I think any discussion in either direction that does not consider alternatives is just pointless. The reason why I find that the tank crowd can often be annoying is because they give no consideration to the other route of not tanking. To me this is the same thing, there is no consideration of the other path besides tanking. It focuses on one side of the equation. You can go on and on about how tanking is not really that valuable, it's meaningless and beating a dead horse until you weigh it versus something else. Like if you're upset that people get excited at a loss, it doesn't mean anything if you say that loss isn't worth much. It's only meaningful when you weigh the L versus the alternative, which would be a W. It isn't necessary to have high expectations for an L to still want that L. It just has to be more than what the W would give you.
Depending on your perspective, these odds might actually look very good. You can only find that perspective by considering the alternatives. That's a real discussion that can have back and forth. I think these odds look great compared to paths we could have taken (tried to take) this off season. I'm over the moon with those likelihoods if you're comparing it to a hypothetical Jazz team where we dumped everything for Bridges and George. I'm not joking, what you presented is a godsend compared to what could have been. It's a different conversation, however, if you're comparing it to having Don+Rudy locked into long term deals. You need to have that perspective to have a real conversation, otherwise what are you really accomplishing....countering a narrative that was insane in the first place? I don't think that's necessarily unimportant....but man dragging it out over and over can get tiring.
The annoying part isn't the facts themselves. The annoying part is that we know that any course is extremely unlikely to lead to a championship so you're not really doing anything by saying something is unlikely to work. At best, you are simply making a counter argument to someone being extremely hyperbolic or who has extremely unreasonable expectations. I try to have a grounded perspective, and this is what makes these things annoying to me. It's a fact that a #1 pick is more likely to be a superstar than the #30 pick, but if I just kept regurgitating that over and over it would get annoying and it doesn't accomplish anything except for tearing down the extreme narratives.
Maybe I'm just jaded at this point, but fighting with the argument that tanking is 100% effective just feels like fighting with a boogeyman that doesn't exist. If they do exist, not even a conversation worth having because that perspective is insane. I think there is always a tank vs no tank covnersation to be had, but I really hate how it's always these one sided conversations that don't actually address all the potential decisions. Tanking sucks, not tanking also sucks.
