The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

It might be a stretch to call this a superhero movie, but it is based on a graphic novel published by DC (written by Alan Moore), and it's a movie I've always secretly wanted to see, even though it sucks. The basic premise of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is simple. It takes a bunch of public domain characters from 19th century literature, pits them together, and sends them on adventures. It is also partly responsible for the steam punk craze that seems to continue to grow each year. Now, I haven't read Alan Moore's original work yet, so I can only compare this movie to my personal imagination and expectations.

This movie is notable for being Sean Connery's last. He was paid $17 million, given Executive Producer credits, and also got into fights with director Stephen Norrington. Norrington hasn't directed very many films, but one of them was Blade, which I hated. So I can easily see how Connery would be frustrated with him to the point of retiring from the business altogether after filming this mess. Anyway, Connery, by far the most well-known actor, ironically plays the least-known character, Allan Quatermain. I guess Quatermain was popular in England back in the day. Like, way back in the day. He was a big game hunter in Africa, back when reading stories about a guy hunting lions was the coolest thing imaginable. This movie added a supernatural aspect to Quatermain, saying a witch doctor blessed him to never die in Africa. Since Connery demanded so much money, Fox didn't have the budget to add any other big names. So I'll just dive into my summary/review and introduce the characters as they appear in the movie.

The movie got off to a very weird start. It's 1899, and the terrorist known as the Phantom is robbing a bank. Not for money, but for the blueprints for Venice. And to accomplish this robbery, he uses one of the first tanks. As it barrels down the road in London, the police are quite baffled by its appearance. One officer stands directly in front of it and repeatedly orders it to halt. The others run out of the way, but he remains stalwart, only to be run over by the tank. It's an exact repeat of the steamroller scene in the first Austin Powers movie, only this wasn't supposed to be funny. What's even more perplexing about this scene is that Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery came out in 1997, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen came out in 2003. Did they think we'd forget that hilarious scene from six years earlier?

So as the opening scene so painfully established, this is a very juvenile film. Which is odd, considering the target audience was likely high schoolers who had actually read a few of the books represented in this movie. But these "sophisticated" teenagers (of which I counted myself as one) were subjected to fight scene after fight scene that were more befitting a 7-year-old than a 17-year-old. Case in point, the first fight for Quatermain. A British official journeys to Africa to recruit the legendary hunter to stop the Phantom from igniting a world war. Quatermain is immediately attacked by the Phantom's men, and this fight involves way too much furniture for my liking. He even kills a guy by shoving a painting into his face and pushing him into a rhino's horn. Seriously? How can such a cheesy movie take itself so seriously?

So anyway, Quatermain journeys to London to meet with the mysterious man named M, who is recruiting the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. We first meet Captain Nemo, who is an Indian pirate with advanced technology, including his massive submarine, the Nautilus. He has a large crew of pirates who occasionally help out in a fight, but mostly just run the ship. Despite providing the most to the team, Nemo is not the leader, nor is he very interesting. They tried to spice him up by making him an expert fencer, martial artist, and a man who worships the Indian god of death. But none of those things helped. He is just a very boring character.

Up next is the Invisible Man, who is constantly naked the whole movie. He occasionally puts on an overcoat, but never pants or shoes. That really bugs me. He would freeze and get injured and overall be incredibly uncomfortable. The filmmakers also seemed to have a hard time deciding what to do with him, as he literally disappeared for half the movie.

We next meet Mina Harker, who is from Bram Stoker's Dracula. In the book, her husband is the first one to meet Dracula and recognize him as a vampire. In the movie, Mina's husband is long dead, and she is a vampire, even though she wasn't in the book or the graphic novel. Unlike most vampires, who are cursed by their powers, Mina doesn't appear to suffer from any side effects. There's no mention of the sun killing her, or garlic, or anything. She just randomly bites somebody's neck or flies around in a cloud of bad-CGI bats. Honestly, the most interesting thing about her is that she used to be Dorian Gray's girlfriend.

Dorian Gray is from an old short story about a man who remains the same age while a painting of him ages and reflects all the sins he's committed. The story ends with him confessing his sins and stabbing the painting himself. The injury he performs to the painting reflects on himself and he finally dies. In the movie, they simplified it by saying that once he looks at the painting, he dies. And he's quite concerned because someone has stolen that painting.

The next character to join the team was actually a studio mandate. They decided that this cast needed someone younger and American to keep audiences interested. So they brought in Tom Sawyer, who's now a young adult and member of the U.S. Secret Service. Turns out the studio was right. Sawyer is probably the most entertaining member of the team, and he adds some depth to Quatermain's character. Apparently Quatermain's son was killed in combat and he blames himself for not training him. But Sawyer reminds him of his son, and they have a couple of nice moments together.

The last member of the team is Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, who Quatermain and Sawyer need to hunt down in Paris. In the original story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mr. Hyde was not a giant hulking monster. He was just a vicious, out-of-control man that killed for pleasure. But as in most movies, this version of Mr. Hyde is a giant, hulking monster. And although they tried to initially make a big deal of how dangerous he is, he never actually does anything bad. He immediately agrees to join the team when they say they'll take him back to London, and he only ever helps them throughout the movie. He's in complete control the whole time, which makes him terribly boring for me. He's very much like the Hulk in The Avengers. I also wasn't a fan of his transformations. They were always very jerky because they were trying to hide that they were adding or taking off parts of his costume. You'd think they would've used some CGI to smooth out the transformations, but I guess Sean Connery's salary ate too much out of the special effect budget.

So now that the team is finally assembled, they all board Nemo's sub to head to Venice to save it from the Phantom, who unfortunately is almost nothing like the Phantom of the Opera. Missed opportunity. Anyway, Dr. Jekyll discovers that someone stole one of his Mr. Hyde vials, and everybody instantly blames the Invisible Man. And this is where he completely disappears from the movie, and we don't even mention him again until the end.

Once they're in Venice, they need to race ahead to stop a bomb, so Tom Sawyer jumps in Nemo's brand new "auto-mobile" and instantly knows how to drive it like a race car, even though they made a big deal of the fact that no one had even seen or heard of a car before. Anyway, we get a lot of stupid fighting, and then Quatermain learns that the Phantom is actually M. And we see that the spy is actually Dorian Gray, and he escapes as soon as everybody else learns it.

Conveniently, Dorian left behind a phonograph recording detailing his plot. Confusingly, the movie showed Dorian and M making this recording in a scratchy black-and-white video. But our heroes weren't given a video to watch, just audio to listen to. So why did the bad guys pose dramatically and look directly into a non-existent camera when they recorded this? Anyway, they explain that the whole League and attack on Venice was just a ruse to acquire samples from them. M is creating a super army of his own, so he sent Dorian to steal blueprints of Nemo's sub, grab a bit of the Invisible Man's skin, get some of Mina's blood, and steal some of the Mr. Hyde formula. The movie painstakingly shows us each and every moment this occurred, spelling things out so simply that even a 5-year-old could follow it.

This brings me to another fundamental complaint of the movie. Every single scene and piece of dialogue in the first half of the movie is obvious, blatant foreshadowing for the second half. It is nice to have everything link together nicely, but this was too nice. I felt like I was being babied, and nothing in the movie felt organic. It was all very predictable and stale. This hearkens back to the movie's attempt to appeal to a younger audience, even though most kids under the age of 10 would have no interest in watching this movie since they've never heard of half of the characters.

So yeah, I'll just skip to the end now. Our heroes track the bad guys to M's secret castle in Russia, and the Invisible Man conveniently returns at the end, saying he knew no one would believe he wasn't the spy, so he just kept quiet, following everybody around in the nude. We then jump in to the epic final battle. Mr. Hyde has to fight a giant red Mr. Hyde monster that looks pretty fake, and the Invisible Man has to fight another guy who turned himself invisible. Mina, however, doesn't have any vampires to fight, so she takes on Dorian Gray, who was only helping M because he had his painting. The Mina/Dorian fight is naturally quite boring, and she ultimately defeats him by forcing him to look at his painting. In some of the worst CGI of the movie, Dorian rapidly ages and turns to dust. For inspiration, this movie should have looked back at an earlier Sean Connery movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which did the exact same trick much more convincingly without the aid of advanced CGI.

Quatermain naturally gets to fight M at the end, and we learn that M is really James Moriarty, which means absolutely nothing in this movie. There was no mention of him or Sherlock Holmes earlier, so I really didn't see the point besides dropping another name from 19th century literature. Tom Sawyer delivers the killing blow to Moriarty, but Quatermain also died in the fight, so they bury him in Africa. As the heroes walk away from his grave, a witch doctor approaches it, does a little dance, and conjures a lightning bolt. And the movie ends.

Fox was hoping they'd be able to start a franchise with this movie, so they very carefully set up Sean Connery's death to cover all their bases. If he wanted to come back for a sequel, they could have said the witch doctor revived him. If he didn't, they could have said he remained dead. Or if he only wanted to return for a cameo they could have still revived him but kept him in Africa. Well, it turns out that Fox didn't need to worry about any of that. The movie had a budget of $78 million and made $179 million, which wasn't quite enough to overcome all the negative reviews to justify a sequel. So Sean Connery retired, and since he was the main draw for this movie, nobody was interested in watching or even making another movie without Connery.

I honestly don't know if the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen could be a good movie. But I do know that this movie really sucked, and I hope nobody tries to do a remake for a long time. There are a lot of other better superheroes out there that deserve to have movies made. So let's keep these literary characters in the pages of actual literature for now.

Final score: 0

Hulk

I've been avoiding this movie for a solid decade. But now, I've finally seen 2003's Hulk, and while it still is a terrible movie, it isn't as bad as I thought it'd be. Ang Lee, of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame, was the director, Eric Bana was Bruce Banner, Jennifer Connelly his girlfriend, Betty Ross, Sam Elliott her dad, General Ross, and Nick Nolte was the villain of this movie, Bruce's dad, David Banner. Universal held the rights to this movie — they even built a massive Hulk roller coaster in Florida — but it took them nearly 15 years to get the movie started. They went through tons of different scripts, including a comedy with Jim Carrey, and even the great J.J. Abrams was involved at one point. When they finally settled on the direction they wanted to go, Edward Norton was the lead candidate to play Banner, but he was disappointed with the script. Luckily, he did return for the superior sequel/reboot.

At the end of the day, Universal poured $137 million into this movie, plus tons and tons of money on advertising. I remember Hulk stuff being everywhere — annoyingly so. Universal even paid for a big commercial during the Super Bowl, but the special effects weren't ready, and it looked like crap. Even though this was 2003, we already had the Star Wars prequels, Spider-Man, X-Men, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, so we had developed pretty high standards for special effects. However, the excitement to see the Hulk on the big screen was still very high, and it opened to a very large weekend. But then word of mouth instantly killed the movie, and it set a record for having the largest drop ever from the opening weekend. Ultimately, Hulk did earn more than $245 million, but Universal was expecting a lot more from all their advertising dollars spent. Plus, the fans — casual and hardcore — absolutely hated this movie, prompting Universal to give the rights back to Marvel. So now that the background's out of the way, let's head into the synopsis/review to see just how bad Hulk was.

The opening credits were actually pretty cool. They started in the 1960s, with David Banner conducting experiments on regeneration qualities. He starts with jellyfish, starfish and sea cucumbers, eventually working his way up to more complex animals like lizards and even monkeys. It's a really neat storytelling device that crams in a lot of information if you pay attention. We also get a pretty fun theme by Danny Elfman, but unfortunately, it seemed that Ang Lee didn't care for Elfman's music, as at least 50 percent of this movie has no music whatsoever.

So anyway, David Banner is a scientist working on a military base, and he thinks he's found a breakthrough in his regeneration formula. But his superior, Sam Ross, sees how risky it is, and he prevents Banner from testing it on humans. So, like all good mad scientists, Banner naturally tries it on himself, but nothing happens to him. Later, his wife becomes pregnant, and gives birth to a son, Bruce. Whenever little Bruce gets angry, parts of him turn a slight shade of grayish green. David realizes that his serum passed on to his son, and he begins to try to find an antidote for Bruce. When Bruce is 4 years old, Ross finds David still working on the forbidden research, and he officially shuts him down this time. David snaps, causing an explosion at his lab, runs home, has a heated argument with his wife, then the screen cuts black.

So that's our new origin for the Hulk … mostly. Surprisingly, I'm not too bothered by it at this point in the movie. I mean, originally in the comics, Bruce Banner only turned into the Hulk at night — it had nothing to do with anger. So I'm alright with a few tweaks, even if this is a bit overly-complicated. I suppose I should also take this moment to address the much-derided split-screen effect Ang Lee used constantly in this movie. I suppose the desire was to make the movie feel more like a comic book, which I believe is a terrible mistake. Comics should be comics and movies should be movies. Take the same stories and characters, but don't try to re-create the experience of seeing multiple panels of action on each page. Having said that, there were a few moments where the split-screen trick was used to good effect — to actually show multiple things at once, or to symbolically illustrate emotional distance between characters. But most of the time, the split-screens simply showed the exact same action from a slightly different angle. That's when it became really annoying.

Let's head back to the movie, which has now skipped ahead 30 years to Bruce Banner arriving at his work at a fancy lab. This is where we get our Stan Lee cameo, who is a security guard with Lou Ferringo, the Hulk from '70s TV show. Sadly, this unfunny scene is the closest thing this movie ever comes to any sort of comedy. There is not a drop of humor in this whole film, and it suffers because of it. Anyway, Bruce is still working with his ex-girlfriend, Betty Ross, and some unnamed, unimportant assistant. I'm not sure why they stressed the fact that Betty and Bruce were exes, when it really didn't seem to affect the story at all. As for Betty, I can't stand her one bit. She is cold, emotionless, and constantly whispering. This movie was so, so quiet, with way too many scenes of people just sitting around whispering at each other.

There is one nice spot in the film when Daniel Dae Kim, from "Lost," appears. He's a soldier named Kim (so I guess he starred as himself?), but only shows up for one scene. I'm not saying he would have saved this movie, but it would have been nice to see more of him. Anyway, I'd better try to get back to this plot, but it's really hard to do, since it jumps around so much with flashbacks, dreams, and dreams in flashbacks. No joke. At one point, Bruce is sadly looking at picture of him and Betty, and he remembers a time when she told him about a dream she had that was half-memory. When she was 2, living on the same military base as Bruce, her dad was urgently called away after David Banner blew up the lab. Then Betty's early memory shifts into a dream when an adult Bruce comes in to protect her, but then starts choking her. And the movie is full of crap like that. Ang Lee puts a lot of stock in dreams, but I could have done without them. They just bogged everything down.

We finally get to the big "accident" scene, and this is where the origin story starts to unravel a bit. The unnamed assistant is stuck in the lab, and it about to be bombarded with gamma rays! Luckily, the heroic Bruce steps in from of him to absorb the blast of radiation. Umm … wouldn't that go right through him? Anyway, the problem with this scene is that it's anti-climatic. This was supposed to be the big event that triggered his transformation. But we've already spent half an hour meticulously explaining that the Hulk was already inside Banner. So what was the point of the big accident? It doesn't even trigger the initial transformation. We just skip to him in a hospital bed, saying how good he feels. How boring.

That night, the mysterious custodian comes to visit Bruce and reveals himself as — shocker! — his dad! He said he'd been locked away for 30 years, but now he's out and he's been tracking Bruce because of the serum in him. Bruce yells at him, and he goes away. The next morning, a completely worthless character named Talbot apparently shuts down Bruce's research. Or something like that. I don't really care. I guess Talbot is some corrupt military contractor that wants the regeneration serum that Bruce and Betty happened to be working on. Anyway, whatever he did, it must have been pretty devastating to Bruce, because it caused his first transformation into the Hulk. This happens at the 41-minute mark of the movie (way too long for my taste) and it occurred in an empty lab at night. So all he does is smash up some equipment, then runs to Betty's home and goes to sleep. What should have been an extremely powerful moment in the film ended up rather boring. Maybe it wouldn't have been so bad if we didn't have to wait so long for it.

Now I need to discuss the Hulk himself. He is the primary special effect in this movie, and its entire success is dependent on getting him right. But they didn't. He looks pretty fake. What really messes him up is his very bright shade of green. This whole movie is very dark, drab and serious. All the colors, actors, and scenery are muted and plain. Then suddenly this enormous, almost-neon green thing appears and dominates the screen for the second half of the movie. It just felt so out of place. Almost like the Hulk ruined this movie called Hulk. They really should have made him a darker shade of green and mixed some gray in with him, like they eventually did in The Incredible Hulk. But that would've only helped so much. The Hulk only looked somewhat realistic when they did a closeup on his sad face. The rest of the time, it didn't feel like he was interacting with the other characters and scenery — just this big floating green blob. Another interesting thing they added was making him literally grow larger the angrier he got. I used to like this concept as a kid, but I think I've kind of grown out of it now, especially after seeing how ridiculous it looked in this movie. The only thing worse than a 10-foot-tall cheesy-looking Hulk is a 20-foot-tall cheesy-looking Hulk. In summation, you could throw out every other aspect of this movie, and pin everything on the Hulk. The Hulk sucked, so the movie sucked.

Back to our crappy film, Bruce awakens from his first transformation at Betty's house. She tells him that their lab was destroyed and she asks where he was last night. He says, "I had the most vivid dream. It was like I was being born again. Coming up for air." OK … that's a pretty good description of what it feels like to be the Hulk, but that doesn't answer the question. Nor does it sound like a very vivid dream. I think the word vivid requires some details with it. Anyway, General Ross shows up to interrupt this awkward breakfast scene, and he immediately starts grilling Bruce about where his dad is. He also implies about some tragedy from when Bruce was 4, but he doesn't elaborate. If Ross was smart enough to track down Bruce Banner, then why couldn't he find David Banner? This only looks worse, when Betty easily tracks down David.

This is where Ang Lee just stops caring about characters' motives, personalities, and logic. He just has people do bad things for the sake of being bad in order to create conflict and an excuse for Bruce to turn into the Hulk again. Betty has a very boring and awkward whispering conversation with David, and he steals her scarf to give to his dogs. David then calls Bruce to tell him that he's given his dogs the serum and has sent them out to kill Betty. Why? Why does he want to kill her and why does he bother telling Bruce this? Talbot then visits Bruce in his home and starts beating the crap out of him for no reason. Maybe he said why, something about government contracts, I guess, I don't know or care, but it definitely didn't feel like something worth physically assaulting someone over. Naturally, this causes Bruce to turn into the Hulk, and he does enough damage to Talbot to kill him, but he miraculously survives. Hulk then runs to Betty's aid, and fights three very fake-looking dogs. And one of the dogs is a poodle. I can imagine someone asking Ang Lee why one of the dogs had to be a poodle, and him answering, "Shut up! That's why!"

The whole dog fight is incredibly stupid for three reasons. One, the dogs looked terrible. CGI at its worst. Two, Betty was "trapped" in her truck, couldn't start the engine, but then did, then decided to turn it off and stay there to watch this 15-foot-tall green giant fight three monstrous dogs. At this point, Betty doesn't know the Hulk is Bruce. So why is she staying? Run! Run far away from these monsters! And the third reason this fight sucked ties into the first reason. Whenever the Hulk killed one of the dogs, it instantly evaporated into a cloud of green smoke. This isn't a video game! … Or is it? If it is, it reminds me a lot of those Metal Gear Solid games with boring movies of everybody sitting around and talking for over an hour.

So now the movie has fallen past the point of no return. It's hit rock bottom and can't possibly get any worse, although it certainly does try. Betty betrays Bruce and turns him in to her dad, who takes him to a super-secure facility at the Salt Flats. For some reason, Talbot is put in charge, and he wants to turn Bruce into the Hulk so he can extract a sample from him. He initially says that he doesn't care if Bruce dies, because he can then acquire his sample through the autopsy. But then once the Hulk is running loose through the halls, he starts screaming at everybody to use nonlethal weapons so he can extract his sample. He momentarily stops the Hulk with some foam, and tries to personally get his "sample" by attempting to drill into the Hulk's eyeball, I guess. But this makes Hulk mad, and he breaks out of the foam, so Talbot grabs a rocket launcher to shoot at the Hulk. What happened to nonlethals? Anyway, the rocket shell bounces off the Hulk's chest and explodes behind Talbot in one of the weirdest movie deaths I've seen. He leapt into the front of the frame, which froze, cut him out like a bad Photoshop job, then condensed the image to a comic book panel. I guess really stupid characters deserve really stupid deaths.

So with Talbot's death, Ross is back in charge, and he decides to lure the Hulk outside, because, you know, he didn't want Hulk to smash up his secret Salt Flats lab — just all the innocent people out in the world. Ross personally gets in a helicopter and chases the Hulk around a scenic tour of the most famous national parks in Utah, including Delicate Arch. Apparently Ang Lee was banking on the fact that most people in the world aren't very familiar with Utah's geography, and would't notice that Hulk, the helicopters, and the tanks traveled 500 miles in two seconds.

Now, this is probably the best part of the movie — it's certainly what we've wanted all along — the Hulk to smash up some tanks. But it was hurt by the geography errors and the stupid fact that the Hulk doesn't kill anyone. They went to great lengths to show all the soldiers crawl out of the tanks or say they were fine over the radio when they clearly should have died. So ultimately, the only things the Hulk kills in this movie are the dogs, since Talbot kind of killed himself. I don't have a problem with the Hulk not killing, but when he performs actions violent enough to kill people, then they should be dead.

So anyway, Ross kind of stops the Hulk by blowing up priceless rock formations to bury him under. Naturally, this doesn't work, and Hulk suddenly shows up at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge. Fearing for Betty's safety, Ross quickly arrives there a moment later, since Utah and San Francisco are so close to each other. At one point, the Hulk performs his single act of heroism by jumping on a fighter jet so it doesn't crash into the bridge. The jet eventually shakes Hulk by flying up into the edge of the atmosphere, and it was a pretty neat scene. Finally, Betty gets the bright idea to show up to try to calm down the Hulk. So she instantly arrives, and the Hulk instantly turns back into Bruce.

At this point, I really wanted the movie to end. We've already hit the two-hour mark, and it felt much longer. But no, we still need to have one more confrontation with Bruce's dad. Since seeing the Hulk, David tried to replicate the experiment, but it instead gave him the ability to absorb materials he touches and turn his body into that material. Yeah, that makes sense, right? Anyway, he gets the bright idea to use his new powers to drain all the power from the Hulk. So he turns himself in to General Ross, contingent on him meeting Bruce in person. For some reason, Ross agrees to this request, and we get a very long, very boring scene of Bruce and David talking. David rants and raves forever about the corrupt nature of society, then in a moment of sheer lunacy, picks up a wire and bites into it. This turns him into a being of electricity. Conveniently, Bruce also turns into the Hulk, so these two can now fight. They kind of blast up into the clouds, and we only see quick still images of Hulk "fighting" his dad in the clouds. They then land on a bunch of rocks by a lake. David turns into some rocks for a bit, but then Hulk throws him in the lake. David then turns into water, and starts to drown the Hulk, trying to absorb his energy. Then the lake instantly freezes, and Betty Ross is conveniently on hand to explain to us that they're absorbing all the ambient energy. Of course! Why couldn't I see that!

Well, just when you thought things got weird enough, the Hulk says to his dad, "You want my power? You think you can handle it? Take it! Take it ALL!" And then David turns into a mushroom cloud(?) shouting, "YES! YES! NO! Take it back! Take it back! It won't stop!" Huh? Luckily, everything ends when Ross drops a nuke on them. And one year later, we see Bruce helping people in South America.

Well, that was … that. Ang Lee definitely had some good ideas, but I think he over-thought some stuff and under-thought some really important stuff. Luckily, there is another Hulk movie out there I can enjoy, so I can continue to ignore this film and pretend it doesn't exist like I have for the past 10 years.

Final score: 0

A deeper look at tanking (Part 2)

Hey, don't give me that look, Alec. You should be celebrating! A 1-14 record is rather impressive — and exactly what the Jazz want to be doing. The best route to improving this franchise is through losing a lot of games, aka, tanking. In the first part of this post, I took a look at all the teams that made the conference finals from 1984 to 1998, and I found that almost half of those teams acquired their best player through nothing more than losing a bunch of games. Let's see how the past 15 years look.

1998-99:

*Spurs: Tim Duncan (Finals MVP) — 1st pick in 1997 (20-62)
Knicks: Latrell Sprewell — trade with Golden State in 1999
Blazers: Isaiah Rider — trade with Minnesota in 1996
Pacers: Reggie Miller — 11th pick in 1987 (41-41)

The '98-99 season sucked. The lockout limited it to just 50 games, and I firmly believe had this been a normal season, the Jazz would have finally won a championship. But that's just wishful thinking. Instead, the Spurs got their first title behind the stellar play of Tim Duncan, who helps prove the tanking theory. Now, David Robinson sat out most of the '96-97 season with injury, but I don't think the Spurs were ignorant about the possibility of drafting Duncan. I think they were quite content to allow Robinson to heal completely and thoroughly, while they limped to a 20-win season. And then just two years later, that top draft pick led them to the ultimate prize. But the other three teams in the conference finals this season did not use the tanking strategy. Patrick Ewing was still on this Knicks roster, but he was injured throughout much of New York's improbable run through the playoffs. Instead, they were led by Latrell Sprewell, who they acquired in one of the most successful mid-season trades in NBA history. For the Blazers, I had a hard time choosing their best player. They were a really well-balanced team, and I seem to remember Brian Grant hurting the Jazz more than anyone else. Rasheed Wallace was also there, but he hadn't quite developed into his All-Star potential. So I stuck with their leading scorer, the turbulent J.R. Rider. But none of those players were drafted by Portland, so there was no tanking there. And as I said in my last post, the Pacers were a playoff team the year before they drafted Reggie, so I don't count them as a tanking team, either.

1999-00:

Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal (MVP & Finals MVP) — free agent in 1996
Pacers: Reggie Miller
Blazers: Rasheed Wallace — trade with Washington in 1996
Knicks: Latrell Sprewell

This was the year that Shaq finally started living up to his full potential. And even though he was a No. 1 overall pick, he ditched his original team (Orlando) to chase the glitz and glamor of Hollywood. After his acting and rapping career failed to take off, he started to focus more on basketball thanks to the arrival of Phil Jackson and the emergence of Kobe Bryant. I don't think it should surprise anyone that the Lakers never were a tanking team on my list. What is surprising is that for the first time since 1984, not a single conference final team was led by a tanking success. Rasheed Wallace was a lottery pick — for the Washington Bullets. So all these teams got here more or less through intelligent front office moves. Maybe the lottery system is doing its job at preventing tanking.

2000-01:

Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal (Finals MVP)
*76ers: Allen Iverson (MVP) — 1st pick in 1996 (18-64)
*Spurs: Tim Duncan
Bucks: Ray Allen — 5th pick in 1996 (traded by Minnesota)

Well, so much for the lottery putting an end to tanking. Philadelphia got a great score after an awful 18-win season. And in the 2001 playoffs, Allen Iverson (almost single-handidly) gave the Lakers their only loss. And Milwaukee is not considered a tanking team by a mere technicality. They acquired Ray Allen through a draft-day trade, but they definitely tanked to get in position to make that trade. However, I credit their GM for dumping off Stephon Marbury for the superior Allen. Which one of those guys is still in the league?

2001-02:

Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal (Finals MVP)
Nets: Jason Kidd — trade with Phoenix in 2001
Kings: Chris Webber — trade with Washington in 1998
*Celtics: Paul Pierce — 10th pick in 1998 (36-46)

Jason Kidd and Chris Webber were both high lottery picks in their day, but they both didn't reach this level of success until they were traded to their third team. We are definitely seeing less tanking teams, but they are still out there. A 36-win season doesn't feel like a "true" tanking season, where everybody completely gives up. But the Celtics were bad enough to get a lottery pick who eventually took them to the conference finals, so they fit under my definition.

2002-03:

*Spurs: Tim Duncan (MVP & Finals MVP)
Nets: Jason Kidd
Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki — 9th pick in 1998 (traded from Milwaukee)
Pistons: Ben Wallace — trade with Orlando in 2000

Dirk Nowitzki was a draft-day trade for a terrible Dallas team, but I give them credit for taking a chance on the unproven German player instead of sticking with the "sure thing" of Robert "Tractor" Traylor. For the Pistons, I could have chosen their leading scorer, Rip Hamilton, or their point guard, Chauncy Billups. But neither one of them seemed to really take over the team at this point. Ben Wallace, however, was Defensive Player of the Year and at the peak of his abilities with 15 rebounds and 3 blocks a game. The undrafted, undersized center was merely a throw-in for the Grant Hill sign-and-trade. And neither Hamilton nor Billups were drafted by the Pistons, so they built this team entirely without tanking.

2003-04:

Pistons: Chauncy Billups (Finals MVP) — free agent in 2002
Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal
Pacers: Jermaine O'Neal — trade with Portland in 2000
*Timberwolves: Kevin Garnett (MVP) — 5th pick in 1995 (21-61)

Chauncy Billups was originally drafted by Boston, then bounced around to three other teams before he finally found a home in Detroit. He also got pretty lucky to go against a Lakers team caught in a massive Shaq-Kobe feud and an injured Karl Malone unable to help. Reggie Miller was still on the Pacers, but had aged past the point of being their top player. In typical Indiana fashion, the Pacers found their new leader through a smart trade — not tanking. However, the Timberwolves completely tanked to get Kevin Garnett. Yes, he was a bit of a risk coming straight out of high school, but when you're a 21-win team, you can't really get much worse.

2004-05:

*Spurs: Tim Duncan (Finals MVP)
Pistons: Chauncy Billups
Suns: Steve Nash (MVP) — free agent in 2004
*Heat: Dwyane Wade — 5th pick in 2003 (25-57)

Steve Nash was actually drafted by the Suns with the 15th pick in the 1996 draft. But that was a non-tanking situation, and besides, he was traded to Dallas after just a couple of years. Nash then became an All-Star, but then Mark Cuban suddenly got cheap on him, so he rejoined his former team, where he became even better. In Miami, the arrival of Shaquille O'Neal was a really big deal, but this team was led by Dwyane Wade, who was one of the many prizes of the 2003 lottery, which Miami was more than willing to be a part of.

2005-06:

*Heat: Dwyane Wade (Finals MVP)
Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki
Pistons: Chauncy Billups
Suns: Steve Nash (MVP)

Dwyane Wade put up a dominant Finals performance with 34.7 ppg, 7.8 rpg and 3.8 apg. I watched that series right before I left on my mission, and I thought for sure that Wade was the next Jordan, and the Mavericks were his first victims. But then he got hurt and everything changed.

2006-07:

Spurs: Tony Parker (Finals MVP) — 28th pick in 2001 (58-24)
*Cavaliers: LeBron James — 1st pick in 2003 (17-65)
Pistons: Chauncy Billups
Jazz: Carlos Boozer — free agent in 2004

I still consider the Spurs to be Tim Duncan's team, and I think Tony Parker won this award mainly because of voter fatigue. However, his 24.5/5.0/3.3 was pretty nice — especially for the 28th pick in the draft. He also represents exactly how San Antonio has remained competitive all these years. After landing Duncan, they smartly built a good team around him by drafting intelligently and developing players, so they didn't need to tank again. The Cavs, however, tanked big time to get LeBron. They had the worst record in the league, and their coach at the time, John Lucas, later admitted that Cleveland was tanking. (Funnily, enough, this caused a bit of faux-outrage from Cleveland's owner. Why deny it? Embrace it!) The Jazz, sadly, decided to have another good season while I was in the Czech Republic. This team was anchored by Carlos Boozer, Memo Okur (both free agents) and Deron Williams. The Jazz did a pseudo-tank to get Williams by having a 26-win season then trading up to get him. That's the closest they've come to tanking. Will they be able to do it this year?

2007-08:

*Celtics: Paul Pierce (Finals MVP)
Lakers: Kobe Bryant (MVP) — 13th pick in 1996 (traded by Charlotte)
Pistons: Chauncy Billups
*Spurs: Tim Duncan

Of course, Paul Pierce wasn't the main reason for Boston's championship here. They made two very successful trades for a couple of guys named Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. However, Pierce was still the leader, and he was technically acquired through a tanking situation. Kobe Bryant finally got to take the Lakers to the Finals (although Pau Gasol helped a lot), but the Lakers didn't get him through tanking — or being particularly smart, either. There's a lot of debate on whether Kobe demanded a trade to L.A. or whether Charlotte was just desperate to get Vlade Divac. Knowing what I know about Kobe, I'm inclined to believe he refused, or would have refused, to play for Charlotte. But whatever you choose to believe, you can't deny that this was a non-tanking situation.

2008-09:

Lakers: Kobe Bryant (Finals MVP)
*Magic: Dwight Howard — 1st pick in 2004 (21-61)
*Cavaliers: LeBron James (MVP)
*Nuggets: Carmelo Anthony — 3rd pick in 2003 (17-65)

Now here are the tanking success stories! Orlando finished with the worst record in the league, landed the top pick, and took only a slight risk with high schooler Dwight Howard. In four years, he had them in the Finals — almost all you could ever hope for. Denver, if you remember, tied with Cleveland for the worst record, and chose Carmelo Anthony with their pick. True, they might have had more success with Dwyane Wade, but reaching the conference finals with Carmelo was a solid accomplishment. But the most important thing from this season is that three of these four teams didn't just tank — they completely bottomed out. And general managers took notice, and continue to try to replicate that success today. (And then they act outraged and vehemently deny all accusations that they would ever attempt to think about doing something as dastardly as tank a season.)

2009-10:

Lakers: Kobe Bryant (Finals MVP)
*Celtics: Paul Pierce
*Magic: Dwight Howard
Suns: Steve Nash

Not much to say for this season. The same handful of teams just keep rotating in and out. Probably the most important development we learned was that Cleveland did not successfully build a winning team around LeBron James. He realized it was too hard for him to win on his on, began to pout, then ditched Cleveland as soon as he could. Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard would later follow suit. What's interesting is that this very rarely happened in the '80s or '90s. Teams landed a supreme talent, then kept them and built around them. In the 2000s, teams continued to land the supreme talents through the same tactics (primarily losing), but they became less adept at keeping these players for the long term. Perhaps it has to do with the stricter salary cap.

2010-11:

Mavericks: Dirk Nowitzki (Finals MVP)
Heat: LeBron James — sign-and-trade with Cleveland in 2010
*Bulls: Derrick Rose (MVP) — 1st pick in 2008 (33-49)
*Thunder: Kevin Durant — 2nd pick in 2007 (31-51)

The Bulls and Thunder are both teams that spent a long time tanking, especially Chicago, who started the drill as soon as Jordan left. They suffered through many years in the lottery before they finally got lucky with Derrick Rose. The Thunder (formerly the Sonics) built their team with high draft picks in Russell Westbrook, James Harden, and most importantly, Kevin Durant. The salary cap forced Oklahoma City to break up that trio prematurely, but the takeaway lesson here is that tanking is rarely a one-season event. Sometimes it can take years of strikeouts before you hit it big (like Chicago), or sometimes you need to slowly build up an accumulation of top-tier talent (like OKC). Either way, Jazz fans should prepare themselves for this tanking session to last a while.

2011-12:

Heat: LeBron James (MVP & Finals MVP)
*Thunder: Kevin Durant
*Spurs: Tim Duncan
*Celtics: Paul Pierce

Again, not much to say here. This happened so recently that we all know what happened. We had the old guard (Spurs and Celtics) slowly being replaced by the new guard (Heat and Thunder). But even though LeBron was clearly the best player on Miami this year, the main reason he went there was because they already had Dwyane Wade, who was acquired through tanking. Just like how San Antonio and Boston wouldn't have been as competitive had they not had at least one truly awful season in their recent past.

2012-13:

Heat: LeBron James (MVP & Finals MVP)
*Spurs: Tim Duncan
Grizzlies: Zach Randolf — trade with Los Angeles Clippers in 2009
*Pacers: Paul George — 10th pick in 2010 (32-50)

Now we got a couple of newcomers here. I could have chosen Marc Gasol for Memphis — he was the Defensive Player of the Year — but I stuck with Randolf, their leading scorer and rebounder through the playoffs. But like Randolf, Gasol was traded to Memphis (as a throw-in with the Pau Gasol trade). Memphis' starting point guard, however, Mike Conley Jr., was acquired in the draft after the Grizzlies finished with the worst record in the NBA. So there was a fair amount of tanking on this team. Paul George was one of Indiana's spoils from destroying their team after the Malice at the Palace. It used to not bug me that the Jazz drafted Gordon Hayward one pick ahead of George, but lately that's really starting to annoy me. In a couple of years, that may become one of the worst draft picks made by Utah.

So, let's start tallying everything up. In the past 15 years, 24 of the 60 conference finals teams were led by a tanking success story. That's a 40 percent rate, which is slightly lower than the previous 15-year chunk. Altogether, over the past 30 years, 51 of the 120 teams (42.5 percent) were built by tanking. Looking at just the Finals MVPs, only five of the past 15 were acquired through tanking, whereas the previous 15-year chunk had 11 of 15. So it's getting harder to win by tanking, which is exactly what the NBA wants. But tanking still is perhaps the best way to improve for all teams not named the Los Angeles Lakers. Here's a look at all the teams that made my list:

Lakers: 15 appearances, 0 tanks
Pistons: 11 appearances, 3 tanks
Bulls: 9, 9
Celtics: 9, 9
Spurs: 9, 8
Pacers: 7, 1
Suns: 7, 1
Heat: 6, 2
Jazz: 6, 0
Blazers: 5, 0
Sonics/Thunder: 5, 2
Knicks: 4, 2
Magic: 4, 4
Mavericks: 4, 1
Rockets: 4, 4
Bucks: 3, 0
Cavaliers: 3, 2
76ers: 2, 1
Nets: 2, 0
Nuggets: 2, 1
Grizzlies: 1, 0
Kings: 1, 0
Timberwolves: 1, 1

So this chart means that over the past 30 years, the Lakers have reached at least the conference finals 15 times. They had three distinct dynasties, led by Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant. But none of those players were acquired by the Lakers' own lottery pick, i.e., a tanking situation. The Bulls made nine appearances, and each time were led by one of their tanking spoils (Michael Jordan and Derrick Rose). What I find most interesting with this list is the second-highest team with a zero in the tanking column: the Utah Jazz. They have never successfully tanked before. Every other team that's made it more than five times had at least one team led by a lottery pick. Except the Lakers, who can get away with that thanks to their ability to land marquee free agents. But the Jazz will never have that luxury.

Now tanking isn't the only solution. The Detroit Pistons enjoyed an enormous amount of success through a team led by Chauncy Billups and other players acquired through trade or free agency. And that's pretty much how the Jazz did things during Jerry Sloan's tenure. They always made the playoffs, and reached the Finals twice. But that was when the Jazz had a magnificent, hands-on owner and a Hall-of-Fame coach. Greg Miller isn't quite Larry H. Miller, and Tyrone Corbin is nowhere near Jerry Sloan. Without that front office stability and leadership, the Jazz will never be able to return to competitive form "the old-fashioned way." Their only hope is to completely bottom out and draft a guy who can single-handedly turn this team around.

So Jazz fans, sit back and enjoy the tanking. Laugh at their struggles and take pleasure in the coaches and players trying to find new ways to say, "We're not intentionally losing." And Jazz? Why not actually come out and say this season is a wash and that you're actually tanking? What's going to happen? Will the NBA fine you? Will the national media feign shock and wag their tongues at you? I doubt it. Be honest with yourself and the fans. We deserve it.

A deeper look at tanking (Part 1)

Tyrone Corbin knows what's up. So does Gordon Hayward, who recently shot 1-for-17 against New Orleans (I was hoping he'd break Chris Bosh's 1-for-18 record, alas!). GM Dennis Lindsey knew it, too, when he traded for Richard Jefferson (10.5 ppg on .371 FG%), Brandon Rush (1 game, 0 points) and Andris Biedrins (has not played a game yet, and will earn a $9 million salary this year). Corbin, Hayward, Lindsey and probably everybody else on the Jazz know that this season is a wash. Might as well throw your hands up in the air and trust in the tanking system. Corbin's hoping he can somehow prove he deserves to keep his job, Hayward's hoping he can play his way into a bigger contract next season, Jefferson's hoping he can show a contender he can still contribute, and Lindsey's hoping the Jazz lose enough games to get a great draft pick. It's Utah's best chance at rebuilding. The tried and true tactic of tanking.

In my last tanking post, I focused only on the teams that completely bottomed out. But tanking doesn't require a 12-win season. You just have to be bad enough to get a good draft pick. So today, I am looking at all the teams in the past 30 years that made the conference finals to determine whether their best player was acquired through tanking — or, in other words, all they had to do to get that player was lose enough games to get a high enough draft pick. If they traded for that pick or player, or signed him as a free agent, then I attribute that acquisition to good front office moves — not to the team's ineptitude. And I'm choosing the conference finalists because I think it's sometimes unrealistic to expect a championship. But a conference finals appearance makes a team a contender in my book. It usually means you had a solid, 50-win season and played in a dozen or so playoff games. And for many teams, that's about all they could ever hope for. So here's the first half of my list. I used an asterisk to mark the teams that tanked (or at least lost a bunch of games) to get their top player.

1983-84:

*Celtics: Larry Bird (MVP & Finals MVP) — 6th pick in 1978 after a 32-50 season
Lakers: Magic Johnson — 1st pick in 1979 (traded from New Orleans)
Bucks: Sidney Moncrief — 5th pick in 1979 (traded from Detroit)
*Suns: Walter Davis — 5th pick in 1977 (34-48)

Bird was the word in 1984. Too cheesy? Anyway, Larry Legend won the regular season MVP with 24.2 ppg, 10.1 rpg and 6.6 apg. In the Finals, he led Boston past the Lakers in seven games with 27.4/14.0/3.6. Although a 32-win season isn't exactly horrible, it was still bad enough to miss the playoffs and draft a great player, so I say the Celtics technically tanked to get Bird. Same with the Suns, even though Walter Davis was nowhere near the caliber of Larry Bird. He did lead the Suns with 20 ppg in the regular season and nearly 25 in the playoffs, as he helped Phoenix upset the Jazz in the second round. The Lakers lucked into Magic Johnson thanks to the willingness of the New Orleans Jazz to sacrifice their future for Gail Goodrich, and Sidney Moncrief was acquired in a draft-day trade, preventing him from earning a "tank" status.

1984-85:

Lakers: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Finals MVP) — sign-and-trade with Milwaukee in 1975
*Celtics: Larry Bird (MVP)
76ers: Moses Malone — free agent in 1982
Nuggets: Alex English — trade with Indiana in 1980

By this point, I already consider the Lakers to be Magic's team, but Kareem did put up one heck of a Finals that year with 25.7/9.0/5.2. Of course, the Lakers got him simply because they were based in L.A. and they were the Lakers and Kareem wanted to play there. Moses Malone signed with Philadelphia so he could win a championship with Dr. J, which he did in 1983. The 76ers had just drafted Charles Barkley in 1984, but Malone was still their leading scorer and rebounder. Alex English had already proven himself as a valuable player before he was traded for George McGinnis.

1985-86:

*Celtics: Larry Bird (MVP & Finals MVP)
*Rockets: Hakeem Olajuwon — 1st pick in 1984 (29-53)
Lakers: Magic Johnson
Bucks Sidney Moncrief

Hakeem the Dream is one of the most successful tanking stories in NBA history. After finishing with the second-worst record, the Rockets won the coin toss, and followed Olajuwon to the Finals just two years later. Of course, their win over the Lakers was somewhat miraculous, and the Celtics did subsequently crush them, but it was still a great season for Houston.

1986-87:

Lakers: Magic Johnson (MVP & Finals MVP)
*Celtics: Larry Bird
*Pistons: Isiah Thomas — 2nd pick in 1981 (21-61)
Sonics: Dale Ellis — trade with Dallas in 1986

Isiah Thomas is another great tanking story. Going from 61 losses to 52 wins in five seasons is pretty impressive. I had a hard time choosing the best player for this 39-43 Sonics team. They might be the only team with a losing record to reach the conference finals. Dale Ellis, Tom Chambers and Xavier McDaniel each averaged at least 23 ppg in the regular season. I went with Ellis because he had the highest average of the three, especially during the playoffs. For what it's worth, though, Chambers was originally drafted by the San Diego Clippers, but McDaniel was drafted by the Sonics with the 4th pick in 1985 after a 31-51 season. So I guess you could call that a tanking success if you want — or a third of a success.

1987-88:

Lakers: James Worthy (Finals MVP) — 1st pick in 1982 (traded from Cleveland)
*Pistons: Isiah Thomas
*Celtics: Larry Bird
*Mavericks: Mark Aguirre — 1st pick in 1981 (15-67)

James Worthy primarily won the Finals MVP because he had a triple-double in the deciding game. But his 22.0/7.4/4.4 otherwise was still pretty impressive. (I would have chosen Magic, but that's beside the point.) Of course, the Lakers didn't draft Worthy because they were really bad one year, they just made a really good trade. The Mavericks, on the other hand, were the worst team in 1980-81, which got them the top pick and Mark Aguirre. Interestingly, after this season, Dallas traded him to Detroit, where he'd immediately win a couple of titles, while it took more than a decade for Dallas to return to the conference finals.

1988-89:

Pistons: Joe Dumars (Finals MVP) — 18th pick in 1985 (46-36)
Lakers: Magic Johnson (MVP)
Suns: Kevin Johnson — trade with Cleveland in 1988
*Bulls: Michael Jordan — 3rd pick in 1984 (27-55)

I still consider this Pistons team to be Isiah Thomas', but Joe Dumars really lit it up in the Finals with 27.3 ppg and 6.0 apg. And even though Detroit did draft him, there was no tanking involved. The Pistons were a fairly decent playoff team, and they smartly drafted somebody who worked perfectly with Isiah. For this Suns team, I could have easily chosen Tom Chambers, who led them in scoring and rebounding, but I was more impressed with Kevin Johnson's 23.8 ppg and 12.3 apg in the playoffs. And it seems more people today talk about Johnson than Chambers. Regardless, neither one of them was drafted by Phoenix. Michael Jordan, however, is a wonderful tanking story. The Bulls were downright miserable, and as their reward, they got to draft the greatest player of all time. To tank successfully, you don't necessarily have to be the worst team or get the No. 1 pick, you just have to be in the right place at the right time.

1989-90:

*Pistons: Isiah Thomas (Finals MVP)
Blazers: Clyde Drexler — 14th pick in 1983 (traded from Denver)
*Bulls: Michael Jordan
Suns: Kevin Johnson

Clyde Drexler has two knocks against him for being a tank success — he wasn't a very high draft pick, and that pick originally belonged to another team. He just happened to develop into the best player on a Portland team that was shrewdly put together without tanking or luring big free agents with glitz and glamor.

1990-91:

*Bulls: Michael Jordan (MVP & Finals MVP)
Lakers: Magic Johnson
Blazers: Clyde Drexler
Pistons: Joe Dumars

I put Joe Dumars here because Isiah Thomas missed almost half the season with injuries. But even a healthy Isiah probably wouldn't have been able to stop this Michael Jordan with 31.5/6.0/5.5 in the regular season and 31.2/6.6/11.4 in the Finals.

1991-92:

*Bulls: Michael Jordan (MVP & Finals MVP)
Blazers: Clyde Drexler
Cavaliers: Brad Daugherty — 1st pick in 1986 (traded from Los Angeles Clippers)
Jazz: Karl Malone — 13th pick in 1985 (41-41)

Yay! The Jazz finally made the list! Unfortunately, the Blazers prevented the Jazz from losing to Michael Jordan prematurely. Now, in the age-long debate of Stockton vs. Malone, I always have to go with Malone. At least in the games I watched, he was always the driving force behind Utah's success. But even if I did choose Stockton, I wouldn't say the Jazz tanked to get him. Utah made the second round of the playoffs each season before it drafted Stockton and Malone. They were just smart and lucky in the draft to get two guys who worked their butts off and perfectly complimented each other. As for Cleveland, it was lucky enough to happen to own the Clippers' top pick when it turned out to be No. 1.

1992-93:

*Bulls: Michael Jordan (Finals MVP)
Suns: Charles Barkley (MVP) — trade with Philadelphia in 1992
*Knicks: Patrick Ewing — 1st pick in 1985 (24-58)
Sonics: Shawn Kemp — 17th pick in 1989 (traded from Philadelphia)

So Philadelphia inadvertently set up two good teams this year. Barkley, who just got sick of the Sixers, demanded the trade, and immediately enjoyed the greatest season of his career with 25.6/12.2/5.1. Jordan, though, had the last laugh with 41.0/8.5/6.3 in the Finals. Patrick Ewing was the first-ever grand prize from the lottery, and although it took a while, he did eventually turn the Knicks into contenders. I always think of Shawn Kemp first when I think about these '90s Sonics teams, but Ricky Pierce was the leading scorer this year, and Gary Payton was beginning to emerge. Pierce was originally drafted by the Pistons back in 1982, but Payton is an interesting case. He was drafted by the Sonics with the 2nd pick in 1990, but that was after Seattle went 41-41. They just happened to miss the playoffs that year and got really lucky in the lottery. So I wouldn't consider that a tanking situation even if I did think Payton was better than Kemp in 1993.

1993-94:

*Rockets: Hakeem Olajuwon (MVP & Finals MVP)
*Knicks: Patrick Ewing
Jazz: Karl Malone
Pacers: Reggie Miller — 11th pick in 1987 (41-41)

With Michael Jordan out of the picture, the Rockets were able to return to prominence (crushing the Jazz along the way). Reggie Miller was drafted by the Pacers, but they were a playoff team in 1986-87.  Like the Blazers, they were able to build a contending team without tanking or fancy free agents.

1994-95:

*Rockets: Hakeem Olajuwon (Finals MVP)
*Magic: Shaquille O'Neal — 1st pick in 1992 (21-61)
*Spurs: David Robinson (MVP) — 1st pick in 1987 (28-54)
Pacers: Reggie Miller

If only the Knicks beat the Pacers this year. Then we'd have a clean sweep of tanking teams that got a great center with the No. 1 pick. Shaq and Robinson were everything tanking teams dream about. Shaq did leave Orlando as soon as he could, but he took them to great heights while he was there. Robinson's best season wasn't enough to top Hakeem, but he remained loyal to the franchise and helped them eventually win a couple of titles.

1995-96:

*Bulls: Michael Jordan (MVP & Finals MVP)
Sonics: Shawn Kemp
*Magic: Shaquille O'Neal
Jazz: Karl Malone

Then Michael Jordan came back and crushed everyone's dreams. With the Sonics, I strongly considered Gary Payton, but I don't think they truly became his team until Shawn Kemp left. Either way, Seattle didn't get to the Finals by tanking.

1996-97:

*Bulls: Michael Jordan (Finals MVP)
Jazz: Karl Malone (MVP)
Heat: Alonzo Mourning — trade with Charlotte in 1995
*Rockets: Hakeem Olajuwon

Now we enter the sad, dark years for Jazz fans. They're also the glory years, but very sad, as well. Anyway, Alonzo Mourning is the new guy on the list, and I also considered his point guard, Tim Hardaway. But neither of them were drafted by Miami, so there was no tanking involved. This was also the year that Charles Barkley joined Houston, but it was still Hakeem's team.

1997-98:

*Bulls: Michael Jordan (MVP & Finals MVP)
Jazz: Karl Malone
Lakers: Shaquille O'Neal — free agent in 1996
Pacers: Reggie Miller

We were just so happy to make the Finals the first time. But the second time … it seemed like it was our time … Oh well. Just getting this far without tanking or glamorous free agents is impressive. The Lakers, however, took full advantage of the glitz and glamor, as one of the most dominating centers of all time wanted to start a movie career (see: Kazaam and Steel).

So that is actually a perfect place to stop. We went through 15 seasons and completed the Michael Jordan dynasty. Of those 60 teams, I can say with reasonable confidence that 27 of them were built around a key player acquired through tanking. So that means that about 45 percent of all contenders had at least one really crappy season just a few years before reaching the conference finals. But if we just look at the championship winners, then 11 of those 15 Finals MVPS were tanking success stories.

I recently read a rather short and stupid blog post on Slate about the "Tanking Myth." The author considered Tim Duncan to be only tanking success story, since he helped the Spurs win the title while he was still in his rookie contract. Then he immediately discounted it because of David Robinson's injury. But I think it's entirely unrealistic to expect to win a championship within the first three years of a top pick's career. And even if it did take Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon a few years to win titles, how else can you explain how they joined their teams but by tanking? The Celtics, Bulls and Rockets each had a really crappy year, which gave them a very good draft pick. The teams then handled their picks smartly, and built around them, making sure to give their starts the most money to keep them there. The way I see it, that is exactly what tanking is all about, and exactly why so many teams continue to tank to this day.

Coming soon: Part 2, wherein I examine the conference finals teams from the past 15 seasons.

Doctor Strange

In 2007, after the disastrous Invincible Iron Man, Marvel decided to take its animated movies in a completely different direction — choosing something that would have an extremely hard time becoming a live action movie. Doctor Strange was directed by Patrick Archibald, Jay Oliva and Richard Sebast, and stars Bryce Johnson as Dr. Strange, Paul Nakauchi as his trainer, Wong, Michael Yama as the Ancient One, and Kevin Michael Richardson as the traitorous Mordo. Richardson is a personal favorite of mine — he's also voiced Trigon on Teen Titans and Panthro on Thundercats.

Now, I do have to preface this review by saying I've never read a single Doctor Strange comic, nor have I seen much of him in any forms of media. I've always known he was the Sorcerer Supreme, and that was about it. I think my limited knowledge of the character helped me enjoy this movie, because I wasn't held back by any ideas of what was supposed to be or how good things could have been. I took everything presented here at face value, and I kind of liked it.

I'll start with the fun opening that tells us exactly what's in store for us. We get a bunch of sorcerers fighting a demon, and everything's pretty neat. The action is good, the variety of powers is nice, and the demon itself was kind of cool looking. I even buy the main premise of magical beings fighting demons unseen in the streets of the "real" world. I'm not normally a big fan of magic, but in this case, I accept it. Actually, I think all my problems with magic arise when it gets meshed with other worlds. I absolutely hate it when Iron Man has to deal with magic, but this movie makes no mention of any other superheroes, so it's all good for me.

This movie had a lot of the same people working on it who worked on Invincible Iron Man. Luckily, it seems they more or less learned their lessons from that fiasco of a film. One of my complaints there was that Tony Stark's injury to his heart was brushed off like it was nothing. But in this movie, Dr. Strange's injury to his hands was an essential part of his character and the story. I also liked the how the accident happened — with creepy ghost kids. This movie did include a nice mix of horror. But even more importantly, we got to see Strange deal with his injury. We saw him travel the world and exhaust all his resources in search of a remedy. It was only after he had done all he could, spent his last dime, when he was ready to enter the world of magic. And that's the way it's supposed to be.

Another problem with the Iron Man movie is that we never saw Tony Stark become a hero. He was just always naturally heroic, then they tried to make him a playboy by showing him in a *gasp* hot tub with a girl! Scandalous! Anyway, Doctor Strange made sure to actually give us a character arc. Dr. Strange truly did start out as a jerk, and we followed his journey toward becoming a hero. We also got a nice backstory with his little sister to show us how he became a jerk. Having your little sister die while you operated on her would mess up anybody. And I give credit to this movie for not making Strange instantly flip a switch when he decided to join the monastery. He still had more training to do, which usually involved him tearing down a wall that was a physical manifestation of the metaphorical wall of emotion and self-doubt in his head. If they ever do make a live action Doctor Strange movie, I hope they remember this essential element.

Now, the entire ending with Dormammu using the nightmares of children to return(?) makes absolutely no sense. However, I was surprisingly fine with it. Part of it was because I was in a more accepting mood through this whole movie. These are sorcerers who fight demons. What more do I need to know? Another reason I accepted this ending was because the action was pretty cool — especially the flying piranha-like demons that instantly devoured the flesh off people. So that's another big lesson for the live action movie people: If you focus on character development and keep the action cool, then people won't worry about the demon's plots making sense.

I enjoyed this movie. I never wanted a sequel to it, or a spinoff TV series, nor has this movie inspired me to read a Doctor Strange comic. And I'm completely indifferent about a live action movie. I'd see it if they made it, but I wouldn't be upset if they didn't make it. And that's because this movie gave me all the Doctor Strange I ever wanted and probably ever needed. Sure, he's been a part of the Marvel universe for a long time, but I think he's best left alone in his own corner, only to be occasionally visited.

Final score: 8

Is tanking really worth it?

I'm a lifelong Jazz fan. So why was I so sad when they won their first game of the season? As odd as it seems, I actually enjoyed watching my team lose this year. I laughed when a Gordon Hayward pass went through Enes Kanter's legs. I cheered for every Jamal Tinsley air-balled 3-pointer. And I applauded John Lucas III's attempt to somehow play worse than Tinsley. I enjoyed all these things because I believe that this is a necessary step for rebuilding. In order to truly improve, the Jazz need to bottom out this year and score a high lottery pick in this year's loaded draft. Or at least that's how the theory goes.

Despite stealing a win on Wednesday night, it's pretty safe to say that the Jazz are unabashedly and unequivocally tanking. And I've been supporting this until I decided to write a post about how awesome this was. When I sat down to write, a small doubt entered my mind. Was this really the best plan? Is tanking ever worth it? To confirm this theory, I needed to gather some empirical evidence. So I decided to take a look at the worst NBA teams in each of the past 30 seasons to see what great prize they were rewarded with for their futility. But first, some background.

The purpose of the NBA Draft is to provide an orderly method to incorporate the incoming crop of young players into the league each season. But the Draft is also designed to maintain the competitive balance of the league. The best team doesn't need much help, so it gets the worst pick, and vice versa. But over time, the league realized too many teams were intentionally losing (tanking) in order to improve their odds to land high-profile, franchise-saving players like Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing. So in 1985, the NBA instituted the draft lottery in an attempt to discourage tanking. In my limited research, I think the league has succeeded in this attempt — except for a few notable and recent instances. So here are my results. I looked at the worst team in each season, then looked up their draft pick the next year and how many playoff games that draft pick played in for that team. Because that's the ultimate goal, right? Lottery picks are ideally supposed to turn teams into contenders. But how often has that really happened?

1983-84: Indiana Pacers (26-56): #2, (traded to Portland for Tom Owens), 0 playoff games

The last year before the lottery featured possibly the best draft class of all time. Back then, the NBA just did a simple coin toss between the worst teams to see who got the first pick. The Houston Rockets won the toss and took Akeem Olajuwon, who later won two titles for them. Indiana earned the second pick, but it belonged to the Portland Trail Blazers because of a trade they made three years earlier. In 1981, the Pacers sent away a future draft pick for undersized veteran center Tom Owens. Owens enjoyed the prime of his career in the ABA, and by the time he got to the Pacers, he was only good for about 10 points and five rebounds a game. He spent one year with Indiana, didn't help them make the playoffs, then retired one year later. So the Pacers got absolutely nothing in return for having the worst record in the 1983-84 season. The Blazers, meanwhile, infamously used that draft pick for the perpetually injured center Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. So neither team came out of this a winner.

1984-85: Pacers (22-60): #2, Wayman Tisdale, 4 playoff games
Golden State Warriors (22-60): #7, Chris Mullin, 33 playoff games

In the first year of the lottery, each team that failed to make the playoffs had an equal chance of winning  the top pick. This time, the Pacers kept their pick, but they narrowly missed out on landing Patrick Ewing. So they settled on power forward Wayman Tisdale, who only spent three and half seasons in Indiana. He did take them to the playoffs once, but they failed to reach the second round. Not exactly what you'd hope for from the #2 pick.

The Warriors got the worst luck of the first lottery, and later the rules were changed so that the worst team would never pick lower than #4. Ironically, though, this #7 pick turned out quite successful for Golden State. Chris Mullin became a fan favorite and recently had his jersey retired by the franchise. He was a member of the Original Dream Team and was elected to the Hall of Fame. But I don't think he was as successful as people remember him being. Even though people today still talk fondly of those Run-TMC teams, they never made it past the second round of the playoffs. I think teams should at least reach the conference finals before we can reverently talk about how good they were.

1985-86: New York Knicks (23-59): #5, Kenny Walker, 26 playoff games

Rookie Patrick Ewing didn't immediately help the Knicks, and neither did the next season's rookie, Kenny Walker. The small forward from Kentucky arrived 10 points and five rebounds per game his rookie campaign, but saw his numbers gradually slip with each passing season. Even though he did appear in 26 playoff games for the Knicks, I hardly think he was responsible for getting the team there. I also think he must have gotten hurt, because after five years with New York, Walker was out of the league and playing in Spain and Italy. He eventually tried a comeback with the Washington Bullets, but that only lasted a season and a half. So all that to say this wasn't a particularly inspiring draft pick.

1986-87: Los Angeles Clippers (12-70): #4, Reggie Williams, 0 playoff games

If the Clippers wanted a small forward, they could have drafted Scottie Pippen. Or if they wanted a guy named Reggie, they could have tried Reggie Miller. Instead, they chose Reggie Williams, who only spent two and a half years with the Clippers, averaging 10 points per game. He and Danny Ferry were traded for Ron Harper and Loy Vaught, but I'd hardly consider that getting your money's worth for a 12-win season.

1987-88: Clippers (17-65): #1, Danny Manning, 10 playoff games

For the first time in the lottery, the worst team ended up with the best player. Danny Manning was undoubtedly the best player available, and he even had a couple of promising years with the Clippers, taking them to the playoffs twice. But injuries took away his explosiveness, and he was eventually traded for a very old Dominique Wilkins. One thing I've learned from this post is that luck plays a very large role in the NBA Draft. And some teams, like the Clippers, are simply unlucky.

1988-89: Miami Heat (15-67): #4, Glen Rice, 8 playoff games

The expansion Heat made the right move taking Glen Rice, and he did enjoy six productive seasons in Miami. But although he was one of the best shooters in the game, he wasn't the kind of guy who could turn your team into a contender. He only took Miami to the playoffs twice, and was eventually traded for Alonzo Mourning. Mourning, however, became a franchise player for the Heat and turned them into contenders. So I guess the Glen Rice pick turned out fairly well for the Heat in the long run.

1989-90: New Jersey Nets (17-65): #1, Derrick Coleman, 13 playoff games

For the second time, the worst team won the right to choose whoever they wanted. And the best available player was unquestionably Derrick Coleman. He had the size, skill and athleticism to potentially be the cornerstone of a contender. A lot of people believed he would be the next Karl Malone. Better even. But he ended up being one of the most disappointing players of his era. He did end up averaging a 20-10, made one All-Star game, and took the Nets to the playoffs three times. But he never could take them out of the first round, and left a lot of people believing he could have been a lot better than what he gave them. Eventually he was traded for Shawn Bradley. No joke!

1990-91: Denver Nuggets (20-62): #4, Dikembe Mutombo, 15 playoff games

Mount Mutombo enjoyed a very long and productive career in the NBA, and he's a surefire Hall-of-Famer, if only for his international status and charity work in Congo. But he only spent five years in Denver. He did help them become the first 8-seed to beat a 1-seed in the playoffs, but they couldn't get past the Jazz in the second round. The year after that, Denver got swept in the first round, and the year after that, they failed to make the playoffs. Dikembe then bolted Denver and signed a big, fat contract with the Atlanta Hawks. So ultimately, all he provided the Nuggets with was one lasting memory. At least they can still enjoy him in the GEICO commercials.

1991-92: Minnesota Timberwolves (15-67): #3, Christian Laettner, 0 playoff games

The Timberwolves are also a pretty unlucky franchise. In 1992, they just missed out on drafting Shaquille O'Neal or Alonzo Mourning. Instead they ended up with Christian Laettner, who is most known for his amazing shot at Duke and for being the token college kid on the Dream Team. But Laettner was a fairly productive NBA player, and he even made the All-Star team once … after he was traded to Atlanta for Andrew Lang and Spud Webb. So yeah, Minnesota really missed out on this one.

1992-93: Dallas Mavericks (11-71): #4, Jamal Mashburn, 0 playoff games

Jamal Mashburn was the best available pick after Dallas missed out on Chris Webber and Penny Hardaway. However, Mashburn never really did that much for Dallas. He did average 20 points per game, but after a couple of seasons, the Mavericks traded him for Kurt Thomas, Martin Muursepp and Sasha Danilovic. Yikes.

1993-94: Mavericks (13-69): #2, Jason Kidd, 46 playoff games*

Unsurprisingly, Jamal Mashburn only helped improve the Mavericks by two games. But it turned out well for them, because they were able to draft Jason Kidd, one of the best point guards of his generation. However, I had to give Kidd an asterisk because he didn't lead the Mavericks to the playoffs during his first stint with the team, which only lasted a couple of seasons. Kidd was traded to Phoenix for Michael Finley, who had a pretty nice career in Dallas. But Kidd's best contributions for Dallas came much later, after he decided to spend his last few productive years on a contender. It just happened to be a coincidence that the contender he chose was also the team that drafted him. That said, however, he did play a major role on a Dallas team that won a championship, and many teams would endure countless 11- and 13-win seasons for a title.

1994-95: Clippers (17-65): #2, Antonio McDyess (traded for Rodney Rogers) 3 playoff games

The Clippers may be unlucky, but they also make some pretty dumb moves. With the #2 pick, they had the option of drafting Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace and Kevin Garnett. They chose McDyess, who was a worthy selection, but then they immediately traded him for Rodney Rogers. Rogers was a decent power forward with 3-point range, but he wasn't the 20-10 guy McDyess was before his injuries. Rogers did take the Clippers to the playoffs once, but I really think this draft could have turned out a whole lot better for them.

1995-96: Vancouver Grizzlies (15-67): #3, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, 0 playoff games

The 1996 Draft was the best one since '84, but the poor Grizzlies were forbidden to have the #1 pick since they were an expansion team. So they missed out on Allen Iverson, but they still had Stephon Marbury, Ray Allen and Antoine Walker available. Kobe Bryant was also in this draft, but he assuredly would have demanded a trade to the Lakers (which he did do with the Charlotte Hornets). Steve Nash was taken late in this draft, but he wasn't really on anybody's radar back then. Instead of messing around with any of the aforementioned guards, the Grizzlies played it safe with a power forward. However, Abdur-Rahim was a little too small to be a true power forward and not quite speedy enough to be a true small forward. He did average 20 points a game for Vancouver, then was traded after five seasons to the Atlanta Hawks, where he became an All-Star. And the player traded for him? Pau Gasol. Of course, the Grizzlies didn't truly become competitive until they traded Pau for his little brother, Marc. But that's too far removed to consider this Abdur-Rahim pick much of a success. He failed to take the team to the playoffs, and there were a handful of players taken after him who probably could have done that.

1996-97: Grizzlies (14-68): #4, Antonio Daniels, 0 playoff games

The Grizzlies actually performed worse during Abdur-Rahim's rookie season, and they were awarded with a worse draft pick. Missing out on Tim Duncan, Vancouver decided to get a guard to pair with Abdur-Rahim. However, Daniels only lasted one year before he was replaced by Mike Bibby. Vancouver traded him to San Antonio, where he played fairly decently and even earned a championship ring. The most intriguing player Vancouver brought back in that trade was Felipe Lopez, but he really didn't amount to too much. In hindsight, the Grizzlies probably should have taken a risk on high schooler Tracy McGrady. I mean, what did they have to lose? A 13-win season?

1997-98: Nuggets (11-71): #3, Raef LaFrentz, 0 playoff games

It is quite difficult to win only 11 games in an NBA season. I'd imagine it must have been quite painful, as well, for the Denver fans of the time. What were they rewarded with? One big disappointment. Now, to be fair, LaFrentz was a very intriguing prospect at the time. He seemed to have all the skills you'd want from a center, plus the ability to shoot the 3. But it didn't quite turn out that way. After three and a half years, LaFrentz was packaged in a trade for an old Juwan Howard and an even older Tim Hardaway, leaving many of those sad Denver fans wishing their team had taken a different sharpshooting big man, Dirk Nowitzki.

1998-99: Grizzlies (8-42): #2, Steve Francis (traded to Houston), 0 playoff games

The first lockout was rough on everybody in the NBA (except the Spurs, who won their first title that year). But the lockout was especially tough for the Grizzlies, who didn't have enough games to get to double-digit wins. And despite all their losing, they still couldn't land the top pick, missing out on Elton Brand. But then Vancouver perpetuated their bad luck by drafting Steve Francis, who had no desire to play there. I have a pretty funny basketball card of Francis on draft night, and he looks pissed in his Grizzlies cap. I find it inconceivable that Vancouver was ignorant of Francis' abhorrence for the Canadian city and franchise. Regardless, the Grizzlies were forced to engineer a very complicated three-way trade to send Francis to Houston. They got a lot of stuff in return, but nothing really interesting. So you can chalk this up as another loss for the Grizzlies. If Vancouver really wanted a point guard, they just could've taken Baron Davis. Oh, and as for Francis? Despite all that fuss and whining, he only took the Rockets to the playoffs once.

1999-00: Clippers (15-67): #3, Darius Miles, 0 playoff games

Once again the Clippers became the victims of bad luck. The 2000 Draft was probably the worst in NBA history. Honestly, high schooler Darius Miles was the best the Clippers could have done. Sure, they could have taken Mike Miller, but would have really helped them? In this situation, you might as well take a chance on a high schooler. But, due to the Clippers' bad luck, Miles didn't really pan out. He played two seasons in L.A., averaging nine points per game, before he was traded for Andre Miller. It seemed like Miller was really going to turn the Clippers around, but he said he felt distracted in Los Angeles, and he bolted as soon as he could (spurning the Jazz in the process). The moral of the story is that the Clippers suck (or at least they did for a very long time).

2000-01: Chicago Bulls (15-67): #4, Eddy Curry, 0 playoff games

The Bulls hit rock bottom after Michael Jordan left, but they didn't officially earn the league's worst record until 2000-01. In 2001, they traded for the #2 pick, Tyson Chandler, and used the #4 pick on another center, Eddy Curry. In theory, this seemed like a brilliant plan. Twin towers, one to focus on offense, the other on defense, what could go wrong? Well, everything. Curry and Chandler never could mesh, and both had to be shipped away in a couple of years. Unlike Chandler, Curry never realized his potential, and ended up as one of the biggest busts in the league (figuratively and literally). Interestingly enough, Curry was sent to New York for a slew of players and draft picks, one of which eventually became Joakim Noah. But that's not a big enough consolation prize to redeem this Curry pick.

2001-02: Bulls (21-61): #2, Jay Williams, 0 playoff games
Warrior (21-61): #3, Mike Dunleavy Jr., 0 playoff games

Both these teams just missed out on Yao Ming, but Chicago had the right idea to get a good guard for its twin towers. However, Jay Williams' career was cut short after one season by a motorcycle accident. Perhaps he could have developed into something incredible, but he didn't exactly light it up his rookie year, averaging just nine points and four assists a game. Mike Dunleavy is still in the league, and his dad isn't anymore, so we don't have to call him junior. He spent four and a half seasons in Golden State, averaging 10 points per game, before he was packaged in a trade for Al Harrington and Stephen Jackson. Those two helped guide the 8-seed Warriors past the 1-seed Mavericks (but not past the Jazz). Looking back on the 2002 Draft, there is really only one great player these two teams passed on — high schooler Amar'e Stoudemire.

2002-03: Cleveland Cavaliers (17-65): #1, LeBron James, 71 playoff games
Nuggets (17-65): #3, Carmelo Anthony, 45 playoff games

Now things finally get interesting. After nearly two decades of the lottery successfully punishing tanking teams, everything backfired in 2003, the best draft class since 1984. There were reports of blatant tanking going around this season, foremost among them the Cleveland Cavaliers, desperate to land their hometown hero. And it worked. LeBron James single-handedly made the Cavs a contender, and he even took them to the Finals once (and he could have done it again had he not bailed on the team). Denver, meanwhile, couldn't go wrong with either Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh or Dwyane Wade. They chose Anthony, and he did lead them to the Western Conference finals once, which is about all you can ask from somebody. These two teams enjoyed the fruit of tanking, and they are the biggest reason why teams continue to tank today.

2003-04: Orlando Magic (21-61): #1, Dwight Howard, 57 playoff games

And another success for the tankers! Howard took the Magic all the way to the Finals, before becoming a massive headache for Orlando and the entire NBA. It took a long time, but he was eventually traded to the Lakers, sending the Magic into another cycle of rebuilding and tanking. But that doesn't negate the success he did have in Orlando. Being the best player on a team in the Finals is something to brag about. It is worth noting, however, that these three great tanking success stories — James, Anthony, Howard — did not win a championship for their team.

2004-05: Atlanta Hawks (13-69): #2, Marvin Williams, 42 playoff games

And so ends our streak of tanking success stories. But that's not because the lottery was too restrictive, but rather because the Hawks simply made a really, really stupid mistake. The team needed a point guard, and they had Deron Williams and Chris Paul staring right at them, but they became enamored by the potential of Marvin Williams. Forget the fact that he couldn't even start for his college team — he had potential! Well, that potential never paid off. He did appear in a bunch of playoff games for Atlanta, but he was never their best player, nor did the team ever advance past the second round. Currently, Marvin Williams is on the Utah Jazz, earning the Subway Sub of the Game award for making two 3-pointers. What a find! I'm still not exactly sure why Kevin O'Connor brought him in. Perhaps it was a result of his love affair with Mo Williams.

2005-06: Portland Trail Blazers (21-61): #4, Tyrus Thomas (traded for LaMarcus Aldridge), 18 playoff games

The 2006 Draft was productive for Portland. They traded for Brandon Roy and turned their own pick into LaMarcus Aldridge. It was a really good move, too, since Tyrus Thomas has now fallen into complete obscurity. The Aldridge/Roy combo seemed to have some good legs under it, but unfortunately Roy's legs (and Greg Oden's) couldn't hold up. So injuries derailed this potential tank success, but Aldridge is still going strong, and could probably still make Portland a contender with the right pieces around him. Maybe.

2006-07: Memphis Grizzlies (22-60): #4, Mike Conley Jr., 35 playoff games

The Grizzlies still struggled for a while after moving from Vancouver, but they did score a bit of a success with Mike Conley. No, he's not a cornerstone franchise guy like Kevin Durant, but he was the starting point guard of a Memphis team that made the Western Conference finals last year, and that's a tanking success in my book. With the lottery, you can't always find THE guy to make you a contender, but if you find an important piece of a team that becomes a contender, then you made out alright.

2007-08: Miami Heat (15-67): #2, Michael Beasley, 12 playoff games

The Heat went very quickly from winning a championship to being the NBA's bottom-feeder, all thanks to a Dwyane Wade injury. Missing out on Derrick Rose, Miami overlooked Russell Westbrook and Kevin Love, taking a chance on the troubled, but potentially talented Michael Beasley. Well, he's shown a lot more trouble than talent in his career so far, and was traded away to make room for LeBron James. But now he's back in Miami because no one else will touch him, and the Heat know they're good enough that he won't be able to hurt them. I suppose he's still young enough to redeem his career, but I really think this was a blown pick by the Heat. But what do they care? They just won two more titles.

2008-09: Sacramento Kings (17-65): #4, Tyreke Evans, 0 playoff games

The once brilliant Geoff Petrie very quickly lost his magic once the Chris Webber era ended. The Kings GM suddenly became incapable of making a good move, and drafting Tyreke Evans is one such example. While Sacramento was rather unlucky to miss out on Blake Griffin and James Harden, Ricky Rubio and Stephen Curry were both available. Granted, Evans did put up decent numbers — 20-5-5 his rookie year. But he has regressed a little bit each season, as his lack of a true position or identity has caught up with him. He's now an overpaid bench player in New Orleans, and the Kings are in as big a mess as ever.

2009-10: Nets (12-70): #3, Derrick Favors, 0 playoff games

After threatening to set a record for losses, the Nets acquired a new owner with deep pockets and a deep desire to win immediately. This made New Jersey an ideal dumping ground for the surly Deron Williams, and now the Jazz and Nets are still trying to figure out who got the better end of that trade. The Nets moved to Brooklyn, somehow convinced Williams to stay, and surrounded him with a lot of high-profile, yet aging players. If the Nets can contend for the title this year, then I guess that trade will have been worth it. Meanwhile, I'm still on the fence with Derrick Favors. Why doesn't he score more? The Jazz only have the worst offense in the league, so it's not like anybody's taking shots from him. I suppose he doesn't have anybody to pass him the ball, or a decent coach to guide him, but I'm starting to grow impatient. Being a decent defender doesn't help us too much when we can't score.

2010-11: Timberwolves (17-65): #2, Derrick Williams, 0 playoff games

It's still too early to make any judgment on this pick. So far, it hasn't looked to good, but you never know what could happen in a year or two. The same goes for these next two picks.

2011-12: Charlotte Bobcats (7-59): #2, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, 0 playoff games

2012-13: Magic (20-62): #2, Victor Oladipo

So here are the results of my research. In the past three decades, the worst team in the NBA has only landed the #1 pick four times. And only four times has the worst team drafted a player that took that same team to at least the conference finals (five times if you count Jason Kidd). So, speaking in these terms, teams that bottom out have a roughly 17 percent chance to become a contender through the draft. On the surface, it looks like the lottery is succeeding in its attempts to curtail tanking. And yet teams still tank, and I think that's mainly because of the handful of success stories that turn out really, really well. Teams are willing to deal with the Eddy Currys, Raef LaFrentzes and Michael Beasleys just to get that 17 percent chance of landing a LeBron James. They're willing to suffer through empty arenas, lost season tickets and diminishing fan bases just for that 1/6th of a chance to become relevant again.

And we have to remember that there are all sorts of types of tanking. Even playoff teams occasionally tank to set up a better matchup. For the sake of simplicity, I only focused on the teams with the worst record, but lots of teams successfully tanked by having the second or third worst record. The Sonics/Thunder are a perfect example. It took them about four or five years, but their tanking eventually paid off and they made it to the Finals with guys they drafted. The Chicago Bulls had to tank for a long time before they finally got lucky with Derrick Rose. And as long as teams like them can find success through intentional losing, more teams in the NBA will consider that strategy. Like the Utah Jazz.

So should the Jazz be tanking this year, considering all my research? Yes! Even if they don't get the top pick, they're guaranteed no lower than the fourth, and there will be somebody very good up there. Of course, one year of tanking usually isn't enough. And sometimes tanking can become addictive, even after extreme levels of success — look at the Cavs and the Magic. Tanking is a slippery slope. But, that 17 percent chance of landing a difference maker through 82 games of torture is probably the best chance the Jazz have right now. So I'll continue to cheer against my team, praise Tyrone Corbin for his inept coaching, and cry after every victory.

The Invincible Iron Man

In 2007, Marvel was busy making its first live-action Iron Man movie. So to prepare for this — and capitalize on any potential popularity — Marvel decided to discontinue its burgeoning Ultimate Avengers franchise, and instead tell the origin of Iron Man. Unfortunately, it is difficult to say whether this movie can serve as an actual prequel to Ultimate Avengers. The animation style is exactly the same, and Marc Worden reprises his role as Iron Man, but that's about where the similarities stop. It is also worth noting that many people consider this to be the worst Marvel animated movie ever, and I just might agree with that. So without further ado, here is my review of The Invincible Iron Man, directed by Patrick Archibald and Jay Oliva, and starring Gwendoline Yeo as Iron Man's girlfriend, Li Mei, and Rodney Saulsberry as his trusty sidekick, Rhodey.

Since this is such an awful movie that would have scored less than a zero, I'm not going to bother with recording my point deductions. Instead, I'll just give you my laundry list of complaints about this film. I don't mean to be negative — I truly wanted to like this movie — but it just sucked so bad. My first complaint is Tony Stark's voice. Marc Worden was serviceable as Iron Man in the Ultimate Avengers movies, but he also didn't have very many lines in them. Here, he is given very lengthy monologues, and is required to run the whole gamut of emotions. He's supposed to be a charming womanizer, a suave businessman, an emotionally-distressed friend, an injured prisoner, and a heartbroken superhero. Unfortunately, Worden used the exact same tone of voice to convey all those emotions. He talks the exact same way to the woman in the hot tub as he does to his father in the board meeting. He is not charming, emotive, or relatable. And this is a major problem when he's talking nonstop through the whole movie.

But a probably even bigger complaint is the inclusion of magic and the supernatural into this Iron Man origin story. Iron Man is one of Marvel's most realistic, scientific-based heroes. Why throw all that away by making him fight magical demons? It does not fit at all, and it especially doesn't fit when we see a prophecy that shows an "Iron Knight" defeating the Mandarin. Seriously? And to make matters even worse, all these demons were CGI, and it was painfully obvious. They didn't interact with their environment correctly, and just looked overall awful. It was also jarring when they would switch from CGI to standard animation whenever Iron Man had to punch one of them. On a whole, the action sequences in this movie was terrible, especially compared to the Ultimate Avengers movies.

Another extremely disappointing fact of this movie is that Iron Man's classic red-and-gold suit is only seen briefly in this movie. To recap the plot briefly, Tony Stark gets captured while trying to save Rhodey, who was captured while on an archeological dig in China. Tony's heart gets destroyed in this attack, and his captors want him and Rhodey to build some device to re-bury the lost city they just uncovered. Instead, Tony makes a big clunky Iron Man suit to escape. Turns out he has already made a ton of Iron Man suits, so it was easy for him to do it in captivity. He also finds out that the city they unearthed has unleashed four elemental demons, bent on resurrecting the Mandarin by collecting his five (not ten) rings. A wise old monk gave Tony a map of the rings, so he decides to find them before the demons do. The first ring is at the bottom of the ocean, so he heads there in an ugly yellow underwater suit. The second ring is in a volcano, and this is where he dons the classic red-and-gold suit. But then for the final battle, he wears another ugly and boring gray suit. The cover of the DVD shows the Iron Man suit we all know and love. So why then did we only get a couple of minutes in the whole movie in that suit?

This movie also fails at telling a compelling Iron Man origin story. Let's compare this to the live-action version. In that movie, Tony was a selfish, obnoxious weapons dealer, who was nearly killed by his own weapons while selfishly selling more weapons. This experience teaches him to rethink his life and try to undo all the damage he caused, beginning by escaping with a suit powered by the same device that keeps him alive. He started the movie as a jerk, but ended it as a hero. Now in this movie, Tony does not go on a journey like this at all. He's already a great hero before his accident. He staunchly opposes the weapons his dad's company is selling, and he only gets in trouble for wasting company money on goodwill missions and his secret stash of Iron Man suits. We get a quick scene of him in a hot tub with a girl, but that hardly makes him a jerk. Especially when he drops everything to try to save Rhodey. So to surmise, Tony Stark already was a hero before this movie started. He already had tons of suits, and was doing everything in his power to make the world a better place. The only thing new that happened to him was getting his heart blown apart, but that's hardly an essential characteristic in this movie. It might as well have been a small scar on his cheek. So really, all this movie boils down to is a random adventure for Iron Man against ancient Chinese demons — something he should never be concerned with.

Now let's talk about how this movie fails to connect to the Ultimate Avengers movies. When we first see Tony Stark in Ultimate Avengers, it is implied that he is in complete control of his company. But in this movie, he didn't own his company until the very end, then he promptly handed control of it over to his dad, even though he was at odds with his dad the whole time and it seemed like he was pretty corrupt. Whatever. I guess Howard Stark eventually died or just handed control back to Tony at some point. We also replaced Jarvis with Pepper Potts in this movie, which seemed like a complete waste of time since Pepper acted exactly like Jarvis. And it brings up the question: Where was Jarvis in this movie and/or where was Pepper in the Ultimate Avengers movies? I could make up excuses for both, but I shouldn't have to. We also see some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents running around in this movie, but there is no reference to Nick Fury or any other superheroes for that matter. I wish this movie would've taken place after Ultimate Avengers 2, with Iron Man's story told through flashbacks. They still could've made this an Iron Man adventure, while showing some brief scenes of him talking with the other Avengers. That way Marvel would've been able to keep building on their nice animated movie continuity, and it probably would've forced this movie to be a bit more grounded.

And when I say this movie needed to be grounded, I mean it was as out there as it possibly could have been. Like past Jupiter. The ending sequence made absolutely no sense. I would almost like somebody to explain it all for me, but that would require me to live through it one more time. Here's what I caught.  Li Mei, Iron Man's default girlfriend, acted like she wanted to stop the Mandarin through the whole movie. She also spends a lot of time crying and complaining about her destiny, but she never elaborates on it. Until the very end, when it's too late. Iron Man gathered up four of the five rings and gave them to her, because that's what he was supposed to do. But it turns out Li Mei was actually the Mandarin's sole-surviving descendant, destined to revive the Mandarin. It also turns out that the fifth ring conveniently happened to be the bracelet she'd been wearing all movie. I guess ancient Chinese overlords didn't know the difference between rings and bracelets.

So anyway, Li Mei revives the Mandarin, which somehow requires her to become naked and surrounded by a giant ethereal form of the Mandarin, which conveniently creates enough clouds and shadows to cover her naughty bits. It's also really hard to tell if she's controlling the giant Mandarin or vice versa, because the larger Mandarin body sometimes mimics Li's actions, but also picks her up at times and orders her to kill Iron Man. It's all very strange, and probably best to not worry about it. Naturally we know Iron Man is going to win this fight — he is the hero, after all — but how do you think he does it? Does he use his incredible scientific mind to find a solution? Did he create some technological wonder for this sort of occasion? No. He beats the Mandarin by shouting (or coming as close to shouting as Marc Worden can), "You are Li Mei!" over and over again. This somehow gets through to her emotionally, and she … beats the Mandarin? I don't know. All I know is the giant ghost thing disappeared and for some reason Li Mei also died. Whatever. I'm just glad it's over know.

One complaint I had about both the Ultimate Avengers movies was the short running time. Seventy minutes was just not enough to get through their big stories and large casts. This movie was given 83 minutes to tell a story with a smaller cast and what should have been a simpler story. Instead we got a bare bones Iron Man origin and spent way too much time in China and dealing with stuff I don't care about as an Iron Man fan. This movie just dragged on forever and ever and failed to impress or entertain me even once. Well, at least we have the live-action movies.

Final score: 0