Ownership and management of teams may want to tank as it bodes well for the future, i.e. accumulating high draft picks and ginning up interest and ticket sales for future seasons. And if in tanking you get rid of high salaried players not in your future plans, you save money and cap space. The ultimate is when owners in some pro sports, and some have done it, do everything they can to save money and not strive to build a winning team because this will keep fans away and lead to big tax write offs (remember the Rigas family that owned the Sabres?). However, players don't tank. It's detrimental to their individual reputations, future salaries, and stature to have bad seasons. It's thus illogical to believe players buy into the notion of tanking to possibly benefit the team down the road. They're generally too selfish these days to collectively think tanking will benefit them personally.