worst record in NBA history. According to Sports Reference’s all-encompassing Simple Rating System (SRS) scores, that 2015-16 iteration of the 76ers was the fourth-worst team since 2000, beaten out only by the 2011-12 Bobcats, 2013-14 Sixers and 2020-21 Thunder. The best player on the team was probably 21-year-old Nerlens Noel, whose presence in Philly was so deeply valued and so connected to the fan base… that he was dealt 29 games into the following season without much heartbreak.
Simply put, there was little-to-no reason to want to go to any of those games, and the same can probably be said for teams like the 2020-21 Pistons and post-James Harden 2021 Rockets. Spencer Dinwiddie, who probably won't find himself in a similar scenario on the 2021-22 Wizards, floated a solution for that problem in his new Players' Tribune series, “Commissioner for a Day.”
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The first of his eight-part series focused on how these aforementioned tanking teams can still get fans to want to attend home games, and it features a level of interactivity between the teams and the audience — both those at the game and on their couches. The premise? Tanking teams, with no winning aspirations, could allow the fans to help select which lineups they want to see toward the end of a game.
“Every in-arena fan gets a free vote, and every out-of-arena fan has to pay $10 to vote on this,” Dinwiddie said. “So now, you make it more captivating. There’s a premium or something like that to be at the game, because not only are you going to be choosing this lineup, you’re going to be watching the lineup that you chose and voted on. But then everybody that’s not at the game, that’s sitting at home and watching TV, you’re also drawing them in because they feel like they helped choose. But you’re also creating another monetization vertical.
“...If you’re, you know, the Cleveland Cavaliers right now, why not? If it puts a couple more butts in the seats during your tanking season, who cares?”
Dinwiddie explained that debuting it during the final stretch of the regular season for a handful of teams whose playoff hopes have long expired may work best, so long as it’s also done in a safe manner.
“I’ve been on… teams that have missed the playoffs, and one of those Nets teams had a really, really bad year,” Dinwiddie recalled. “If you told us the last five games or so, like, they’re going to pick the fourth-quarter lineup, is it going to be that big of a deal? No.
“...And remember, for teams that aren’t doing well on any given year, it’s hard on their fan base. Why not make it fun for them?”
Here are a couple of my thoughts. For one, being able to choose which players you personally want to see out on the floor is a cool idea, specifically for the scenarios Dinwiddie outlined. For instance, Dinwiddie’s Nets were 19-60 with a few games left to go in the 2016-17 season. If I could have requested to see a lineup of Jeremy Lin, Spencer Dinwiddie, Caris LeVert, Quincy Acy (the Cookie Monster!) and Brook Lopez, that would absolutely have enhanced the experience.
Then again, what if players aren’t on the same wavelength as Dinwiddie. What if someone really wants to rest? What if a coach wants to give young players exposure at the end of a lost season so that they can earn their stripes going forward? What if players don’t like the feeling of being “controlled,” in a sense, by the audience, who can command that they enter a game at will because that’s what this new experience allows?
It’s a cool thought, but is it a realistic one? I’m going to be a pessimist on this one. With that said, I can’t wait to see what other ideas Dinwiddie has to offer going forward.
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