The NBA's Tanking Trouble

Tanking Talk is noisy and it's everywhere ... and it's not even Valentine's Day yet

I thought we would at least get beyond the All-Star break before Tanking Talk overtook the NBA.

I was wrong.

We barely moved 48 hours beyond last week's trade deadline when Utah's refusal Saturday night to play Lauri Markkanen, Jusuf Nurkić and newly acquired Jaren Jackson Jr. in the fourth quarter of a fall-from-ahead loss to Orlando got the whole league talking.

Seriously.

I couldn't have a conversation over the weekend with a player, coach, team executive or agent that didn't eventually land on the hard-to-deny determination already showing up among nearly one-third of the league's teams to lose as often as possible for the remainder of the regular season.

Which inspired me to bring back my trusty Monday Musings template to tip off All-Star Week so I could weave in some opinions alongside some fresh post-deadline rumbles from the personnel grapevine ...