To tank or not to tank... that is the question that the Suns [and Hawksquawk members] ponder

[Guest]

So what path would Hawksfanatic take from today as GM of the Hawks?

My impression was that this thread deals with tanking. If that is your strategy then its dumb because you are playing two lotteries in doing so. One to get a certain pick, and then two that you make the "right" pick. Nevermind the idea that all drafts differ in quality, which adds even more uncertainty. I hate when people compare #X picks in the draft, that is only valid if the quality of the draft is the same (not likely to hold). I dont like to play GM, its one of the reasons why I stopped posting at realGM boards. When people bring up trades to do, what the hell does that accomplish? 90% of the time the trade doesnt even work because of the CBA anyway! Then factor in the human element and you see why so few trades are ever accomplished in the NBA. I have no idea what I would do nor do I want to waste my time thinking of what I would do in a hypothetical scenario. I also dont purport ideas of what type of team wins a championship, its a lot of tea leafs and people who fail to realize what uncertainty actually means. There is also a lot of asinine talk about superstars because of how superstars are even defined. Lots of times superstars are defined by winning championships...then you wonder why all championships are won by superstars! Get your head out of your ass and come up with a better measure!!

[MrMeltdown]

Before the season starts I would be willing to bet someone posts a article on how rarely a team goes the clear the books and get cap space route and actually gets to the ECFinals level afterwards .I bet that is just as unlikely or takes just as much time as being totally bad.

[Admin]

I hardly think it can be called a "trend" when the entire length and breadth of NBA history shows two teams that won a title without a superstar. A "trend" is the Run N Shoot offense in the NFL in the 90's or the plethora of zone blitzing in the 90's on defense. That is a trend. When every single NBA champion in history with the exception of two teams (that never repeated as champions) had at least one superstar then you can safely call that a rule of thumb.

Dallas 2 years ago did not have a superstar, even by the loose definition that term is used as. Dirk was a good player, but 33 years old and weak defensively and he was their best player. They built around him and re-built around him and eventually won it all.

[Admin]

My impression was that this thread deals with tanking. If that is your strategy then its dumb because you are playing two lotteries in doing so. One to get a certain pick, and then two that you make the "right" pick. Nevermind the idea that all drafts differ in quality, which adds even more uncertainty. I hate when people compare #X picks in the draft, that is only valid if the quality of the draft is the same (not likely to hold). I dont like to play GM, its one of the reasons why I stopped posting at realGM boards. When people bring up trades to do, what the hell does that accomplish? 90% of the time the trade doesnt even work because of the CBA anyway! Then factor in the human element and you see why so few trades are ever accomplished in the NBA. I have no idea what I would do nor do I want to waste my time thinking of what I would do in a hypothetical scenario. I also dont purport ideas of what type of team wins a championship, its a lot of tea leafs and people who fail to realize what uncertainty actually means. There is also a lot of asinine talk about superstars because of how superstars are even defined. Lots of times superstars are defined by winning championships...then you wonder why all championships are won by superstars! Get your head out of your ass and come up with a better measure!!

Yeah this thread is about tanking, but I was curious as to what your plan would be. It's easy to play (not singling you out here BTW) the that can't work game when not offering a solution... but in the end you're probably right as there is no single solution that can be applied to create a championship team as it would be easily copied. If anything luck probably has more to do with winning the vast majority of the time and in many different ways for a team.

[Admin]

The only problem I have with this is it sounds like we want to ignore the past. From a pure analytical standpoint...this is bad. The past is your data. It's your method of establishing patterns and trends. You don't live in the past, but you can use it to avoid undesireable results. There is no mistaking what we've traditionally done and there is no denying the results.

Over a 40 year sample (discounting the expansions and whatnot), we are one of two teams that hold the distinction of not being able to advance to the final four...in ALL of professional sports. You can say many things about that, but it tells you one big thing: we're doing it wrong. Some common threads amongst all these eras:

[*]No true superstar

[*]Teams full of Tier 2.5/3 players (good but not great)

[*]HORRIBLE drafting

[*]Throwing away draft picks

[*]Bad contracts (Koncak, Ken Norman, Joe Johnson)

Now, how do we respond to that.....? According to some of you guys:

[*]We say, "screw a superstar. It's too hard to get one."

[*]We plan to fill the team with "good" players and create a "Detroit Model"

[*]We say, "screw the draft."

[*]We chase down teir 2.5/3 players, realize we have little to offer their championship dreams, and are forced to OVERPAY them into BAD contracts.

All of it's a gamble. This is the part that people just don't get. Trying to control every aspect of building a team is much like trying to control every aspect of the game itself. There are some things that you just can't plan for...and yet, you can't ignore them either. All I'm saying is that we have to take into account every aspect of rebuilding in order to do it right. My personal opinion is that building a legitimate core is priority #1. You don't build that with the kind of guys that aren't in that top tier of players.

When it's all said and done, while we try to ignore the obvious, SOMEBODY is going to sign those players. Those teams are going to attract the best free agents. They'll be on the tongues of all the players, fans, and media. ALL of this is an advantage to them. It means money, exposure, FAN SUPPORT. This is what an NBA player wants on top of wanting to WIN. Meanwhile, we'll continue to roll out a team that only a diehard fan could love.

When we meet these teams in the playoffs...no wait, FIRST we have to claw over the other middling teams out there because we won't be any better than the other 4, 5, 6 seeds out there. So IF we can manage to scrap it out with these guys, then we meet the teams that we've always met: Bulls, Knicks, Magic, Celtics, Pistons... What's going to happen is when we need a bucket, we don't have that guy that can get us one. We will get punched in the gut and we won't be able to punch back.

People will point out that we had a Superstar in Nique...and that we did. They will point out attendance flaws...which we had. They will point out failures...that we did endure. Funny though, how that is the closest we've been to the ECF's in 40 years. What's really sad when you think about it is that the ineptitude doesn't stop as just not being able to make the final four of the NBA. What's sad is that we haven't had a team strong enough to even CONTEND for a ECF spot.

I'm certainly not saying screw the draft, I'm saying screw planning that the draft will be our savior. I'm also saying that unless we have some inside info, screw believing that a superstar is going to sign here as a FA. The most realistic way we're going to build this team is by getting as many good players as we can and then building the best team we can and be opportunistic to trade for a superstar is one comes available. And it's great to sit back and say don't sign such and such level of good player but the fact is that we have to have $50 million in salary every year and it's damn hard to maintain your max cap room every year while having a $50 million roster full of 1 year rentals. Not only will you never develop a team but that's a horrible atmosphere to develop rookies in as well and you're never going to get a coach worth a damn who'd want to be in that situation annually.

[Hawk88]

We can try and tank and if we get lucky we might get the number 2 pick and get another stud aka, Marvin Williams. Now wouldn't that be fun!Hawk88

[PSSSHHHRRR87]

...and it's the uncertainty in drafts today that makes tanking not an option. You can't put all of your eggs in one basket on a whim and a dream. It would take years to recover from that. The Cavs were horrible for decades and a constant lottery team before they got LeBron and now Kyrie. One of the main reasons the Lakers have been relevent for years is because of trades and FA signings, not because of the draft (they got Kobe, Shaq, and Pau through a trades).

[Sothron]

Dallas 2 years ago did not have a superstar, even by the loose definition that term is used as. Dirk was a good player, but 33 years old and weak defensively and he was their best player. They built around him and re-built around him and eventually won it all.

Dirk is a superstar. So was Jason Kidd for about 10 to 12 years. Dirk in the playoffs to win the title? 27.7 ppg and 8.1 rpg. He shot .485 from the field .460 from three point and only shot .941 from the free throw line. I think by any "loose" definition that is a superstar.

[Guest]

Dirk is a superstar. So was Jason Kidd for about 10 to 12 years. Dirk in the playoffs to win the title? 27.7 ppg and 8.1 rpg. He shot .485 from the field .460 from three point and only shot .941 from the free throw line. I think by any "loose" definition that is a superstar.

So he won a championship and therefore we call him a superstar. See a problem with this argument? There are people who look at a coin flip two ways. One group says "there is a 50% chance heads and 50% chance tails". Another group says "it is either heads or tails, we have to wait until the event occurs to say what it is". Most people see how asinine the second way of thinking is (if you dont, I have a hard time reasoning with you but its not like you are absolutely wrong but it does tell me you dont believe in free will). However, when you branch out to more complicated things like "will it rain tomorrow" people lose the ability to see how asinine the second way of thinking is. That is a lot like how this superstar argument goes when someone tries to strike down the Detroit model (previously know as the Portland model).

[Sothron]

So he won a championship and therefore we call him a superstar. See a problem with this argument? There are people who look at a coin flip two ways. One group says "there is a 50% chance heads and 50% chance tails". Another group says "it is either heads or tails, we have to wait until the event occurs to say what it is". Most people see how asinine the second way of thinking is (if you dont, I have a hard time reasoning with you but its not like you are absolutely wrong but it does tell me you dont believe in free will). However, when you branch out to more complicated things like "will it rain tomorrow" people lose the ability to see how asinine the second way of thinking is. That is a lot like how this superstar argument goes when someone tries to strike down the Detroit model (previously know as the Portland model).

Dirk was a superstar before the championship and still remains a superstar. Detroit nor the late 70's SuperSonics that won titles (the vaunted Detroit model) had a superstar. Also I'm not sure why you are comparing that Detroit model to the late 80's and early 90's Portland squad. That team had a superstar in Drexler. Just to add: tossing words like asinine is a bit obtuse. We aren't deliberating on something after the fact to verify the veracity of its worth. We already know that to win a ring you almost always have to have a superstar to do it. How we get said superstar(s) is immaterial as far as I'm concerned. Edited August 2, 2012 by Sothron

[Guest Walter]

It would be difficult to retain the same flexibility year in and year out if we're not adding star players because we'd have to keep signing enough quality players to 1 year contracts to reach the minimum team salary allowed (which I believe is near $50 million) and keep having max times 2 cap space available the following year. We could trade Al and Josh for lottery picks... and then we'd get to pray that any of those lottery picks turns out even remotely as good Al or Josh. For me, I'd much rather keep those guys or trade them for proven NBA players, than to play the NBA lottery unless it was a last resort.

It's either one way or another IMO. There is no in between. If we cannot get a top FA T-H-I-S offseason then we don't stand a chance at a title with remotely the current roster. We can't then expect to trade JS and Horford laterally with minimal risk and significantly increase talent. THAT is not happening. The only way this franchise can make the leap from pretender to contender is to get a superstar FA or draft one. We aren't going to get anyone to trade us a sueprstar for JS in his last year or Horford. NOT going to happen. So while it's nice to think we trade JS and Horford for a "proven NBA player", proven by definition damns us to the same mediocrity we are trying to avoid. Am I proposing "tank" NOW? No. The cap space is still here and the next off-season is a long way from over. However, if that doesn't work out and with NOBODY here indicating how this team can acquire its superstar, I don't see how anybody can reasonably argue that tanking WITH the extra lottery picks and 1st rder(s) trading JS and Horford would get us isn't the better strategy through which to build a team around a superstar than wallowing in mediocrity and trading JS and Horford laterally. W

[Guest Walter]

...and it's the uncertainty in drafts today that makes tanking not an option. You can't put all of your eggs in one basket on a whim and a dream. It would take years to recover from that. The Cavs were horrible for decades and a constant lottery team before they got LeBron and now Kyrie. One of the main reasons the Lakers have been relevent for years is because of trades and FA signings, not because of the draft (they got Kobe, Shaq, and Pau through a trades).

The uncertainty of the draft is better than perpetuating, certain mediocrity. We fortunately have a 3rd option, the certainty of a ton of cap space. I hope that works out so that we don't really have to hash out this issue. W

[MaceCase]

So he won a championship and therefore we call him a superstar. See a problem with this argument?

Well he did have an MVP, Finals appearance, and numerous other awards and recognitions from All Star to All NBA before he finally won a title so I'm not sure if you are presenting that argument correctly. In some sense it's like calling Duncan and Dirk now bigger stars (therefore superstars) than Barkley and Malone because the latter lack rings.

[Guest]

Well he did have an MVP, Finals appearance, and numerous other awards and recognitions from All Star to All NBA before he finally won a title so I'm not sure if you are presenting that argument correctly. In some sense it's like calling Duncan and Dirk now bigger stars (therefore superstars) than Barkley and Malone because the latter lack rings.

The argument does not appear to be "a team has never won a championship without a player who had at one point in time been considered a superstar". If that were the case, then people would cite the 1986 Celtics as having Bill Walton as a "superstar" along with others. The argument has to do with the "superstar" at that time, but then what is defining these "superstars"? If part of that classification is winning a championship then this whole argument is begging the question. It seems evident to me that is a major qualification for what people call "superstars" and it brings the whole argument down.

[Admin]

Well he did have an MVP, Finals appearance, and numerous other awards and recognitions from All Star to All NBA before he finally won a title so I'm not sure if you are presenting that argument correctly. In some sense it's like calling Duncan and Dirk now bigger stars (therefore superstars) than Barkley and Malone because the latter lack rings.

No doubt, he was at one time a superstar. 2 years ago not a chance. 23/7 for the season is far from.a superstar, unless Josh is also a superstar under this loose definition of superstar.

[Sothron]

The argument does not appear to be "a team has never won a championship without a player who had at one point in time been considered a superstar". If that were the case, then people would cite the 1986 Celtics as having Bill Walton as a "superstar" along with others. The argument has to do with the "superstar" at that time, but then what is defining these "superstars"? If part of that classification is winning a championship then this whole argument is begging the question. It seems evident to me that is a major qualification for what people call "superstars" and it brings the whole argument down.

But no one here that I have seen has argued anything remotely what you are suggesting. No one has said you had to be a champion to THEN be a superstar. There are several NBA superstars who never won a ring and yet still remained superstars.

[Sothron]

No doubt, he was at one time a superstar. 2 years ago not a chance. 23/7 for the season is far from.a superstar, unless Josh is also a superstar under this loose definition of superstar.

Did you see his playoff averages? He had a slightly below average season raw point per game wise but his shooting percentage was very good. And in the playoffs he played like the superstar he has been for several seasons now. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone that doesn't consider almost 28 ppg and 8 boards in the playoffs on excellent if not incredible shooting on a championship run to not be at a superstar level.

[Guest]

But no one here that I have seen has argued anything remotely what you are suggesting. No one has said you had to be a champion to THEN be a superstar. There are several NBA superstars who never won a ring and yet still remained superstars.

So I am suggesting that there is only one way to be a "superstar"? Or am I suggesting that one way to be defined (qualify is probably a better word) is to be good based on arbitrary statistical levels of production and win a championship?

[Sothron]

So I am suggesting that there is only one way to be a "superstar"? Or am I suggesting that one way to be defined (qualify is probably a better word) is to be good based on arbitrary statistical levels of production and win a championship?

Honestly? I have no idea which you are trying to determine. The point you made earlier about the very nature of what is considered a superstar being subjective is nature is one I agree with but no one is arguing that you can only be considered a superstar if you win a title.

[Admin]

Did you see his playoff averages? He had a slightly below average season raw point per game wise but his shooting percentage was very good. And in the playoffs he played like the superstar he has been for several seasons now. You'll be hard pressed to find anyone that doesn't consider almost 28 ppg and 8 boards in the playoffs on excellent if not incredible shooting on a championship run to not be at a superstar level.

superstars aren't 33 year old one way players.