MT: Particularly in recent years, there's been dialogue whether amongst fans or media members endorsing "tanking," or essentially losing on purpose to try and increase the number of lottery balls for draft prospects. How do the Lakers look upon that idea?
Kupchak: I've been here over 30 years, and it's never something that's been discussed or talked about. When we go into every season – like most organizations – we're excited about the season and think we can win a lot of games. Expectations vary, of course, but we are always going to do the best to win games that year, while also thinking about the following year. There is no way to believe that a team would, on purpose, do a terrible job in the summer and a terrible job in the draft because they want to lose games the next season. Now, I'm sure once the season begins and things go or don't go your way, the speculation as to what may happen if things continue may arise. We've been through years like that, and there's never been a discussion in midseason in this building where ownership would say, "It's best to lose." That's never taken place. Now, I don't even know how you convey that message to the coach if it were the goal. Coaches are defined by their record; it's intuitive that they do not want to lose. It's inconceivable to me that a general manager would try to convey that message to anybody. So it's never happened here and it never will. It's the worst message you can ever give to anybody.
MT: For the teams that are simply young and don’t know if they can win that season, is there a big difference between “tanking” and “rebuilding?”
Kupchak: There are certain teams with young players and assets with a goal to still win games, but they may remove themselves and say, realistically, we're probably going to be a sub-.500 team. That's different from tanking. Tanking is intentionally instructing the coach to lose, and that’s (not acceptable). Rebuilding is another matter.
MT: This season, injuries - Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Steve Blake, Jordan Farmar and Xavier Henry remain out – have not allowed you to be able to evaluate what the whole product could look like. As the Western standings sit at the time of this interview, the Lakers (14-22) are 6.0 games behind the 8th-place Mavericks (20-16). Last year was similar, but the roster was mostly healthy when Blake got back at the end of January. At what point do those types of realities impact the decisions you have to make?
Kupchak: If John Stockton were in the D-League, we would have picked up John Stockton. We are trying to win games. With that said, you have to continue to monitor your roster as the season goes on. That's the job as a general manager. You have to be more realistic. Most of the time, we start the season with a certain ratio in mind. It could be 80 percent looking at the current season, and 20 percent at the next season. If you have a chance to win a title in a given season, maybe you sacrifice the next year to a certain extent. Or, maybe that ratio changes with injuries, from 60-40 in December, to 50-50 in January or30-70 in February looking to the future. Now, the coach is 100 percent focused on winning that year, but part of the manager's job is to have the future of the organization in mind.