To tank or not to tank? That is the question. One of the striking things we see nearly every year around this time is how many teams find themselves faced with this dilemma.

Each year, a couple of clubs wind up in a situation where losing games would seem to benefit them far more than winning. Obviously, this is an issue for the league, as it’s difficult to sell tickets to see a “competition” when one of the teams is more interested in losing than winning.

If you think this should be a moot point because the NBA’s draft lottery was instituted to avoid this very issue, think again. Teams still see their odds improve the further down in the standings they are, so bad teams have an additional incentive to do poorly. What the lottery has done quite successfully, however, is to reduce the size of the expected reward enough that it’s not worth the effort for a team to completely tank.

Of course, it’s all but impossible to determine if a team like Charlotte or Portland is losing on purpose, because even when they’re trying to win they usually fail. But once we get to the better teams, that’s not the case. And this year, we have a few instances in which some decent teams can garner big rewards by dropping a few games.

For Exhibit A, let’s look at Minnesota. Some of you may recall that last summer, the T’wolves traded veteran point guard Sam Cassell to the Clippers for Marko Jaric and a conditional first-round pick. Already, the trade has been a disaster, but it could get even worse.

Here’s the deal: If Minnesota finishes with one of the top 10 picks in the draft, then they get to keep it. But if they draft 11th or later, they lose the pick to the Clippers. And lo and behold, two weeks ago the T’wolves found themselves in the worst possible situation – they held the league’s 11th-worst record. In other words, they wouldn’t be heading to the playoffs, but they wouldn’t get a first round pick either.

Fortunately, the T’wolves have maneuvered quickly in order to remedy the situation. At first, they tried being somewhat subtle. Coach Dwane Casey announced he would be reducing the minutes of stars Kevin Garnett and Ricky Davis so his younger players could get more of an opportunity to develop.

But “subtle” became “blatant” a few games later when Casey held both Garnett and Davis out of the lineup with suspicious injuries, and it’s possible neither will play again this year. In a related story, Minnesota has fallen behind Seattle, Houston, and Orlando in the standings and now owns the NBA’s eighth-worst record. Voila! The T’wolves can keep their first-round pick after all. All it took was some timely tanking.

The T’wolves’ situation, as interesting as it is, really only affects two teams – Minnesota and the Clippers. However, another situation involving the Clippers could affect the entire Western Conference playoffs.

Right now, the Clippers are tied with Memphis for the fifth position in the West, which is the least desirable position to be in. Because the West’s three division winners are seeded first, second, and third in the playoffs, and the West’s two best teams (Dallas and San Antonio) are in the same division, either Dallas or San Antonio will end up as the no. 4 seed. Thus, the no. 5 seed will be forced to beat mighty Dallas and San Antonio in succession just to reach the conference finals.

Whoever “wins” the battle for no. 5 will almost certainly make a quick trip home. Meanwhile, the “loser” ends up with a much more winnable matchup against an injury-riddled Nuggets team and a potential second-round battle against a Phoenix club that has lost its mojo of late.

Moreover, the no. 6 seed could also have home-court advantage in the first round. Regardless of seeding, the NBA awards home-court according to winloss record, and entering last night’s games, the Northwest Division champion Nuggets were a half game behind L.A. and Memphis.

So there is a huge incentive for the Grizzlies and Clippers to tank games down the stretch, with the only limiting factor being the possibility of losing home-court against Denver. And as luck would have it, the schedule makers have handed us a doozy next Tuesday – a face-off between the Clips and Griz in the second-to-last game of the season.

Chances are the teams will still be close heading into that game – each has three games against bad teams between now and then, so one would think that, at most, they would be a game apart. And if that happens, can you imagine a game where the two teams would have less incentive to win than this one?

I don’t expect the teams to make a mockery of the game – shooting balls into the other team’s basket, intentionally missing free throws, that sort of thing. For one, the league would come down on them like a ton of bricks. But I also doubt their coaches will want to get their players in a lose-on-purpose mindset five days before the playoffs begin.

Instead, I expect the teams to do most of their work before the game ever starts. If you’re expecting to see either Pau Gasol or Elton Brand playing in this game, then you were clearly born yesterday. I’d say there’s about a 99.8% chance that both will come down with “tendonitis” or “back spasms” in the 48 hours preceding the game. You can expect that Cassell, Chris Kaman, Shane Battier, and Mike Miller will suffer similar afflictions.

So the fifth seed in the West won’t be decided by Brand and Gasol, but rather by Yaroslav Korolev and Antonio Burks. If it does, one can only hope that the NBA schedule makers will at least learn a bit of a lesson – they’re the ones who set up a playoff system where, in some years, teams have a clear and obvious incentive to lose, and next Tuesday they’ll be lying in the bed they made.

In a perfect world, teams would always try their best and would never, ever lose games on purpose. But pro hoops is big business, and the spoils for the victors are large. With that in mind, it’s up to the NBA to create a system that removes the temptation for teams to engage in such shenanigans. In devising the draft lottery, the league was hugely successful. But, as the example of the Clippers and Grizzlies shows, the present playoff system is still a failure.

Mr. Hollinger is the author of the 2005-06 Pro Basketball Forecast. He can be reached at jhollinger@nysun.com.