What's new
By:

2025-2026 Tank Race Prediction Contest and Current Results Thread

Zombie said:
Washington gets the win!

I haven’t watched them so if anyone here has feel free to chime in, but on paper they seem like they should be regular bad, not one of the worst NBA teams ever. What’s their deal?
Click to expand...
Former Idaho Stampede player CJ McCollum with 46 in the Wiz victory.
 
1000009795.png


The incredible Confederacy of ******* we are seeing at the bottom right now is frustrating. We are on pace for 22 wins right now and are still in position to give up our pick at #9. Feel confident we can pass two of Sacramento/Clippers/Dallas but that only gets is to #7. Long season to go but usually the early season is more competitive still.

New Orleans and the Clippers are especially frustrating as they're not even covertly tanking, they're just truly bad
 
Memphis now comfortably behind us, Charlotte, Dallas, and Indiana playing better in the last few. LAC has to play better at some point, right?

Portland is threatening though.

If we could have managed to lose to SAC we would be in 6th place right now.
 
Milwaukee is 2-8 in their last 10. Part of the appeal of that pick to Atlanta is that it is the best of the NOP/MIL picks, meaning if MIL finds itself in the lottery those odds are stacked on top of whatever odds that NOP ends up with in getting a top 4 pick.
 
We’re only a quarter way through and things will change. But right now it’s the worst case scenario. The Jazz are on pace for about 25 wins. Normally that would be enough to keep the pick, but so many teams are worse than expected.

If we lost the pick, there could be some solace in saying that we were a better team than expected. But in this current scenario we are not any better than expected and yet we still lose the pick. Worst of both worlds.
 
KqWIN said:
We’re only a quarter way through and things will change. But right now it’s the worst case scenario. The Jazz are on pace for about 25 wins. Normally that would be enough to keep the pick, but so many teams are worse than expected.

If we lost the pick, there could be some solace in saying that we were a better team than expected. But in this current scenario we are not any better than expected and yet we still lose the pick. Worst of both worlds.
Click to expand...

Our record against bottom 10 teams this year is 3-3, last year our tank strength was our record against bottom teams. Basically any record improvement this year vs last year can be explained by not sitting Lauri against other tanking teams.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
Our record against bottom 10 teams this year is 3-3, last year our tank strength was our record against bottom teams. Basically any record improvement this year vs last year can be explained by not sitting Lauri against other tanking teams.
Click to expand...

I think there’s a bit more to it than that. We have some improved players, but also lost guys like Sexton, Collins, and Kessler. But to your point, I don’t think this team is that much better than last season without the tank shenanigans.

It doesn’t feel like we’re a team that’s “too good” for a top 8 pick. It feels more like the bottom of the league really sucks rn.
 
KqWIN said:
I think there’s a bit more to it than that. We have some improved players, but also lost guys like Sexton, Collins, and Kessler. But to your point, I don’t think this team is that much better than last season without the tank shenanigans.

It doesn’t feel like we’re a team that’s “too good” for a top 8 pick. It feels more like the bottom of the league really sucks rn.
Click to expand...

The main thing is that it looks like we have 4 starting caliber long term players on this team (Keyonte, Kessler, Ace, Lauri), which is a much better place than last year. We have a much better foundation to build off of. We have more hope, even if the team isn't better.

I'm pretty confident that 23 wins will land us a bottom 6 record, which should allow us to keep our pick. I went through this in a previous post and having more than 6 teams with below 23 wins has only happened once in 25 years. If you go back and look at this similar thread from last year you'll see that things looked unprecedentedly bad last year as well. Teams will get healthier, young teams will start figuring out how to win games, and bad teams will start winning more games against each other.
 
Going back to the 23 wins idea, I don't think that Brooklyn and Washington are capable of winning 23 games, and I don't know if NOP is either. That means our best case scenario at 23 wins is probably 4th. I'm pretty sure LAC will win more than 23 games this year, which means we are looking at Indiana, Dallas, Sacramento, and Charlotte as teams that are capable of winning 23+ games, but could try to win less than that with shenanigans. We likely need to out shenanigan these teams.

I think Indiana, Dallas, Sacramento, and Charlotte are the teams we really need to be keeping an eye on right now. We likely need to finish below all 4 to guarantee our pick is safe, but at least need to finish below two of them to feel pretty good about keeping our pick.
 
SoberasHotRod said:
Going back to the 23 wins idea, I don't think that Brooklyn and Washington are capable of winning 23 games, and I don't know if NOP is either. That means our best case scenario at 23 wins is probably 4th. I'm pretty sure LAC will win more than 23 games this year, which means we are looking at Indiana, Dallas, Sacramento, and Charlotte as teams that are capable of winning 23+ games, but could try to win less than that with shenanigans. We likely need to out shenanigan these teams.

I think Indiana, Dallas, Sacramento, and Charlotte are the teams we really need to be keeping an eye on right now. We likely need to finish below all 4 to guarantee our pick is safe, but at least need to finish below two of them to feel pretty good about keeping our pick.
Click to expand...
I think this is correct. NOP can make hay in like Feb/Mar when they play a lot of tanking teams that won't be trying and they have no reason to not try. Clips too. Charlotte is improved and I do think they are semi-competent and play hard. Sacramento is a dumpster fire. We should have been disgustingly tanky that game to help boost their confidence. Sacramento/Dallas/Indiana are the teams I most worry about. Indy can justify a one year gap and I think Carlisle is okay with it. They have had so many injuries.

Our casual approach in the first quarter is likely to hurt us. Move Svi now. Start managing loads as you need to. Its time to pull the plug.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page
Back
Top