Downside of mid-season trading would outweigh positives in the AFL, Jon Ralph writes

FOR more than a decade the AFL battled “tank-watch” in the second half of every season and only recently has it overcome such talk overshadowing late-season games. So why would the league want to bring it back by implementing a mid-season trade period?

If mid-season trading existed Todd Goldstein would likely be targeted by rival clubs in the premiership window.

HOW quickly we forget.

For over a decade the AFL community spent the second half of every season on “tank-watch”.

It was a toxic, brand-eroding discussion as every shonky move, every premature surgery was scrutinised as teams raced to the bottom.

Just five years ago Melbourne was fined for NOT tanking, Dean Bailey accepting a 16-week suspension after being threatened with a permanent ban from football.

INVESTIGATION: MELBOURNE FINED BUT FOUND NOT GUILTY OF TANKING

NEW RULES: AFL CONSIDERING A MID-SEASON TRADE PERIOD

Why we would want to incentivise late-season failure again with a mid-season draft is a mystery.

Brad Scott’s concerns about blowouts as bad teams trade off their ageing stars to maximise their draft position at a mid-season trade period should echo long and loud.

It is hard not to see how the introduction of a mid-season trade period would rob the AFL of its hard-won boast any team can win any given weekend.

For the sake of it let’s play out North Melbourne’s conundrum if a mid-season trade period existed this year.

Melbourne was accused of tanking in 2009.

They have a host of father-son contenders including Nick Blakey and Bailey Scott and Next Generation Academy talent Tarryn Thomas on the table.

Blakey will go to Sydney, Scott might be taken later in the draft, but right now Tarryn Thomas is in the pick 3-8 bracket.

If they win eight games they take him as their only top-10 pick, watch rivals collect free agents, and remain in a battle for mediocrity.

AFL TEAMS: SEE THE SQUADS FOR ROUND 5 MATCHES

If they finish second-last, they take one of the absolute stars of the draft with that early pick then get Thomas as a NGA player and their second top-10 selection.

Not only do they have a potential key position star of the future — Max or Ben King, Jack Lukosius — they get a Shaun Burgoyne clone in Thomas.

The one way to manipulate that ladder finish — with the imprimatur of the AFL — is to sell off their stars.

If mid-season trading existed Todd Goldstein would likely be targeted by rival clubs in the premiership window.

Why wouldn’t they sell Todd Goldstein for a first-round pick to Geelong, given the Cats are battling for a ruckman yet are in the window.

Or send Jarrad Waite to Richmond if Jack Riewoldt was battling a niggling hamstring injury mid-year.

Clubs in the premiership window might even pay overs, but it would guarantee a late-season plunge down the ladder for the seller.

We already changed the rules around the post-Round 23 bye because the last few rounds were a mockery as teams rested players.

But with the explosion of father-son, academy and Next Generation picks coming through, more and more clubs will be in North Melbourne’s position.

To their eternal credit last year they didn’t tank, even when losing in Round 23 might have secured them the first pick instead of No.4 (Luke Davies-Uniacke).

Jarrad Waite would also be a trade target.

One of the reasons is that it is actually quite hard to deliberately lose games, a challenge the new rules could make a doddle.

In the NBA this week it was reported one team owner castigated his coach for daring to win a late-season game against a quality opponent.

Eight of the 30 teams actively tanked — some of them the entire season — just to get a chance to maximise their percentages in a draft governed by a lottery.

Commissioner David Silver has warned against tanking as he considers a rule change ahead of what is expected to be a 2018 superdraft.

Sound familiar?

But Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, worth US$3.7 billion, was fined only $600,000 for admitting he had told players: “Look, losing is our best option.”

Unless the AFL can safeguard teams against their own temptations, the downside of the mid-season draft might just outweigh the upside.

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