The Tank Thread

[CBAreject]

@KB21, I see there, but I do think he meant that is the Hawks’ “plan”.  I should also point out that he thinks the plan is to sign guys once cap space is cleared, and that will make us a playoff team, not just straight draft picks.  

I personally hope we don’t rush this rebuild like we did the last one.  Trading picks for Joe Johnson made us better quickly but it put a ceiling of mediocrity on our team for a decade that was only broken by Ferry’s shrewd moves.  

[KB21]

1 minute ago, CBAreject said:

@KB21, I see there, but I do think he meant that is the Hawks’ “plan”.  I should also point out that he thinks the plan is to sign guys once cap space is cleared, and that will make us a playoff team, not just straight draft picks.  

I personally hope we don’t rush this rebuild like we did the last one.  Trading picks for Joe Johnson made us better quickly but it put a ceiling of mediocrity on our team for a decade that was only broken by Ferry’s shrewd moves.  

I want them to get out of the lottery as soon as possible.  Get off the losing treadmill and stay off.

[davis171]

1 minute ago, KB21 said:

The free agent outlook was different back then.  Atlanta gave Joe Johnson the opportunity to be the guy, and it was an overpay.  

Darren Collison, George Hill, Zach Randolph, Rajon Rondo....

[davis171]

Hawks would be dumb not to see if big name free agents are interested if not rent out the cap space to acquire more assets it is that simple.

[AHF]

KB.  I think you forgot to finish showing how a real GM builds a champion:

On 2/27/2018 at 2:59 PM, AHF said:

Here is your roster as you start to look at trades - you are presently over the cap.

 

Roster Spots		Salary
1	Dwight Howard	$23,500,000
2	Paul Millsap	$31,269,231
3	Kent Bazemore	$16,910,113
4	Ersan Ilyasova	$6,000,000
5	John Collins	$1,936,920
6	Tyler Dorsey	$815,615
7	Dennis Schröder	$15,500,000
8	Malcolm Delaney	$2,500,000
9	Taurean Waller-Prince	$2,422,560
10	DeAndre' Bembry	$1,567,200
11	Mike Muscala	$5,000,000
12
13
14
15
	Total:	$107,421,639

 

What is the hypothetical next move?

[Lurker]

It's digging up that dead horse and beating it again but like I continue to consistently say, the mistakes that caused this don't go back to just last year. Unless you see competing no matter what as=good. Which if that is so, you need to quit pro sports completely because that's only the mentality in college sports.

The mistakes by BudCox were going to have a domino effect no matter what pathway was taken. And as seen, there's not really much options rolling back to last year other than let THJ go, let Ilyasova go, don't bring back Muscala, still sign Dedmon, sign a guy like Gerald Green and maybe 1 other "undervalued" free agent, resign Millsap, and hold your breath and pray to god that you don't have a team that is miserable to watch 50% of the time due to effort problems and the like, and that Millsap doesn't get hurt (FWIW: The only injuries in which you can completely dismiss as possibly fluke-ish are broken bones and a torn ligament is not this) because it would all go to **** in a handbasket if he did.

It's not that I'm supporting:

A. Building completely through the draft.
B. Appalling tanking acts (which likely have a different definition here by Adam Silver that what is being seen here by the extremist arguer).

I'm not, I just want to see a concise plan that does not involve building a team of "Star Complementary Players". 

[KB21]

Wrong.

If you are against doing everything within the rules to compete and win, then you don't belong in sports, period.  The entire concept behind tanking goes against the spirit of competition with sports.  This "if I can't win a championship, I'd rather suck" attitude has no place in sports, period.  That attitude reminds me of when we used to play fraternities in intramural sports when I was in college.  I wasn't a rent-a-friend type of person, so I always loved playing those frat boys and beating their asses, hearing them complain about the beating my team was giving them, and watching them lay down when the beat down was on.  

So, as appalling as Travis Schlenk's strategy is with the Hawks, at least we have Bud who isn't going to remotely let his players just lay down and take the losing.  Bud's the greatest aspect of this franchise at the moment.

[Vol4ever]

This franchise has become a bottom dwelling joke ONCE again.  

[davis171]

1 hour ago, KB21 said:

Wrong.

If you are against doing everything within the rules to compete and win, then you don't belong in sports, period.  The entire concept behind tanking goes against the spirit of competition with sports.  This "if I can't win a championship, I'd rather suck" attitude has no place in sports, period.  That attitude reminds me of when we used to play fraternities in intramural sports when I was in college.  I wasn't a rent-a-friend type of person, so I always loved playing those frat boys and beating their asses, hearing them complain about the beating my team was giving them, and watching them lay down when the beat down was on.  

So, as appalling as Travis Schlenk's strategy is with the Hawks, at least we have Bud who isn't going to remotely let his players just lay down and take the losing.  Bud's the greatest aspect of this franchise at the moment.

Just saying the hawks are in this position because Bud traded assets for more now players and how does that look now (Kelly Oubre Jr. for THJ) as well as botching the whole Al, Dwight, and Millsap team up sealed the hawks fate into tanking. If you really think every team in pro sports follows every rule you are lying to yourself. How many times have the patriots been caught cheating and bending the rules.

[AHF]

1 hour ago, KB21 said:

If you are against doing everything within the rules to compete and win, then you don't belong in sports, period.  

Ironically, this is the rationale behind the Philly tank job.  They just defined compete as "eventually compete for a ring" where you define it as "win as many games as possible this season."  Different time horizons and thresholds for success but the same basic "do everything in the rules to maximize your odds of winning."

[KB21]

29 minutes ago, AHF said:

Ironically, this is the rationale behind the Philly tank job.  They just defined compete as "eventually compete for a ring" where you define it as "win as many games as possible this season."  Different time horizons and thresholds for success but the same basic "do everything in the rules to maximize your odds of winning."

They intentionally lost, so they were not competing.

[davis171]

7 minutes ago, KB21 said:

They intentionally lost, so they were not competing.

By your rational the hawks would never compete for a title name 1 team that won a championship without a lottery pick they drafted?

[AHF]

13 minutes ago, KB21 said:

They intentionally lost, so they were not competing.

Flipping perspective, they would point out that you aren't competing by rolling back a team's that never win games beyond the first and second round of the playoffs like the Atlanta history.  Shooting to win 45 games and show up for the playoffs isn't competing if the target is a title.

[KB21]

17 minutes ago, AHF said:

Flipping perspective, they would point out that you aren't competing by rolling back a team's that never win games beyond the first and second round of the playoffs like the Atlanta history.  Shooting to win 45 games and show up for the playoffs isn't competing if the target is a title.

There is that "if i can't win a championship, I would rather suck" attitude that has no place in sports.  I'd venture to guess that no one who has actually played competitive sports before would ever have that attitude.  

[davis171]

7 minutes ago, KB21 said:

There is that "if i can't win a championship, I would rather suck" attitude that has no place in sports.  I'd venture to guess that no one who has actually played competitive sports before would ever have that attitude.  

I have played High school basketball and soccer it is totally different when you have a draft system that incentivizes loosing. You get to keep the players and bring in young talent your point is void in the NBA.

Edited March 2, 2018 by davis171

[Lurker]

Honestly, in college sports, it's 100% easier to ALWAYS be competitive year in and year out because there is no drafting system. There is no "signing players for money" (y'all know why this is in quotes). There is just your coach has to be great at selling the program to be able to get very good players.

That's not the case in MLB/NBA. It's harder especially because of the salary caps. Maybe you get rid of the draft. You still have the issue of you have to sign these players and honestly getting rid of the draft would actually make things WORSE. 

[davis171]

Just now, Lurker said:

Honestly, in college sports, it's 100% easier to ALWAYS be competitive year in and year out because there is no drafting system. There is no "signing players for money" (y'all know why this is in quotes). There is just your coach has to be great at selling the program to be able to get very good players.

That's not the case in MLB/NBA. It's harder especially because of the salary caps. Maybe you get rid of the draft. You still have the issue of you have to sign these players and honestly getting rid of the draft would actually make things WORSE. 

You would have to get rid of Max deals otherwise crazy super teams would form.

[Diesel]

On 2/28/2018 at 0:33 PM, CBAreject said:

I’m not sure how you managed to cram that many straw men into the first paragraph.  Nobody believes any of what you’re saying they do.  Nobody said the draft guarantees anything.  Nobody said a new GM will definitely draft better than BK and Babcock, or that they couldn’t mess up a pick, but it would be hard to do worse.  

Here’s one thing that was a guarantee: if we’d kept our roster intact we’d have continued to be a first-round playoff fluffer with almost no pathway to become a contender  that didn’t involve eventually becoming really bad.  So we accelerated things.  

Winning culture or no, you can’t sign anybody with no cap room, and even when we were coming off 2 straight seasons among the East elite, had the best culture in the conference, and DID have cap room, none of the top free agents wanted to come here.  We signed Howard because few other teams wanted him, and few other players wanted our money.  It is sad but true.  If we want a star, with have to play the lottery, and everyone knows a lottery is just that.  

The pathway to becoming a contender is FA acquisition.   It's very rare to draft a championship team.  By that same token, when you develop through FA acquisition , it's the culmination of having a winning culture.   We have lacked a winning culture for decades.  The moment we start to look like we have one, we uproot and start over.  Now, No FA will touch us.  You're hoping for a win in the draft...  You might get nothing.  Drafts can be bad.  Players can be unmotivated to come.   We will see what giving up feels like...

[Diesel]

On 2/28/2018 at 4:29 PM, CBAreject said:

There were two moves that committed us to tanking and both occurred in the 2016 offseason:  signing Dwight Howard and extending Kent Bazemore.  Once that was done, we were locked into mediocrity with no avenue to contention.  Look at that list of salaries—40 million going to two players that aren’t game changers.  I wasn’t posting here at the time, but I told some friends of mine the minute I saw the Bazemore deal that we would regret it immensely.  

Anyway, all this to say that from my POV, we’re debating the course of action not from the 2017 offseason but the 2016 offseason.  Potential moves from 2017 are just deck chairs on the Titanic. 

Making Dennis our PG of the future locked us into mediocreville. 

[davis171]

6 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Making Dennis our PG of the future locked us into mediocreville. 

Teague isn't any better if anything we should have began rebuilding when we missed on Horford we should have traded Sap for assets regardless because we had no bird rights.

Edited March 2, 2018 by davis171