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

[NineOhTheRino]

Could we please stop using the word tank. Look at it as building. That 13-win team didn't tank. Those guys played their asses off. What you had is a team that didn't have enough talent to compete consistently. That's not tanking!

[AHF]

superstars aren't 33 year old one way players.

Dominating players that give you a huge advantage over your opponents are the kind that score 28 ppg on .609 ts%. You take your Josh Smith types and give me the 2010-11 playoff version of Dirk. On the broader question of whether players that demonstrated dominance over their opponents (i.e., superstars) winning championships is a coincidence and the linearity of "time", I am a little unclear on why this is debatable. To assume that a team doesn't have a significant advantage with one of those players you have to ignore some of the fundamental things that differentiate basketball from sports like football or baseball. It seems to suggest that we should ignore the fact that basketball is the sport where a single individual makes the most impact on team success. Are we supposed to ignore the fact that the artificial max salary allows teams with superstars to capture more value with their cap dollars than teams paying market rate for their talent? Is it wrong to see in the past a pattern of dominant players being critical to playoff success and noting that teams with multiple players like Josh Smith don't have someone who dominates in the playoffs and that this puts the team with the dominating player in a position where there is the potential for much more success? I do get the point of saying that the past is not an absolute predictor of the future but you shouldn't use that to say that you can't predict that a healthy Dwight Howard will be an impact defender. The reason isn't because he did it in the past, it is because he has the physique, talent, athleticism, etc. which gives him an advantage over other players and allows him to dominate and that the characteristics which suggested he would dominate in the past and produced dominant results in the past are likely to carry over to the future (i.e., a healthy Dwight has those same characteristics, his competition remain vulnerable to those characteristics, ergo a healthy Dwight is likely to dominate in the future). In Dirk's case, he was someone who historically dominated, had a bad knee during the 2010-11 regular season and struggled (for him), and then returned to killing his opponents in the post-season. He didn't do it alone, but if you take Tyson Chandler ($12.6M), Shawn Marion ($7.3M), Caron Butler ($10.6M) Jason Kidd ($8.6M), Jason Terry ($10.6M), etc. and add a Josh Smith ($11M) to that group they aren't contenders.

[Admin]

You add Josh and Al and yeah they are contenders. Dirk is a stud offensively but he's below average defensively. Josh is well above average at both ends. Keep in mind I'm talking about 2012 Josh at 20/10 vs 2011 Dirk at 23/7. Give me Josh at his best or close to it over Dirk all day ling.

[AHF]

You add Josh and Al and yeah they are contenders. Dirk is a stud offensively but he's below average defensively. Josh is well above average at both ends. Keep in mind I'm talking about 2012 Josh at 20/10 vs 2011 Dirk at 23/7. Give me Josh at his best or close to it over Dirk all day ling.

Now we are raising the numbers again: This seems like an unrealistic core for payroll purposes: Tyson Chandler ($12.6M) Josh Smith ($12.4M) Al Horford ($12M) Jason Terry ($10.6M) Caron Butler ($10.6M) Jason Kidd ($8.6M) Shawn Marion ($7.3M) Total for top 7: $74.1M More importantly, I still don't think that team is championship material: Kidd Butler / Terry Marion Horford / Smith Chandler