Should we go full rebuild?

[Elizah Huge]

It's just funny how optimistic some Jazz fans are about the future of other teams, but entirely negative when it comes to the Jazz's despite the Jazz having a great roster, great picks, great FO, and a great coach.

You’ve been cooking lately.

 

[KqWIN]

I think you need it for that approach to maximize your luck. I think I'm just going to call the preferred model the "Luck and Competency" model. The less lucky you are the more competent you need to be and vice versa. Our model is to get lucky and make good decisions... we will see where that takes us.

I guess it depends on what it takes to get to the top 4 in the draft. I think having Lauri is a power position, for example, but he does compromise chances at the top of the draft. You know you’re going to need multiple great players and I think it’s easier to get to 2 and 3 great players if you already have one versus zero. Having said that, you do need to be actionable when you already have one.

If you have Lauri, you can still min/max around him in either direction. I feel like that’s been a failure of the FO. If they want to have their cake and eat it too (meaning keep Lauri+tank) they should just do it instead of deciding to do it for half a season.

Just from a human perspective, it would probably piss him off a lot less if they didn’t lie to him and cleared the deck earlier. That way it can at least feel like we’re moving forward instead of literally quitting half way through.

 

[KqWIN]

This actually is something I see thrown around a lot on Twitter.

I think people love this idea because of the plausible deniability of it all. Like you can always poke holes in a team when they aren’t starting off on the perfect foot. If you aren’t starting out with KD, Russ, and Harden it’s as if you should just start over and quit until you do.

And of course, when people say this stuff they actually believe they will get those guys. To this day, we still have people who speak as if we would have Wemby 100% if we had just tanked. It’s just so easy to say, “tank, draft mvp, win championship with MVP”. When you bring up how unlikely that is, they’ll just say we do it forever until it works.

 

[Elizah Huge]

I think people love this idea because of the plausible deniability of it all. Like you can always poke holes in a team when they aren’t starting off on the perfect foot. If you aren’t starting out with KD, Russ, and Harden it’s as if you should just start over and quit until you do.

And of course, when people say this stuff they actually believe they will get those guys. To this day, we still have people who speak as if we would have Wemby 100% if we had just tanked. It’s just so easy to say, “tank, draft mvp, win championship with MVP”. When you bring up how unlikely that is, they’ll just say we do it forever until it works.

Very very very well said.

 

[framer]

It isn't the only way to do it. Spurs def tanked for Duncan back in the day. It was a 1 year situational tank but it was def a tank job. Robinson was hurt but they made no effort to get him back on the court and didn't really try to win.

Lots of other teams have yielded benefits from tanking to various degrees. It is one route of many though and just like all the other routes... it will almost surely fail every time.

The lottery rules were so much different back then, I don't feel like it can be used as an example now.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

The lottery rules were so much different back then, I don't feel like it can be used as an example now.

I hate when people do this… yes of course it counts. Folks can put an asterisk on anything.

 

[framer]

I hate when people do this… yes of course it counts. Folks can put an asterisk on anything.

No, seriously. Back then, if you tanked your way to a bottom record, you were getting a top 2 pick. There was far less variance. Now you can have the worst record and pick 5th (like Detroit, just last year.) It is far harder to control your own destiny, and there is far less reason to be the team that loses the most games. This is not a negligible difference.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

No, seriously. Back then, if you tanked your way to a bottom record, you were getting a top 2 pick. There was far less variance. Now you can have the worst record and pick 5th (like Detroit, just last year.) It is far harder to control your own destiny, and there is far less reason to be the team that loses the most games. This is not a negligible difference.

https://basketball.realgm.com/nba/draft/lottery_results/1997

False.

 

[stitches]

I think people love this idea because of the plausible deniability of it all. Like you can always poke holes in a team when they aren’t starting off on the perfect foot. If you aren’t starting out with KD, Russ, and Harden it’s as if you should just start over and quit until you do.

And of course, when people say this stuff they actually believe they will get those guys. To this day, we still have people who speak as if we would have Wemby 100% if we had just tanked. It’s just so easy to say, “tank, draft mvp, win championship with MVP”. When you bring up how unlikely that is, they’ll just say we do it forever until it works.

I think you are not presenting the best argument for the other side here(you are straw-manning). Nothing is guaranteed. It's about maximizing your chances, not about certainly.

Now do the same with the other option - is it more likely, especially for a team like Utah(not great at attracting and retaining top talent in FA long term), to get an MVP talent from the middle or from the top of the draft? How unlikely is it to get that talent from the middle? Or do you just do it forever until you hit on your Jokic in the second round or Giannis mid-first?

I think both those strategies have their own strengths and weaknesses and I can see the benefits of one over the other. I think building from the middle probably has a better chance to give you consistent solid playoff team quicker. I think doing the planned tank thing gives you better chance at the higher end outcomes.

I guess the question is... what do we want more and do we have the stomach for a few miserable seasons? And what your definition of a miserable season is? Because what we are doing now... definitely fits somewhere on the miserable scale, too, without any of the benefits of a legit tank.

 

[hgb]

https://basketball.realgm.com/nba/draft/lottery_results/1997

False.

I thought the difference from then to now was bigger, for sure, but it's still significant.
In '97, there were 1000 lottery balls for 13 teams, where the three worst teams had 250, 200 and 157 respectively (total of 607, ~60%) and only the top three spots were actually drawn.
In '23, there were 1000 lottery balls for 14 teams, the three worst teams had 140 each for a total of 420 (42%) (plus 125 for the 4th) and top four spots drawn, so falling from 1 to 5 is actually realistic.

A significant improvement to the process, for sure, but I still think it's too lucrative to tank.

 

[KqWIN]

I think you are not presenting the best argument for the other side here(you are straw-manning). Nothing is guaranteed. It's about maximizing your chances, not about certainly.

Now do the same with the other option - is it more likely, especially for a team like Utah(not great at attracting and retaining top talent in FA long term), to get an MVP talent from the middle or from the top of the draft? How unlikely is it to get that talent from the middle? Or do you just do it forever until you hit on your Jokic in the second round or Giannis mid-first?

I think both those strategies have their own strengths and weaknesses and I can see the benefits of one over the other. I think building from the middle probably has a better chance to give you consistent solid playoff team quicker. I think doing the planned tank thing gives you better chance at the higher end outcomes.

I guess the question is... what do we want more and do we have the stomach for a few miserable seasons? And what your definition of a miserable season is? Because what we are doing now... definitely fits somewhere on the miserable scale, too, without any of the benefits of a legit tank.

Meh….like I said people still complain that we don’t have Wemby because we didn’t fully tank. They do speak as if it’s certainty and they act like they are mighty because they are willing to burden the “miserable” world of tanking. To me, that is the false argument that is being brought up. The idea that it is a matter of being willing to tank versus the actual likelihood of success. Tbh, I actually think there is a subset of hardcore fans who would enjoy tanking as there is no pressure to win. Some found it miserable when we were winning because they thought we would win more. They always bring up the patience thing as a badge of honor, but it’s not a matter of patience at all.

At the end of the day I just feel it’s highly overrated as a method to build a championship contender and it’s because of the simplicity and plausible deniability of it all. “Speaking with certainty“ may be a little hyperbole, but regardless, whenever people present this idea they are extremely overvaluing their chances.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I thought the difference from then to now was bigger, for sure, but it's still significant.
In '97, there were 1000 lottery balls for 13 teams, where the three worst teams had 250, 200 and 157 respectively (total of 607, ~60%) and only the top three spots were actually drawn.
In '23, there were 1000 lottery balls for 14 teams, the three worst teams had 140 each for a total of 420 (42%) (plus 125 for the 4th) and top four spots drawn, so falling from 1 to 5 is actually realistic.

A significant improvement to the process, for sure, but I still think it's too lucrative to tank.

there are two sides to the coin though. You can tank but still be semi-respectable in the 4-6 range instead of the complete bottoming out to the bottom 2-3 teams. Either way it counts as an example. There are examples of many models working and infinitely more of them failing. One team wins a title each year and 29 others don't. If you are title or bust then you are hoping for a big time outlier outcome somewhere. 10-14% chance at a guy like Wemby is actually about as good as it gets mathetically.