The Tank Thread

[Watchman]

14 hours ago, DJlaysitup said:

LOL Wretch....when I first read this post I thought you wrote "History is repeating itself in the cemetery"  

Sounds about right.

[AHF]

3 hours ago, Watchman said:

Fine.  Here's to the next four years of crap.  Augh, who am I kidding?  More like 7 to 10 years of crap.

We were in line for years of crap no matter what we did.  Sap might have won, what, 4 more games this year?

[Sothron]

Rebuilds are part of the life cycle of a franchise. We've avoided a true rebuild for ten years. That's a damn long time in today's sports esp. the NBA.

[KB21]

On ‎2‎/‎23‎/‎2018 at 8:00 AM, Wurider05 said:

I don't see us having consecutive lean years That is why many of us want us to be to really bad this year because we won't have to be long. While I am not sold on Schenk just yet,  but we have one of the best coaches in the league and they can get talent. We got solid young players and if we keep Dedmon or upgrade his position we are on scorer away from being a playoff team. I still don't see us attracting top free agents. We have to retain a good ratio of young players to vets because you don't want to be too young.

Yeah, because so many teams have decided to bottom out and not have consecutive lean years.  Like, um, well..........no team has ever bottomed out and not had consecutive lean years.

The path Atlanta has chosen will guarantee at least 3-5 consecutive lean years.  Next year will be worse than this year because no veterans will want to come play in Atlanta, and the team will be younger. 

[KB21]

4 hours ago, Watchman said:

Fine.  Here's to the next four years of crap.  Augh, who am I kidding?  More like 7 to 10 years of crap.

Yep, because there will be another rebuild within the rebuild after Schlenk is fired.

[CBAreject]

1 hour ago, AHF said:

We were in line for years of crap no matter what we did.  Sap might have won, what, 4 more games this year?

That’s the thing.  If we had kept Howard and Millsap, we would’ve missed the playoffs and drafted 12th or so and had zero prospects for improvement.  People are acting like we tore apart the 60-win team to tank.  That team was long-gone and never coming back.  Replacing a shrewd Danny Ferry with a SJW GM didn’t help, but that was only one of several decisions that committed us to this rebuild.  

[DJlaysitup]

13 minutes ago, CBAreject said:

That’s the thing.  If we had kept Howard and Millsap, we would’ve missed the playoffs...

While there are other things that have to be considered - IMO - if we kept Millsap and D12 (and what was left of our core) I think we would have made the playoffs. 

(anticipating the next comment)

No...chances are we would not have made another ECF run.

[Lurker]

My main thing if you want to criticize something, then criticize the failure to do a good job of layering the team to be able to transition smoothly from era to era with teams.

If you don't, you're simply going to become a bad team eventually. Keeping everyone was going to delay it. That's what happens in the circle of sports. Teams get older and slowly become worse and worse.

[DJlaysitup]

9 minutes ago, Lurker said:

My main thing if you want to criticize something, then criticize the failure to do a good job of layering the team to be able to transition smoothly from era to era with teams.

If you don't, you're simply going to become a bad team eventually. Keeping everyone was going to delay it. That's what happens in the circle of sports. Teams get older and slowly become worse and worse.

That's a very good point.  Boston got caught in a similar position.  Actually I think they had planned pretty well but then their hot young forward of the future (Len Bias) croaked himself on coke and Bird started having back/foot problems and Parrish was at the end of his career - about all they had left was McHale but they didn't trade him for a rebuild.

note:  I didn't want to say anything bad about Lenny Bias - life is what it is - I cried when I heard he had passed - whether he was going to play for the Celtics or not - he was extremely good.

[Watchman]

4 hours ago, AHF said:

We were in line for years of crap no matter what we did.  Sap might have won, what, 4 more games this year?

I was not aware that our only two options were to either go with status quo or a complete blowup.

[Lurker]

There wasn't a need to go scorched earth, but with the mistakes made that need came into account. That's my point, and sorry...but those mistakes go past whoever the guy is GM now (I don't remember, but it's more on the fact I've been very busy than him being bad or whatever).

Like I said, planning in pro sports goes past just the one year and RIGHT NOW. It's possible to NOT have to go into the tank, but you have to plan for it. It involves making good signings and good trades to create more assets. Honestly, Ferry did. Then Mike Budenholzer and Wes Wilcox failed at this business. 

Sports really are a cutthroat business. It takes one mistake to fail, and they made the one mistake with Dwight Howard.

[terrell]

On 2/23/2018 at 10:44 AM, GameTime said:

I just hope we can get our first  superstar since Nique this year.

Deandre Ayton to Atl...

[CBAreject]

The 8 worst teams in the NBA, all of which have 20 wins or fewer, are currently on losing streaks totaling 43 losses.  The worst of these belong to the Grizz and the Suns, each of which are on a 9-game losing streak. This is a tankfest without historical precedent.  

[KB21]

Not all of those 8 teams are for real tanking, but even if they were, those teams are making a mockery of the NBA and the spirit of competition.  They are cheating the fans that pay their hard earned money to either see them play live or spend money on TV packages so they can watch them play.  It's an absolute disgrace, and the fact of the matter is, the strategy does not work.  The tank is cloaked in the premise that you are doing so to get a star player, but you are more likely to get an Andrew Wiggins than you are a player that can actually help you win.  Of those teams who are tanking, Phoenix is currently in the midst of an 8 year playoff drought.  Orlando is in a 6 year playoff drought.  Dallas is going on 2 years.  Sacramento is in a 12 year playoff drought.  Brooklyn is in year three and hasn't won more than 21 games in any of those years.  This is what tanking gets you, folks.  You get on that lottery treadmill, and it is hard as hell to get off it.  

[CBAreject]

9 hours ago, KB21 said:

It's an absolute disgrace, and the fact of the matter is, the strategy does not work.  The tank is cloaked in the premise that you are doing so to get a star player, but you are more likely to get an Andrew Wiggins than you are a player that can actually help you win.  Of those teams who are tanking, Phoenix is currently in the midst of an 8 year playoff drought.  Orlando is in a 6 year playoff drought.  Dallas is going on 2 years.  Sacramento is in a 12 year playoff drought.  Brooklyn is in year three and hasn't won more than 21 games in any of those years.  This is what tanking gets you, folks.  You get on that lottery treadmill, and it is hard as hell to get off it.  

 

Of course you can prove “the strategy doesn’t work” if you cherry pick the worst examples for your proofs, but that’s not the way to study something.  You should look at cases where it has worked (GS, Philly, Cleveland, SA) and also look at cases where teams didn’t tank but should have.  

 

For example, Charlotte honorably became competitive for a playoff spot in its third season of existence, winning 33 games.  Since then, they have made the playoffs 3 times in 10 seasons, getting bounced in the first round each time.   Most years, Charlotte tends to win just enough games to stay out of the lottery and draft a role player who will only help them stay non-competitive.  Every now and again, they squeak into the playoffs and get reminded that they are totally insignificant.

 

To me, Charlotte’s strategy is totally incoherent.  I would much rather be where we are (holding the most lottery balls) than where they are (little to no hope to contend until they finally blow it up and tank).  

Edited February 25, 2018 by CBAreject

[KB21]

6 minutes ago, CBAreject said:

 

Of course you can prove “the strategy doesn’t work” if you cherry pick the worst examples for your proofs, but that’s not the way to study something.  You should look at cases where it has worked (GS, Philly, Cleveland, SA) and also look at cases where teams didn’t tank but should have.  

 

For example, Charlotte honorably became competitive for a playoff spot in its third season of existence, winning 33 games.  Since then, they have made the playoffs 3 times in 10 seasons, getting bounced in the first round each time.   Most years, Charlotte tends to win just enough games to stay out of the lottery and draft a role player who will only help them stay non-competitive.  Every now and again, they squeak into the playoffs and get reminded that they are totally insignificant.

 

To me, Charlotte’s strategy is totally incoherent.  I would much rather be where we are (holding the most lottery balls) than where they are (little to no hope to contend until they finally blow it up and tank).  

San Antonio didn't tank, and it has not worked in Philly.  Sure, Philly has two good players from their years of losing, but they don't have a championship caliber team.  Therefore, it didn't work.

Golden State is also a situation where they did not tank to the bottom of the NBA standings.  They are a case of an organization that was bad for several years who finally found luck in the lottery with Curry.  Golden State never picked higher than 6th in any of their drafts from 2009 through 2012.  

So, we are left with Cleveland, who was terrible because LeBron left are are only good because LeBron came back, not because they "tanked".  So, what you are saying is that if we can sign LeBron James, tanking works.  

[CBAreject]

8 minutes ago, KB21 said:

San Antonio didn't tank, and it has not worked in Philly.  Sure, Philly has two good players from their years of losing, but they don't have a championship caliber team.  Therefore, it didn't work. 

 

Your standard is that tanking only works when it gets you a championship caliber team within 5 years?  What about all the times that not tanking doesn’t net a championship contender (teams that tried to build with middling draft picks and overpriced free agents like the Hornets and Knicks).  Does that mean the alternative can be a huge failure, too?  Or do you just discard data that doesn’t fit your narrative?  

 

[CBAreject]

Additionally, my list wasn’t exhaustive.  There are several strong teams that recently built through top-5 draft picks, like Washington, Minnesota, and recent OKC teams.  

The NBA has had a competitive balance issue for decades, and it threatens the league.  It’s a serious problem, but the fact is that there are only a few ways to build a contender.  One is to sign several of the best players in the league (generally, these players only want to play in Miami, NY, or California).  So if you’re not one of those teams, you can either tank or make a series of genius trades (Boston).  Here’s hoping it works out for us.  

[KB21]

42 minutes ago, CBAreject said:

 

Your standard is that tanking only works when it gets you a championship caliber team within 5 years?  What about all the times that not tanking doesn’t net a championship contender (teams that tried to build with middling draft picks and overpriced free agents like the Hornets and Knicks).  Does that mean the alternative can be a huge failure, too?  Or do you just discard data that doesn’t fit your narrative?  

 

The data on that alternative you speak of shows that you have a 19% chance of building a championship caliber team when you start as a 35-44 win team, whereas you have a 10% chance of building a championship caliber team when you start as a sub 25 win team.  So, Atlanta would have essentially doubled their chances of being a championship team within the next 5 years had they not tanked and actually attempted to put a competitive team on the court this year.  

[KB21]

37 minutes ago, CBAreject said:

Additionally, my list wasn’t exhaustive.  There are several strong teams that recently built through top-5 draft picks, like Washington, Minnesota, and recent OKC teams.  

The NBA has had a competitive balance issue for decades, and it threatens the league.  It’s a serious problem, but the fact is that there are only a few ways to build a contender.  One is to sign several of the best players in the league (generally, these players only want to play in Miami, NY, or California).  So if you’re not one of those teams, you can either tank or make a series of genius trades (Boston).  Here’s hoping it works out for us.  

None of those teams have a remote chance of winning the championship.  Heck, one of them is so strong that Hawks fans are currently concerned that they will fall out of the playoff race with the Jimmy Butler injury.  Isn't it something that out of all those top 5 picks Minnesota had, their best player was a free agent acquisition who was drafted with the 30th overall pick in 2011?