For those who find comfort in the concept of tanking, the Los Angeles Lakers' 102-100 overtime loss to the Chicago Bulls on Monday night was just about a perfect game. The undermanned Lakers gave it a game effort on the second night of a road back-to-back, got another good look at budding rookie power forward Ryan Kelly, a legitimate star turn from Nick Young, and then lost at the end on a heartbreaking layup by Taj Gibson to fall back to 13th place in the Western Conference.

Plenty of things to feel good about on the court, and then hopefully a few more pingpong balls for their lottery chances in June. Perfect. Tanking without actually trying to tank.

Celebratory moments have been few and far between for this year's Lakers squad. David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports

Rationally, it makes a lot of sense. Find hope or comfort or solace in being rational about a miserable, lost season. Point to the Oklahoma Cities of the NBA and the way they endured a couple of years of pain in order to land Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden at the top of the lottery. Replay Andrew Wiggins mixtapes endlessly and photoshop Lakers jerseys onto him. Go read old stories about how the last time the Lakers were in the lottery, executive vice president of player personnel Jim Buss took a liking to Andrew Bynum and made sure the team drafted him 10th overall while teams ahead of them had googly eyes for guys such as Charlie Villanueva, Martell Webster and Ike Diogu.

Rationally speaking, this is what a team and its fans are supposed to do in moments such as these, right?

It's a hard sell to any franchise. It's virtually impossible to a proud organization such as the Lakers, who have only missed the playoffs twice since the Buss family bought the team in 1979.

It's also wrong.

Maybe for a year -- particularly a year such as this one, which has been wrecked by injuries to all the team's frontline players and features a loaded draft class -- tanking (unintentional or otherwise) could be accepted. But it should never be embraced by the Lakers or any franchise.

Yes, sometimes a franchise has to go backward before it can go forward. A team must be torn down before it can be rebuilt. But there are reasons so many of the same franchises end up in the lottery year after year after year. Some consistently draft poorly. Some have a hard time luring the right complementary pieces through free agency to help those young players flourish. Others never have an idea of the type of culture they want to develop. But at some point, all of them find a way to convince themselves and their fans that tanking a season can be a good thing. And when you do that too often, it is easy to get stuck in that mindset.