Nurturing Young Talent or Tanking?

In Philadelphia, they are doing both.  With the NBA regular season over, the 76ers will not lose more games this year, but, basically, they are a minor league team conducting in-season tryouts, hoping to land the next Kobe Bryant in order to turn the franchise around.  Will it work?  Is it 'ethical'?  I guess in baseball Pittsburgh did this for a decade, and in basketball, the Clippers were poorly run and unintentionally a minor league team.  The interesting thing is that young players see a losing team as an opportunity...to stay in the league, and so they play hard, and they have a coach who coaches them, instead of manages their egos.