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2024-2025 Tank Race

Updated the OP with the current standings. For the next 10 games or so I'm just going to be following New Orleans, Washington, Charlotte, Toronto, Utah, Portland, and Brooklyn.
 
lol, Hollinger called out Hardy in The Athletic for playing Collier and Cody Williams so much.

He says they're easily the two worst players in the NBA and they're just being used as tank commanders by Hardy. He says the only reason this isn't brought up more is because Utah is such a small market.

Which, yes, fair.

Hardy is so hard to evaluate as a coach because his defensive schemes are about as bad as anyone in the league in the last decade, but it's unclear if he's utilizing these schemes to intentionally lose games... And if that's the case, it's not clear how much you want a coach willing to intentionally lose games.
 
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I was listening to Vecenie and he said the two best fits that the Lakers can afford are Sexton or Bruce Brown.
 
From Hoopsrumors: "
  • The lack of progress so far this season from Jazz rookies Cody Williams and Isaiah Collier is an issue, according to John Hollinger of The Athletic, who points out that Williams and Collier rank 331st and 332nd in both PER and BPM out of the 332 players who have logged at least 200 minutes so far this season. While it’s good news for Utah’s draft position that the duo hasn’t been more productive, Williams’ ineffectiveness on offense and Collier’s shooting and turnover issues are becoming concerning, Hollinger opines.
  • The Jazz did see some positive player development in Saturday’s loss to Philadelphia, with Brice Sensabaugh scoring a season-high 20 points and turning in one of the best games of his career, per Andy Larsen of The Salt Lake Tribune (subscription required). Sensabaugh isn’t a defensive asset, but performance like Saturday’s suggest he may have enough offensive potential to make up for that, Larsen writes.
"
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
lol, Hollinger called out Hardy in The Athletic for playing Collier and Cody Williams so much.

He says they're easily the two worst players in the NBA and they're just being used as tank commanders by Hardy. He says the only reason this isn't brought up more is because Utah is such a small market.

Which, yes, fair.

Hardy is so hard to evaluate as a coach because his defensive schemes are about as bad as anyone in the league in the last decade, but it's unclear if he's utilizing these schemes to intentionally lose games... And if that's the case, it's not clear how much you want a coach willing to intentionally lose games.
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I have been thinking the exact same thing. It is one thing for the FO to tank, but when their is no merit based logic around who you play, you loose the team and you mess up the culture big time.
 
HadAnEffectHere said:
lol, Hollinger called out Hardy in The Athletic for playing Collier and Cody Williams so much.

He says they're easily the two worst players in the NBA and they're just being used as tank commanders by Hardy. He says the only reason this isn't brought up more is because Utah is such a small market.

Which, yes, fair.

Hardy is so hard to evaluate as a coach because his defensive schemes are about as bad as anyone in the league in the last decade, but it's unclear if he's utilizing these schemes to intentionally lose games... And if that's the case, it's not clear how much you want a coach willing to intentionally lose games.
Click to expand...
Man Hardy is really damned if he does or damned if he doesn't lol. Anyone questioning how good Hardy is makes me laugh. He's not perfect but give me a break. He's clearly playing those guys as "developmental minutes" and if we lose we lose... because that's what his bosses want. Even then the guy wins games or is damn close to it while having no business being in certain games.

Hollinger can bitch all he wants. Grizz say Mike and pulled Gasol from a memorable game in SLC where he had like 40 points and they were going to win. While in the league the orgs he was a part of were as shameless as anyone else. Will has the development crutch to fall back on at least. Not like he is benching two all-stars. He is passing on Svi and Juzang to give Williams/Collier the minutes they need.
 
I think it’s fair to question how good Hardy is because he hasn’t really been given the chance. There’s really not much to go on either direction. But playing Collier and Williams is obviously not an indictment on his coaching skill.

BTW, Hollinger is 100% one of the smarmy media heads who will act like it’s the world’s greatest tragedy if you win while you’re trying to tank.

We all know what’s going here.
 
KqWIN said:
I think it’s fair to question how good Hardy is because he hasn’t really been given the chance. There’s really not much to go on either direction. But playing Collier and Williams is obviously not an indictment on his coaching skill.

BTW, Hollinger is 100% one of the smarmy media heads who will act like it’s the world’s greatest tragedy if you win while you’re trying to tank.

We all know what’s going here.
Click to expand...
100% talking out of both sides of his ***. I like Hollinger but don't act like he wouldn't be killing us if we won a game based on riding Sexton, Svi, Kessler, Lauri, Clarkson while the young guys are riding the bench... I can here him and Duncan on the pod going "I mean what are we doing here..."
 
KqWIN said:
I think it’s fair to question how good Hardy is because he hasn’t really been given the chance. There’s really not much to go on either direction. But playing Collier and Williams is obviously not an indictment on his coaching skill.

BTW, Hollinger is 100% one of the smarmy media heads who will act like it’s the world’s greatest tragedy if you win while you’re trying to tank.

We all know what’s going here.
Click to expand...

I think it's just the degree of terribleness of Collier and Cody that is making their minutes stand out.

Isaiah Collier has made 27 baskets this year... He has committed 55 turnovers.

I don't know if there's a single rotation player in NBA history that has more turnovers than made field goals, and Collier is doubling up in that category. Collier is having statistically the worst season in NBA history and was a late pick without a ton of expectations.

Hardy is in the weird situation where he has four legitimate NBA players this year so he must try to lose. Most coaches try to win and just are sabotaged by their GM to tank. Ainge refuses to trade away the Jazz's serviceable players and instead asks Hardy to intentionally lose for 82 games in a row which is... Not at all common.

Intentionally losing 1-3 games at the end of the year is very common. GMs sabotaging a team so they can't win is common.

A coach intentionally losing all year long is not really with precedent. Intentionally playing horrible defensive schemes to try to lose all year long is not with precedent.

The Grizzlies got extremely mad at Taylor Jenkins for not intentionally losing last year and fired his entire staff to punish him, lol.

I would say it's generally helpful Hardy is trying to lose, but he should definitely be fired once we're done losing as it's hard to imagine players respecting him after he chose to throw so many games.
 
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Handlogten's Heros said:
100% talking out of both sides of his ***. I like Hollinger but don't act like he wouldn't be killing us if we won a game based on riding Sexton, Svi, Kessler, Lauri, Clarkson while the young guys are riding the bench... I can here him and Duncan on the pod going "I mean what are we doing here..."
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Went back and read it... it isn't bad other than the part where he says in a larger market it would raise eyebrows... not really. This is run of the mill everyday tanking. It is about as ethical as tanking gets tbh. Not like OKC just saying "Horford is shut down for the year" after game 30 or whatever it was. Not sitting our best players... have shifted these guys up and down to the G League. This is the acceptable developmental tanking. All eyebrows should be down and any complaining is sour grapes.
 
UTA loses by 12
POR loses by 22
NOP loses by 3
WAS loses by 20
CHA loses by 7

It's going to be difficult to gain any ground at this rate. The teams above us in the tank race are a combined 4-36 in their last 40 games, and I'm pretty sure those 4 games were all against each other.
 
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