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absolutely love this truehoop piece on tanking

T

theNBAnerd

Well-Known Member
this is from a larger post on tanking. the whole piece is a good look at how OKC (and teams like them) didn't get bad to get a pick, and then magically become good. it starts with a little math to show that, even if you "successfully" suck your way into a high draft pick, the chances of that pick being someone good enough to substantively change the direction of your team is slim.

read away.

https://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/39546/the-oklahoma-city-unicorns

Livin’ on a prayer

Here’s my list of top five picks that have become surefire franchise players (and the spot at which each was taken) in the last 10 years:

Yao Ming (2002, No. 1), LeBron James (2003, No. 1), Dwyane Wade (2003, No. 5), Dwight Howard (2004, No. 1), Deron Williams (2005, No. 3), Chris Paul (2005, No. 4), LaMarcus Aldridge (2006, No. 2), Kevin Durant (2007, No. 2), Derrick Rose (2008, No. 1), Russell Westbrook (2008, No. 4), Kevin Love (2008, No. 5), Blake Griffin (2009, No. 1) and Kyrie Irving (2011, No. 1).

That's 13 players in 10 drafts. If your team drafted in the top five, you had a one-in-four chance of snagging one of the future All-NBA candidates on the list above. That means most top-five draft choices cannot turn around their teams. Drafting in the top five, a team is more likely to end up with Raymond Felton, or if you’re lucky, Mike Conley, than Chris Paul. Still, teams are willing to make that long-shot bid, because any chance at all to get the next Dwight Howard is a chance worth tanking … err, taking.

What I’m suggesting is that the current lottery system does not help struggling teams nearly as much as one might think. It’s a collection of life preservers thrown a struggling group of franchises, but only one in four actually float. Thrashing about in the deep blue sea of futility to get that kind of odds of finding a great player hardly seems worth it.

Meanwhile, losing enough games to end up in the high lottery takes a serious toll on franchises and fan bases -- where the hope of finding a franchise savior in the lottery is sometimes the only thing that makes a team worth caring about. But relying on that kind of deus ex machina solution also breeds bad organizational habits and cultures of losing. Not every group of 21-year-old players, or any group of players, really, should be expected to go from starting a season 3-29 to finishing 52-30 the next.

The Thunder and Chicago Bulls are examples of teams that grabbed superb talents at the top of the draft but also made dozens of smart decisions up and down the organization -- like hiring Tom Thibodeau in Chicago and finding a creative, cap-friendly way to extend Nick Collison in Oklahoma City.

Getting lucky for three straight years in the draft is only a part of the Thunder story. The reality is teams that draft in the lottery for six straight years are more likely to resemble the Kings than become the Thunder. To a perpetually bad franchise pursuing "the Thunder model," my advice is the same as it would be for someone hunting a unicorn: good luck, and don't be upset if all you find are horses.
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Also players will never tank. They are trying to keep their jobs and they are not going to tank for some college player. Coaches are a different story. As well as holding players out for "injuries".

But tanking is for pansies.
 
Nerd, no one wants Jazz to tank or start OKC model this or next year. Most just want Jazz to have a lottery pick in potentially the most loaded draft of decade. That's it.
 
It makes you wonder where winning comes from. You look at the best teams and the usually their top players came from the draft. Did they just get lucky?

Coaching and culture must play a big part. Money and market size also help.

Sacramento, for example, has drafted reasonably well, but they have also systematically traded away their best players to make room for the next rookie they're hyping. They pretend like they're doing the OKC thing, but really they're just trying not to go broke paying big contracts.

I don't think Utah can afford to risk an extended period of losing just to draft top talent. We don't have unlimited fans or a sweet TV deal. The only desirable thing about our team around the league is our long history of being a playoff team. A couple ugly seasons and we'd be looking at a half-empty arena and one nationally televised game a year.

That's why it's great to let the Knicks, Nets, and Warriors tank for you. :)
 
So basically, he sees 1.3 franchise players/year. Although Roy and Oden could have been without injuries. Bynum might be on this list as well, but OKC got really lucky with their picks Durant, Westbrook, Harden, and Ibaka.
 
mct said:
It makes you wonder where winning comes from. You look at the best teams and the usually their top players came from the draft. Did they just get lucky?

Coaching and culture must play a big part. Money and market size also help.

Sacramento, for example, has drafted reasonably well, but they have also systematically traded away their best players to make room for the next rookie they're hyping. They pretend like they're doing the OKC thing, but really they're just trying not to go broke paying big contracts.

I don't think Utah can afford to risk an extended period of losing just to draft top talent. We don't have unlimited fans or a sweet TV deal. The only desirable thing about our team around the league is our long history of being a playoff team. A couple ugly seasons and we'd be looking at a half-empty arena and one nationally televised game a year.

That's why it's great to let the Knicks, Nets, and Warriors tank for you. :)
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I think the Jazz would still get support in this scenario though. Fans will still go to the games if they are losing as long as they can see that the team has a bright future. And that is and would be the case for this team. It would be different if we didn't already have something we were already building on. We have something exciting to latch on to. I agree that Tanking isn't the best way if you are starting from scratch and are only set up to get one pick at a time. That could take a lot of time and prove disasterous.
 
people can spell it out whatever way they want but the fact is that our best chance of getting a ring is through the draft. We arent pulling FA's and if you don't have anything you can't trade for anything.
 
It worked for the Spurs. They had Robinson and they would sit him to get Duncan and now look at them. No one is talking about them tanking anymore.
 
Coaching matters as well...If Harden or Ibaka played for the Jazz, they wouldn't be that good. Corbin would have them rotting on the bench. I'm still in disbelief that Favors still has games where he plays less than 20 minutes a game...
 
The article actually points out how hard it is to land a franchise player. Which justifies even more why Tanking is the only way
 
theNBAnerd said:
this is from a larger post on tanking. the whole piece is a good look at how OKC (and teams like them) didn't get bad to get a pick, and then magically become good. it starts with a little math to show that, even if you "successfully" suck your way into a high draft pick, the chances of that pick being someone good enough to substantively change the direction of your team is slim.

read away.

https://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/39546/the-oklahoma-city-unicorns
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....some excellent points made! The fact is basketball on ALL levels is a team game....and you need team players, talented, but team players none the less! Dallas won last year because they had better "team" players than the Heat. They wouldn't have won without Dirkawitz...but they also wouldn't have won without Terry, or Chandler, or Marion. The team that wins this year will be "team" oriented, not "star" loaded.
 
Thee jazz fan said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Robinson_(basketball)

Do your research before you open your mouth. Robinson broke his foot early in the season and was out with injury the rest of the year. They didn't tank on purpose.
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The Spurs also beat the odds to get the #1 pick - whereas Boston had tanked like a Panzer Division to give themselves the best odds at the #1 pick, and still lost out. The Celtics actually did better the following year record-wise, winning an extra 20 games, and draft-wise, picking Paul Pierce at #10.
 
Usually, I agree. BUT this year, for Utah, has been a perfect storm. When you combine the lockout, the stocked draft, Utah's lack of a superstar, and all the other factors, I whole-heartedly think that this year would have better served "tanking."

There are three big time players on this team (or getting paid like big time players). Al, Harris, and Millsap. Harris is Harris. He can be effective, but he is overpaid. He is not worth trading away, but he is good enough to this team with his uptempo play that he isn't worth amnestying. Millsap is very, very valuable with his contract. So he stays. The big linchpin is Al. Is Al worth wasting a shortened year, where at best, you are a 7th or 8th seed in the west? Is it worth playing Al 35 mins a game for a few extra wins (which I would argue he doesn't bring, but we will give him the benefit of the doubt), BUT taking away valuable playing time from Favors and Kanter, instilling bad habits (watch the offense when Al plays, nobody moves, Al doesn't pass, he doesn't play defense, if he misses a couple of shots early he quits on this team, etc, etc, etc).

The question is, "Is Al going to take you to the next level?" The answer is 100% no. Whether you like Al or hate him, he isn't taking this or any team anywhere. Who on this team has the chance to do this? Well, there are 4 players that have that "chance." Burks, Favors, Hayward, Kanter.

Now, let's look at this season. It is short, limited practice time, and a supposedly amazingly stocked draft. Now, we know that to win a title in TODAY's NBA, you need two superstars. Al, Harris and Millsap are not one of those two. So, the Jazz have no known commodities. BUT they do have four players that could take 1-2 of those superstar spots. AND, with a stocked draft, the Jazz have 1-2 chances of finding those two superstars. FINALLY, it is a shortened season, so losing isn't that bad. It's not as bad for the players, it is not as bad for the fans, etc, etc.

So, what do the Jazz do? They blow up a chance at better securing their future, waste a year of development to play Al, and might not end up with a single pick in this draft. It is ridiculous.

The dumbest part of all of this? As a small market team, Utah cannot afford to go into the luxury tax season after season, and they effectively wasted a year of Favor's rookie contract.

The Jazz could have amnestied Jefferson before the year started, given Favors and Hayward 30 mins a night, worked Burks up to that, and given Kanter 15. They might have lost more games (but again, I seriously doubt it), but Favors and Hayward and Burks would be ready to go for next year, with two additional lottery picks in a loaded draft, and a future as bright as OKC's.

Like I said at the beginning, I don't agree with tanking at all. BUT this year was a HUGE exception to the rule. The Jazz may have blew their chance at going from a solid 4-6 seed to a contender by playing Al Jefferson this year.
 
BluesRocker said:
The article actually points out how hard it is to land a franchise player. Which justifies even more why Tanking is the only way
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read again, cuz you missed the point. it's saying that if you adopt that mentality and engage in tanking, you're more likely to wind up a perennial loser than a team like the thunder. and history bears that out. the whole point is that OKC isn't the model -- it's the one, glaring exception where everything turned out ok.

and KOC BEGONE, the spurs are not an example of tanking. an injury to the admiral brought them TD, yes, but do you know how they've stayed relevant after that '99 title? by being as good as they can be, but still drafting well LATE in the draft. parker was a #29. manu was a second round pick. the fact that they have two guys that good that they got just by being smart drafters is more evidence that if you put the right guys into a culture where winning is paramount, it doesn't matter where you're drafting.
 
Thee jazz fan said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Robinson_(basketball)

Do your research before you open your mouth. Robinson broke his foot early in the season and was out with injury the rest of the year. They didn't tank on purpose.
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Yes, yes they did.
I'm old enough to remember that season. They certainly were not going to be great after Robinson's injury, but they gave up in games, just like GS did against NO and the way they mysteriously turned the ball over so many times to allow teams like NJ to come back and win. The Spurs TANKED to get the #1 pick.
 
theNBAnerd said:
read again, cuz you missed the point. it's saying that if you adopt that mentality and engage in tanking, you're more likely to wind up a perennial loser than a team like the thunder. and history bears that out. the whole point is that OKC isn't the model -- it's the one, glaring exception where everything turned out ok.

and KOC BEGONE, the spurs are not an example of tanking. an injury to the admiral brought them TD, yes, but do you know how they've stayed relevant after that '99 title? by being as good as they can be, but still drafting well LATE in the draft. parker was a #29. manu was a second round pick. the fact that they have two guys that good that they got just by being smart drafters is more evidence that if you put the right guys into a culture where winning is paramount, it doesn't matter where you're drafting.
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I don't think the point of tanking is to continue to tank after you get a franchise player. But, the Spurs did tank and hardily anyone brings it up because time erases those little things. I could see the Spurs tanking again if it suits them in the future.
 
they didn't tank... they played an entire season without their only star.

without robinson, their best player was a past-his-prime wilkins who shot 41% and no longer had the explosiveness to do much else but shoot jumpers. sean elliott was probably their second-best player that season, and even he missed half the season with injury. they were basically led for the entire season by old 'nique, vernon maxwell and avery johnson. that's not tanking, that's just sucking.
 
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