[r377Participant]

 How many comments have we heard on this forum this season….

They should just tank………..Nets, Magic, Clippers

Both Nets and Magic won their first game.  Clips are 1-1 against the champs.

Ive said it before – whats the point of tanking for a 8-14th pick, when you can actually make the playoffs.  You get experience, team chemistry & positivity for next season.  Attracting Free Agents.  You never know what could happen in a playoff series – Curry, Lowry, Leonard, Embiid could all down injured.

[OhCanada-Participant]

 I agree with you. Theres better ways to build a basketball team. I dont think the foundation of your team can be built on losing games. Only two scenerios where I can think of a team having any kinda success in the last 10 years 76ers and Thunder and neither could be considered a success really. Maybe the Thunder finals run can be considered an "achievement" but not success.

Look at all the teams tanking year after year. Like the Timberwolves.

Wolves finally had success when they hired a coach dedicated to winning with Thibs, a player dedicated to winning with Butler, and vets like Rose, Teague, Gibson. And then they extend Wiggins contract instead of Butlers, they fire Thibs and trade Butler and now they are a lottery team again.

Also a bit off topic but I’ve lost all faith in stats. Its a decent indicator of how a player plays the and effects the game but I dont think you can use stats to determine what players are the best at certai skills like passing, scoring, etc. Only thing that matters is what you do in those crucial moments that change the complection of a game. Winning plays and when to make them. All those empty stats are worthless.

[SwatLakeCityParticipant]

For those teams tanking was never the answer. It’s just not in their DNA. Not for the Clippers or Nets. For the Nets, they may have sucked in years past before they got their pick back, but it just didn’t feel like they were tanking. And the Magic I can actually understand why they didn’t tank. They had already been losing for so long and they just hired Steve Clifford this year, if they tanked that would have been the end for him. 

But tanking is the answer for teams like the Cavs, Knicks, and to an extent the Suns. But I actually think that in two or three we could finally see something positive from the Suns maybe even sooner. We’ve already seen some signs of life like Kelly Oubre, Mikal Bridges, and of Deandre Ayton, now if they just draft a point guard like Ja Morrant, it could really string these pieces together and we can finally start talking about them again. Cavs and Knicks though tanking is the only answer.

[festar35Participant]

To me the Indiana Pacers are the epitome of this. They have a great playoff record over the last 30 years, despite only making the Finals once they are always in the playoffs.

[GronounoursParticipant]

 I’ve already said it, but tanking is a total disgrace. It’s the opposite of what sports is all about. I hope welfare queens like the Sixers will be out of the playoffs quickly, but more importantly, I hope the NBA will get rid of the bad incentives it put in place.

It’s okay to help struggling team; it’s not okay to reward loosing on purpose.

[Andrew1984Participant]

 Bummer, I thought this thread was going to be about tanks

[BothTeamsPlayedHardParticipant]

Most teams will at some point, whether as a result of bad decisions or bad luck, will have to clear their books and start over. This means getting young and, for the most part for some time, bad. This is not new, nor controversial. What has changed is that there is a movement of people who have moved the theory that tanking, and luck, are more important and necessary for success than making good decisions and having a plan for how they want to play, how does a player fit, and how they want to develop the player(s) they bring in. This is why the rebuild efforts of the Celtics, Bucks, and Nuggets are viewed in such a different light than the Sixers. It is quite easy to argue that the Celtics, Bucks, and Nuggets have been more successful in their rebuilding efforts, all of whom started either at the same time or later than Philadelphia,  but you would never know that based on how they are covered. Furthering the growth of tanking in the NBA and MLB is ownerships ability to pocket the profits that come with non-competitive seasons. Shared league revenues and fixed local tv contracts go a long way when payroll is low, and this doesn’t get mentioned enough when discussing this issue. 

The on-court problem is that the 2017 draft saw Markelle Fultz, Josh Jackson, Frank Ntilikina, Dennis Smith, Zach Collins, Malik Monk, and Luke Kennard go ahead of Donovan Mitchell, Jarrett Allen, John Collins, Kyle Kuzma, and WAY ahead of draft afterthought Monte Morris. No-doubt Hall-of-Famers like LeBron are the rarest of the rare. In 99% of players, gauging prospects are about weighing risks and dealing with incomplete information. How can a team be certain in its assessment of Darius Bazley when he hasn’t played anywhere? We don’t know how he would have done at Syracuse, but it would have been informative. Will he follow in the pattern of Thon Maker, Emmanuel Mudiay, and Dante Exum? Will the intrigue around Mitchell Robinson’s season make a team think it is less of a risk? How much should the success or failure of previous prospects who skipped a year of play matter? What about level of competition? Sure, the draft would be easier if every international prospect was the MVP of the Euroleague at Real Madrid, just ask the Suns. Giannis was playing in the Greek second division, which is not a high level. His success so scared teams that it made Bruno a first round pick, kind of like how Kristaps Porzingis’ success got Dragan Bender to be a top five pick. How much control of a draft is a team willing to give to its doctor when it comes to injured players like Bol Bol, Darius Garland, Michael Porter, Joel Embiid, Nerlens Noel, Spencer Dinwiddie, or Caris LeVert? Scouts have long been intrigued by the upside of younger prospects, but to what extent is it a lazy analysis? Players get injured. Not every prospect gets shepherded through NCAA eligibility like the child of a millionaire getting into USC (Taj Gibson comes to mind). Some grow late (Derrick White grew five inches after being unrecruited and going to a DII school). Some players come late to the sport (Pascal Siakam is probably the most notable of recent vintage), others don’t criss-cross the country on the AAU circuit to get seen by every last program (DII Amir Hinton mentioned this a few times in interview this year), some have less than ideal home situations (no shortage of cases, but Jimmy Butler is a prominent case), and some have never had the diet of an athlete and need to address that before getting to their potential (Udonis Haslem, Jae Crowder, and Marc Gasol come to mind). To what extent does a guy who has had all his peripheral stuff that made it possible for him to be a legit NBA prospect at 19 or 20 really have more upside than a guy who hasn’t had everything go so smoothly? These are all real issues, and teams trading in an ideology where context and nuance is largely irrelevant does the league a disservice. 

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