Review of "Built to Lose"

A hot topic in sports today is "tanking" - purposely losing in order to improve a team's draft position in their respective sport.  While it is talked about in all the major sports, this book concentrates on basketball and the NBA and does a good job of teaching the reader the management and culture of those teams who have engaged in the practice.  Here is my review of "Built to Lose."

Title/Author: “Built to Lose: How the NBA’s Tanking Era Changed the League Forever” by Jake Fisher

Rating: 4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review:  In basketball, more than any other professional sport, one draft pick can make or break a team’s future success.  Therefore, draft picks, or more correctly, draft capital, are considered a very valuable commodity.  Because the NBA draft lottery does not guarantee that the worst teams will get the first pick, some teams may want to accumulate draft capital in addition to losing more games, known as “tanking”, in order to improve their draft position.  How this was done by some NBA franchises in the five year period between 2013 to 2018 is chronicled in this very good book by Jake Fisher.

Fisher conducted many interviews with players, coaches and team management personnel to collect the information and stories he uses throughout the book and it provides very good insight into the workings of those teams who sought to improve their draft capital.  While several teams are discussed in the book, the primary focus was on the Philadelphia 76ers and their “process”, as it was called, in obtaining draft capital at the expense of wins.  They came very close to breaking their own record for the worst full season but did get some valuable picks. 

Other teams include two that might surprise people – the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers.  While both of those storied franchises may not come to mind when the subject is tanking, they did fit the profile that Fisher gives to teams who may lose many games, trade veteran players for draft picks or realize that it may be more beneficial to try to gain draft capital instead of chasing a low playoff spot.  The results are mixed – the Celtics and Lakers did not take long to go back to their winning ways while others, such as the 76ers (on the rise, but not a champion yet) or the Minnesota Timberwolves (still struggling at the time of the book’s publication) have not seen the fruits of this type of management.

While the book is a good look at this type of management of a basketball franchise, the stories jump around and at times it’s hard to keep up with all the different names and stories being discussed.  Because of that, no one team’s experience is described fully.  Not even the 76ers’ story could be considered complete here.  There is another book on their process that is recommended if the reader wants to know more about them specifically – “Tanking to the Top” by Yaron Weitzman.  But if a reader wants to learn more about this type of management in a more general sense, this is good reference.

Link:  https://www.amazon.com/Built-Lose-Tanking-Changed-Forever-ebook/dp/B091FVVKFR/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1647543251&sr=1-1