2024-2025 Tank Race

[The Jazz Wonderbra]

There is roughly 6% difference in chances to land top 2 pick with 5th best odds vs best odds. People act like that matters but it doesnt for a single draw. You need to get really lucky either way if top 2 is all that matters.

The margin of error for a single cointoss is always 50%. Both heads and tails have 50% chance of appearing but the result of one toss will always be 100 to 0.

Thats the problem of the lottery, and why you shouldnt sacrifice too much to jump 1 or 2 spots. Being the worst team really doesnt pay off anymore, when even the 5th worst gets just 3.5% less lotto balls.

Mostly because the teams ahead of you end up still ahead of you. And higher odds for the teams behind you to leapfrog means you have a more likely chance of ending up with the 6th, 7th, or even 8th pick than you do a top 2. So... 3 is statistically a LOT better position than 5.

 

[The Jazz Wonderbra]

Such a silly post. It was 1st vs 5th odds, not 6th, and the premise was that we must land a top 2 pick. Pick floor seems pointless in that context.

Also FYI the average expected draft position for the worst record is 3.7, and for 5th worst its 5.0.... but thats besides the point if the argument is that we must land Flagg/Harper.

Last year Detroit was passed by the 9th and 10th worst records.

Top 2 pick is huge, but historically top 5 picks are significantly better odds of hitting than 6 - 10 picks.

 

[KqWIN]

The smugness goes both ways though. The never tankers will mention how it doesn't ever work and then you give them 5-10 examples of it working and they are like "that wasn't tanking".

There is just no fool proof plan or even a good route you feel is dependable. Its just choosing between bad choices. I thought it was smart to pivot when we did but we should have been shuffling the deck the two years or so before that and made some tremendous errors prior to the tear down. Tony Jones has also said we didn't have the choice of keeping Donovan. So I think he had let them know behind the scenes but... shrug.

At this point I think anti-tankers have to think its the best route for us now but smart tankers also need to know this route almost surely leads to multi year pain and just an okayish outcome.

Side note - I think I have the solution to fix tanking but will wait for the pod to outline it. Remind me @Elizah Huge when we pod as I think I have stumbled onto a concept that would work.

Perhaps I have missed this from my perspective, but I don’t see the two sided smugness. What I see mostly is people claiming “OKC model” but I have never ever seen “Pistons model” or insert any other failed build. A big part of the smugness that bothers me is that people act like tanking is without fail and then pretend as if it’s only sacrifice that needs you to get there. Like if you don’t agree with a tanking strategy it is only because you are impatient. I can only speak from my own experience and am not denying what you’re saying….but that’s what I’ve gathered from endless tanking convos over the years.

Reality is that I think the decision needs to be made on a case by case basis. I find that looking at tanking/anti-tank from a large, general perspective turns into a reductive and meaningless conversation. Is it good? If we’re not talking about a specific team and situation, I’m just not interested in talking about it.

Also, I just want to say that tanking at a concept (regardless of effectiveness) just completely sucks. I wouldn’t blame anyone who doesn’t want partake.

 

[HadAnEffectHere]

Perhaps I have missed this from my perspective, but I don’t see the two sided smugness. What I see mostly is people claiming “OKC model” but I have never ever seen “Pistons model” or insert any other failed build. A big part of the smugness that bothers me is that people act like tanking is without fail and then pretend as if it’s only sacrifice that needs you to get there. Like if you don’t agree with a tanking strategy it is only because you are impatient. I can only speak from my own experience and am not denying what you’re saying….but that’s what I’ve gathered from endless tanking convos over the years.

Reality is that I think the decision needs to be made on a case by case basis. I find that looking at tanking/anti-tank from a large, general perspective turns into a reductive and meaningless conversation. Is it good? If we’re not talking about a specific team and situation, I’m just not interested in talking about it.

Also, I just want to say that tanking at a concept (regardless of effectiveness) just completely sucks. I wouldn’t blame anyone who doesn’t want partake.

To be clear, tanking is bad for the league, bad to follow, and bad to watch, but Ainge had to hype up his regime as bringing a title team to Utah to justify trading Mitchell and Gobert. He set the expectations above second round exit to justify trading the entire team, but the only way to do in Utah by drafting two top 15 players in the NBA (one of whom is a top 3 player in the NBA) and that is extremely unlikely without extreme tanking over a period of many years.

And it could still fail, of course.

 

[KqWIN]

To be clear, tanking is bad for the league, bad to follow, and bad to watch, but Ainge had to hype up his regime as bringing a title team to Utah to justify trading Mitchell and Gobert. He set the expectations above second round exit to justify trading the entire team, but the only way to do in Utah by drafting two top 15 players in the NBA (one of whom is a top 3 player in the NBA) and that is extremely unlikely without extreme tanking over a period of many years.

And it could still fail, of course.

I don't even disagree with what we're doing. In fact, I've been calling for it. But like I said, each of these situations and the decision to tank or not should be on an individual basis. As a whole, I think the effectiveness of tanking is highly overrated even if it can be the right move in a certain situation. A big part of that is the expectations vs reality that @idiot outlined. We all know the reality and difficulty of making unlikely moves outside of the draft. But when it comes to the tanking it's often seen as this failproof, dummy proof method.

There are those who are always against tanking just because it's horrible....I think some take that and say tanking must always be good as long as you're willing to sacrifice but I don't find that to be the case. Tanking can both be horrible and also sometimes the wrong teambuilding strategy. Again, depends on the situation.

 

[idiot]

Now do the other team building strategies. What exactly is the alternative? We are both doing the tank and middle build by holding other teams picks. If we opt to build through FA and trades we have the necessary fodder to do that. The tank is one component of what we opted to do. None of the strategies have high success rates. Even trading for stars has some catastrophic consequences and a low success rate.

Its likely a multi-year endeavor though as we haven't hit on the drafted star with our mid/late lotto or other picks (most likely) and haven't gotten the luck of jumping into the top 4 to have a better shot at drafting the star. At this point we have to likely sell off part of the infrastructure that would make it a quick rebuild.

Not trying to argue that other strategies are necessarily better -- just that the high-loss tanking strategy is much less likely to yield the desired results than we typically think.

If anything, I'm arguing that strategy is less important than execution and serendipity. Like almost all of the contenders, you need a lot of luck to hit on the big stuff, as well as a lot of skill in hitting at lots and lots of smaller stuff.

Sometimes tanking turns out to be larger or smaller parts -- even if not the largest part -- of the answer (Cleveland, OKC [though they didn't need high-loss seasons to build a contender], Houston, Denver). Sometimes it's not really much involved with success at all (Knicks, Bucks, Suns, Boston, Golden State). Sometimes it's the major factor (Dallas, Memphis, maybe Atlanta). In many, or perhaps even most, cases it yields nothing much more than we achieved without tanking in the Rudy/Donovan era (Minnesota, Philadelphia), a time when we arguably were following no "strategy."

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Perhaps I have missed this from my perspective, but I don’t see the two sided smugness. What I see mostly is people claiming “OKC model” but I have never ever seen “Pistons model” or insert any other failed build. A big part of the smugness that bothers me is that people act like tanking is without fail and then pretend as if it’s only sacrifice that needs you to get there. Like if you don’t agree with a tanking strategy it is only because you are impatient. I can only speak from my own experience and am not denying what you’re saying….but that’s what I’ve gathered from endless tanking convos over the years.

Reality is that I think the decision needs to be made on a case by case basis. I find that looking at tanking/anti-tank from a large, general perspective turns into a reductive and meaningless conversation. Is it good? If we’re not talking about a specific team and situation, I’m just not interested in talking about it.

Also, I just want to say that tanking at a concept (regardless of effectiveness) just completely sucks. I wouldn’t blame anyone who doesn’t want partake.

You may like the solution I concocted.

I see know it alls on all sides. Not gonna lie though some of the hardcore tankers are some of the biggest dumbasses and they are smug on top of it. So yeah... I get ya.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Not trying to argue that other strategies are necessarily better -- just that the high-loss tanking strategy is much less likely to yield the desired results than we typically think.

If anything, I'm arguing that strategy is less important than execution and serendipity. Like almost all of the contenders, you need a lot of luck to hit on the big stuff, as well as a lot of skill in hitting at lots and lots of smaller stuff.

Sometimes tanking turns out to be larger or smaller parts -- even if not the largest part -- of the answer (Cleveland, OKC [though they didn't need high-loss seasons to build a contender], Houston, Denver). Sometimes it's not really much involved with success at all (Knicks, Bucks, Suns, Boston, Golden State). Sometimes it's the major factor (Dallas, Memphis, maybe Atlanta). In many, or perhaps even most, cases it yields nothing much more than we achieved without tanking in the Rudy/Donovan era (Minnesota, Philadelphia), a time when we arguably were following no "strategy."

Its true. The real strategy is to get insanely lucky one way or another and make good decisions (that also require some luck) along the way. I think the reason the tear down was smart was in part because I feel the writing was on the wall (okay if others feel differently that's fine) and because we nabbed the future luck of a couple additional teams. That particular flavor of tanking hasn't been done much and has had a higher success rate. OKC/Boston... can't think of too many others though Philly did this just didn't have as big a head start. I think it was a smart start but we haven't nailed a ton of stuff since so its likely a longer process than I had hoped.

 

[idiot]

Its true. The real strategy is to get insanely lucky one way or another and make good decisions (that also require some luck) along the way. I think the reason the tear down was smart was in part because I feel the writing was on the wall (okay if others feel differently that's fine) and because we nabbed the future luck of a couple additional teams. That particular flavor of tanking hasn't been done much and has had a higher success rate. OKC/Boston... can't think of too many others though Philly did this just didn't have as big a head start. I think it was a smart start but we haven't nailed a ton of stuff since so its likely a longer process than I had hoped.

Agree with this.

I wasn't against the tear down. I saw the writing on the wall, although it hurt at the time. I'm not against putting ourselves in position to lose (unless you trade Kessler!!). But I'm not going to sweat the minor sweetness that the season brings. And I'll occasionally point out that the odds of the kind of success we're all hoping for through tanking remain quite low when I think I see too much faith being placed in the tank.

Just wish we could enjoy the positive parts things that have happened and not have to sublimate everything to the goal of losing as much as we can. We've hardly enjoyed the Collins rejuvenation, Walker's big step toward really mattering in the NBA, Sexton's continued remarkable offensive efficiency, Juzang's big step forward, Keyonte's slow rise toward greater efficiency, whatever bright spots we've seen from Brice and Flip and company. We haven't been able to enjoy the road blowouts of the Heat and the Magic. It seems everything must yield to the tank.

 

[KqWIN]

Agree with this.

I wasn't against the tear down. I saw the writing on the wall, although it hurt at the time. I'm not against putting ourselves in position to lose (unless you trade Kessler!!). But I'm not going to sweat the minor sweetness that the season brings. And I'll occasionally point out that the odds of the kind of success we're all hoping for through tanking remain quite low when I think I see too much faith being placed in the tank.

Just wish we could enjoy the positive parts things that have happened and not have to sublimate everything to the goal of losing as much as we can. We've hardly enjoyed the Collins rejuvenation, Walker's big step toward really mattering in the NBA, Sexton's continued remarkable offensive efficiency, Juzang's big step forward, Keyonte's slow rise toward greater efficiency, whatever bright spots we've seen from Brice and Flip and company. We haven't been able to enjoy the road blowouts of the Heat and the Magic. It seems everything must yield to the tank.

Unfortunately, I think this goes beyond tanking. This is just kind of the way the NBA is. Unless you win the chip, you're subject to this kind of stuff. Sometimes even when you win the chip you still have this. Everything is about big picture and championship or bust. What goes on day to day during the season is reduced to irrelevancy.

The Don/Rudy Jazz, for example, were one of the best teams in the league over a decent period of time. But they were seen as joke then/now because it did not result in a championship.

 

[gomretat]

The smugness goes both ways though. The never tankers will mention how it doesn't ever work and then you give them 5-10 examples of it working and they are like "that wasn't tanking".

There is just no fool proof plan or even a good route you feel is dependable. Its just choosing between bad choices. I thought it was smart to pivot when we did but we should have been shuffling the deck the two years or so before that and made some tremendous errors prior to the tear down. Tony Jones has also said we didn't have the choice of keeping Donovan. So I think he had let them know behind the scenes but... shrug.

At this point I think anti-tankers have to think its the best route for us now but smart tankers also need to know this route almost surely leads to multi year pain and just an okayish outcome.

Side note - I think I have the solution to fix tanking but will wait for the pod to outline it. Remind me @Elizah Huge when we pod as I think I have stumbled onto a concept that would work.

Blowing it up after Karl and John made sense and those teams were very fun basketball to watch. Trading both Rudy and Donovan made no sense then and still doesnt. You could have gotten plenty of assets for one or the other and then still made decision on Royce, Conley, Bogey etc. Donny clearly wanted out but he would have stayed and played and Rudy wanted to be here. Even with clean out, no one can explain why they twittered around for 2 years before really throwing in the towel. The national media to a person has been clear about how confusing the Jazz path has been but the locals other than Spence Checketts continue to act like what we are doing makes sense. Spence commented today on his show how lowly rated the Jazz FO is in a recent article in the Athletic and reminisced that during the tenure of the Millers how respected and highly rated our FO was on a year in year out basis. We might pull a rabbit out of a hat but the path we have taken is confusing at best. There are no guarantees with any approach but there are ways that make a lot more sense than others.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Blowing it up after Karl and John made sense and those teams were very fun basketball to watch. Trading both Rudy and Donovan made no sense then and still doesnt. You could have gotten plenty of assets for one or the other and then still made decision on Royce, Conley, Bogey etc. Donny clearly wanted out but he would have stayed and played and Rudy wanted to be here. Even with clean out, no one can explain why they twittered around for 2 years before really throwing in the towel. The national media to a person has been clear about how confusing the Jazz path has been but the locals other than Spence Checketts continue to act like what we are doing makes sense. Spence commented today on his show how lowly rated the Jazz FO is in a recent article in the Athletic and reminisced that during the tenure of the Millers how respected and highly rated our FO was on a year in year out basis. We might pull a rabbit out of a hat but the path we have taken is confusing at best. There are no guarantees with any approach but there are ways that make a lot more sense than others.

It makes sense because the one player you were going to be able to retain is Rudy and he was older and you didn't know Lauri was gonna be an All-Star. It could also make sense to do one of the trades and build around the other... because multiple things can make sense. But building around Rudy and Mike Conley plus the stuff we got back had its own drawbacks.

I give zero effs what an Athletic article says. I give less effs than that about what Spence thinks. I will listen to his show because he gets great guests that provide insight but he clearly has a bone to pick with the current regime.

The reason we toiled in between strategies was pretty simple. Lauri/Walker were way better than they thought and they didn't cut deep enough early enough the first year. They continued the following year because they wanted to see if they could do the fast rebuild and the draft was terrible... so they actually might want to make the play in and convey the pick they gave up. And look... I'm one of the guys that was like "ummmm guys this is still a 35 win team" so I'm not excusing them but that is what the thought process was. If they had gotten lucky and landed a top 4 pick in either draft things might be a little different.

There are up seasons and down seasons. They could have tried to continue Don and Rudy but it was so clearly over with those two. The prior group did nothing to build the pipeline so either we had to invest more draft capital (the lifeblood of a non-FA market) or rearrange some deck chairs and hope that the issues that had been bubbling for years unresolved would resolve themselves. I have it on very good authority that the locker room and org was a completely unhappy mess. It was a perfectly fine decision to blow it up for the premium they got. Because they did so well in the trades it made it hard to bottom all the way out. The drafting has been spotty but that is how drafting goes.