Basketball is azero-sumgame. For every point scored, there is a point against. For every win there's a loss. Someone has to win four games and someone has to lose four games for an NBA Champion to be decided. But is this always true?
A lot of people have been complaining lately that either we should have made a significant trade, or that the coach should be putting the winningest combination out on the floor every night. In a zero-sum situation, that course of action makes a great deal of sense. In fact, logic dictates that it would be fool-hardy not to in that situation.
But what if the NBA is not a zero-sum game? By way of example, I submit to you the non-zero-sum sequential gameThe Dollar Auction. Martin Shubik's economic paradox is most intriguing, in that the players, knowing full well the consequences in advance, quite willingly will follow a string of perfectly logical conclusions to reach a completely illogical outcome.
The Dollar Auction is not unlike the flurry of trades which the elite teams in the West have been involved in. There is only one championship to be had, and all teams are bidding on it. In fact, the bidding has become so high, that teamsmustmake a trade to remain in the bidding. On top of that, if one fails to win the bid (which is the fate for most of these teams) then the loss is huge, because the whole team has been geared to win the bid now.
The only way to win the Dollar Auction is to not play it at all, and earn your money by another method. Now this still does not resolve the issue of what Pritchard and McMillan are thinking. Winning by not losing just will not cut themustard. What most people, including many NBA Executives, have failed to realize is that there is more than one dollar up for auction. Every year, there is an NBA Championship.
It doesn't take a genius to see that if everyone bids all that they have on today's auction, no one will have the resources to seriously bid intomorrow'sauction. The Dollar Auction is an economic lesson in looking at a bigger picture. It seems foolish initially to decline in the bidding for this dollar, until you realize how much easier it is to get the next one if you do.
This is where Pritchard and McMillan come in. They have been preaching from the beginning of the season that it is not about this year. It's not that they don't care about winning, but rather that they care about winning big. To do that, some apparently illogical decisions are necessary. Why didn't we make that trade? Why do we keep our starters on the floor in blowout games? These questions are answered in making an unmatchable bid for multiple NBA Championships down the road.
Unfortunately for Portland, Pritchard is not the only GM who has figured this out. Sam Presti is truly scary here. He has the Sonics set up to be serious challengers to Portland in future bids. It's too bad thatchessis a zero-sum game, because the Pritchard Gambit has a nice ring to it.
My apologies to Steve the Hedge for pushing his diary of the page with this long, complicated philosophical and economic thesis.
