In NBA this happens quite often actually. Despite having some free salary cap space, some teams don't want to improve their rosters in order to finish low and get a good draft pick. This normally happens with small-market teams when they are in rebuild mode. Of course they don't publicly announce they want to lose as much as possible. Actually in NBA it's not profitable to be a "good, but not great" team because that doesn't get you anywhere: you always get out of playoffs in first-second round, you don't get good draft picks and your players are getting older. Take Atlanta Hawks, for example...
That's why I understand why someone would tank in this game. Last season, I also wanted to be fifth, but I had too much wins and ended up 4th. I lost more money by being 4th than by being 5th.
I mean, can you blame people who tank in order to get more money for next season(s)? Or do you want them to play "fair" and make their team worse in long term? They will say "My team sucks and I don't have any money saved, but I played fair!". I don't think this will happen.
I'm currently training SFs and despite having the possibility to assemble a playoff team, I'm hovering around 5-6th place to save some money for the season when I'll go "all-in" and try to promote. I don't see this as cheating.