Myths...and the ultimate truth.

[Final_quest]

One thing to remind ourselves is how difficult it is to build a championship level team. It seems like 5 teams have won it all in the past twenty years. A lot of them also make a huge financial commitment to their franchise, ie spend whatever it takes. But most tend to draft a franchise player, and then sign or trade for a 2nd, and sometimes 3rd, elite level talent.

Lakers draft Kobe and add Shaq, later adding Gasol.

Heat draft Wade and add Shaq, now Lebron

Celtics draft Pierce and add Garnett and Allen

Dallas drafts Nowitzki and Mark Cuban is trying to trade and pay for guys all the time to go with Dirk

Spurs are about the only team that got their top players exclusively through the draft

What the drafted franchise players indicate is you don't need to get a top 3 lottery pick, but someone in the top ten. I think AHF made the point best by saying most Finals MVPs were drafted by their team.

In short we don't spend enough, we still need to draft our franchise player to build around, but we don't have to be so bad that we are one of the worst 5 teams. We also could acquire a lottery pick, but we do need to draft our guy some how.

[MaceCase]

You need to read what I've been saying and explain to me how you get a 26PPG, HOF shooting guard without giving up a lottery pick that you sucked for.

This is the Squawk though, where all 1st rounders are valued the same so don't be surprise to see "trade Sap's expiring, the 22nd pick and a future first plus 2nds for Kyrie/George/Wall/Lebron" in about 14 months. After all, it's not the actual position of the picks but the quantity of them that make the difference when acquiring stars through trade.

[taz]

Dude you are all over the place and not making a case for anything. I'll help you out though. I'm not talking about building exclusively through the draft. You are lumping me in with your idea of what "tanking" is and the people who are all about it. I'm not in favor of trying to be the worst team possible to get the best pick possible to build a team full of Michael Jordans, Barkleys, and Ewings through the draft. I AM saying that we need to be fishing in the draft instead of trying to win these pointless playoff series, which we have done every year. The teams that ultimately contend for the title either draft a star player or they trade a player they took in the lottery for it or they trade the actual lottery PICK for. Being on the "treadmill" so to speak guarantees that you will not have these kinds of assets to make these kinds of deals. Your only hope for acquiring the kind of talent that takes you deep in to the playoffs is to pawn off these B and C-list players for a young and unproven player (like Joe Johnson, who again...is a risk) or for a lottery pick that some ridiculous team stupidly throws away. Or...hope for Chris Paul or Dwight Howard to rescue you in free agency. Most teams pull something out of the lottery to use or trade.

Well of course if you take my quotes out of context they look worse but when you realize they're a reply to your separate posts its fineSecond how do you know? Where is the proof? I see no data no real examples of championship teams built the way you say. You've basically said a bunch of words without backing things up with real life facts .Show me a team that won by purely drafting stars and i bet ill be looking at a team Pre lottery

[Wretch]

One thing to remind ourselves is how difficult it is to build a championship level team. It seems like 5 teams have won it all in the past twenty years. A lot of them also make a huge financial commitment to their franchise, ie spend whatever it takes. But most tend to draft a franchise player, and then sign or trade for a 2nd, and sometimes 3rd, elite level talent.

Lakers draft Kobe and add Shaq, later adding Gasol.

Heat draft Wade and add Shaq, now Lebron

Celtics draft Pierce and add Garnett and Allen

Dallas drafts Nowitzki and Mark Cuban is trying to trade and pay for guys all the time to go with Dirk

Spurs are about the only team that got their top players exclusively through the draft

What the drafted franchise players indicate is you don't need to get a top 3 lottery pick, but someone in the top ten. I think AHF made the point best by saying most Finals MVPs were drafted by their team.

In short we don't spend enough, we still need to draft our franchise player to build around, but we don't have to be so bad that we are one of the worst 5 teams. We also could acquire a lottery pick, but we do need to draft our guy some how.

That's really what I've been saying...and I've been saying it for years. Hovering around the middle of the pack, filling our teams with Milsaps, Korvers, and building around Horfords means competing every year and missing the difference makers in the draft. I'm not saying stink...actually, I'm not saying anything about winning or losing.

I'm talking about acquiring HIGH POTENTIAL talent and DEVELOPING it or trading it. Leaving room to sign someone significant should we find ourselves appealing to free agents (IOW - should we land our own stud).

[vext]

Lakes traded Vlade Divac to the Hornets for Kobe. Not that it really matters. Just wanted to point that out.

[Final_quest]

Well of course if you take my quotes out of context they look worse but when you realize they're a reply to your separate posts its fineSecond how do you know? Where is the proof? I see no data no real examples of championship teams built the way you say. You've basically said a bunch of words without backing things up with real life facts .Show me a team that won by purely drafting stars and i bet ill be looking at a team Pre lottery

Spurs won their championships through the draft. Right now we have Chicago and OKC who both are building mostly through the draft and doing quite well.

[Wretch]

Well of course if you take my quotes out of context they look worse but when you realize they're a reply to your separate posts its fineSecond how do you know? Where is the proof? I see no data no real examples of championship teams built the way you say. You've basically said a bunch of words without backing things up with real life facts .Show me a team that won by purely drafting stars and i bet ill be looking at a team Pre lottery

Contending teams that have done what I'm talking about are ALL over the place as are Championship teams. I just gave you an example using your own Boston Celtics trip. And if you read AHF's post, you'll see just as small sample of the data to prove it.

I'm not going to dig it all up for you, because it's there for you to see for yourself if you can get past the idea that we have to win EVERY single year.

[taz]

Well I meant more lottery draft than regular draft. Manu Parker etc came after 15

[Wretch]

Lakes traded Vlade Divac to the Hornets for Kobe. Not that it really matters. Just wanted to point that out.

So a) Let's hope that there is a HOF, rival to the best players EVER, available in the late lottery and find a team willing to take an aging veteran for that pick. Let's ignore the odds on that and say "to hell with the draft because it's a crapshoot!"

and b) Charlotte had the pick in their hands.

[drzachary]

Actually, this brings up a good point: we need to add "your lottery pick may refuse to play for you because your franchise is so abysmal" to the reasons not to tank.

[taz]

This is like some r/atheism stuff were never going convince each other other which way of life is better. So I'm agreeing to disagree I accept some teams have made things work by tanking but i will not accept that the hawks can't do what the rockets are about to do or what Portland is trying to do

[vext]

So a) Let's hope that there is a HOF, rival to the best players EVER, available in the late lottery and find a team willing to take an aging veteran for that pick. Let's ignore the odds on that and say "to hell with the draft because it's a crapshoot!"

and b) Charlotte had the pick in their hands.

I hope you don't think you're arguing with me lol. I'm just pointing out that Kobe wasn't drafted by the Lakers. I'm not taking sides on this issue. I think either strategy takes a certain amount of luck in the pick, the timing of free agency, and the timing of available trades. I could care less about this tanking vs not tanking discussion. No one is going to change anyone's opinion so what's the point?

Carry on....

[MaceCase]

Lakes traded Vlade Divac to the Hornets for Kobe. Not that it really matters. Just wanted to point that out.

Yes, the Hornets selected Kobe in exchange for Vlade, no different than the Hawks "drafting" Pau Gasol or recently Shane Larkin. These guys were never intended to wear the jerseys of the teams that drafted them yet people are just trying to blow up minutia of "they were drafted by other teams" when it simply isn't true.

[vext]

Yes, the Hornets selected Kobe in exchange for Vlade, no different than the Hawks "drafting" Pau Gasol or recently Shane Larkin. These guys were never intended to wear the jerseys of the teams that drafted them yet people are just trying to blow up minutia of "they were drafted by other teams" when it simply isn't true.

That's a very valid point. But Kobe was also a lucky pick. He was the 13th pick and came straight out of high school. No one had a clue how good he was going to be (I'm sure Laker fans will argue this though). And that was barely a lottery pick. No tanking would be required to get that pick. To me, neither strategy is guaranteed or even necessarily better than the other. A lot of it is pure luck.

[High5]

You cannot call the Atlanta Hawks a "winner." Winning is more than simply making the playoffs in the NBA. Over half the league makes the playoffs. We've never been a threat to even make the ECF, much less win the East and compete for a championship. Our team is a joke because we have the youth and athleticism to get through the weak Eastern Conference with a decent win total only to possibly barely defeat a team that's somehow worse in the 1st round and then get utterly dismantled in the 2nd round. Consider our two most impressive series in these last 6 years: One we still got blown out 4 times (1st Boston) and the other we managed to win with a negative differential (2nd Orlando) against a team that probably set a record for most missed 3's. And never forget we suffered the worst playoff beating in NBA history.

So, I disagree with the "winner" part, but I've been firmly in the camp that would rather see the Hawks tank or develop or whatever you want to call it instead of wasting more years as cannon fodder for the legitimate contenders.

[Dejay]

While there are great points being made on both sides, an earlier poster stated something that I not only wholeheartedly agree with but have been writing for years. All of this arguing, bickering, and debating over whether the team should tank, is a treadmill team, or whatever can be laid at the hoofs of Billy Knight. So many posters here don't want to tank because the last time they went through that, the moron blew FOUR LOTTERY PICKS. The sole reason no one takes us seriously is because we constantly make jackass decisions in the draft no matter who is the GM. The sole reason why we're laughed on TNT's NBA set is because we always overlook the Chris Pauls of the world in order to bring in the next Marvin Williams, the next Jon Koncak, the next Alan Henderson. Having the opportunity at our hands to change the perception of this franchise for a decade, only to blow it is like having a high aptitude for math and a $100k loan to become an engineer, only to spend it at a cooking school, become a cook at a second-rate restaurant, only to not be able to make the payments on said loans. What route our team should take, I don't know but I do know this; the bill for having BK in charge has now come due and we are fresh out of deferments and forebearances.Time to pay up...

Edited July 6, 2013 by Dejay

[Diesel]

Roughly 80% of champions drafted their NBA Finals MVP over the past 25 years. I don't buy the idea that we are living in the age of FA rather than the draft.On the Falcons, they built their current run the right way - by sucking and drafting a stud QB #1 overall and then when he was gone sucking and drafting a stud QB #3 overall. That said, the talent pool is much deeper in the NFL so you can get studs who championship MVP's outside of the top of the draft (Brady, Warner, etc.). The NBA is a different game but the Falcobs took a very NBA-tanking kind of approach to landing their core stud and building out.

Let's see... Jordan 6. Duncan 3 . Dirk 1. Parker 1. Pierce 1. Wade 1. Hakeem 2. Worthy 1. Isaih 1. Dumars 1.

FAs

Kobe 2. Shaq 3. Billups 1. Lebron 2.

But now that we've put names to faces... doesn't it change things just a little bit.

25 yrs... 14 players.

72%... drafted.

Not as impressive when you consider that Jordan won it 6 times and Duncan 3.

[Diesel]

The Bobcats did take chances on expensive free agents and trades like Gordon and the shotblocking athletic tweener whose name escapes me at the moment. They have been marked by incompetency in drafting, free agents, trades and management. Incompetence will always translate into failure.

We drafted Shelden, Childress, Acie, and Marvin with Lottery picks.

QED!!!

[Diesel]

The Bobcats did take chances on expensive free agents and trades like Gordon and the shotblocking athletic tweener whose name escapes me at the moment. They have been marked by incompetency in drafting, free agents, trades and management. Incompetence will always translate into failure.

We drafted Shelden, Childress, Acie, and Marvin with Lottery picks.

QED!!!

[AHF]

For debates on historical evidence, see the tanking thread for pro and con evidence. It is much more developed than this thread.