Sounds like exactly what we did. Like, spot on. It backfired a bit when one of our young prospects blossomed into a stay player in a manner beyond our control, with a nod to @fishonjazz 's leaf raking analogy. Otherwise this is exactly what we did. We had 3 all-stars, whom we have now traded away entirely for young prospects and draft compensation, with the monkey wrench of one of those prospect developing himself into a star player, so not as intended, at least not this early.
Clarkson being out with a sprained thumb, Sexton being out an extended period of time, Hardy playing our worst players extended minutes… if it looks like a tank and smells like a tank… it’s probably a tank.
Sounds like exactly what we did. Like, spot on. It backfired a bit when one of our young prospects blossomed into a star player in a manner beyond our control, with a nod to @fishonjazz 's leaf raking analogy. Otherwise this is exactly what we did. We had 3 all-stars, whom we have now traded away entirely for young prospects and draft compensation, with the monkey wrench of one of those prospect developing himself into a star player, so not as intended, at least not this early.
Clarkson being out with a sprained thumb, Sexton being out an extended period of time, Hardy playing our worst players extended minutes… if it looks like a tank and smells like a tank… it’s probably a tank.
I feel like the next rebuttals are going to sound a lot like "it depends on what you definition of "is" is"
Locke was saying JC's injury might require offseason surgery... TJ was like "he's day to day"
Everyone keeps saying the priority with Sexton is to get him to the offseason healthy... like the offseason isn't like 5 months long.
Locke mentions we aren't tanking but that Hardy has a no player left behind strategy so everyone will get a chance to play... sounds like the pedal to the metal right.... right?
Its just obvious where this is headed. I don't like Andy and others calling it out though as that type of stuff can influence a team if enough pressure builds... so please guys... just let the tank ride along quietly...tia.
We started with THREE STAR players - Mitchell, Gobert, and Conley, all were all-stars in at least 1 of the past 3 seasons. So to tank properly we need to move all of them to get assets and get worse as a team, so let's take it step by step.
Step 1 - trade Gobert for a record haul of young players and draft comp
Step 2 - trade Mitchell for a record haul of young players and draft comp
Step 3 - trade Conley for, um, for stuff and things and odds and ends
Ancillary step - also add in sending out solid rotation players to step 3 to replace them with G-leaguers and 10-day contracts off the garbage heap.
Tangential step to round it all out - hold onto enough of our current rotational players to avoid league penalties for straight up tanking, e.g. Clarkson.
We started with THREE STAR players - Mitchell, Gobert, and Conley, all were all-stars in at least 1 of the past 3 seasons. So to tank properly we need to move all of them to get assets and get worse as a team, so let's take it step by step.
Step 1 - trade Gobert for a record haul of young players and draft comp
Step 2 - trade Mitchell for a record haul of young players and draft comp
Step 3 - trade Conley for, um, for stuff and things and odds and ends
Ancillary step - also add in sending out solid rotation players to step 3 to replace them with G-leaguers and 10-day contracts off the garbage heap.
Tangential step to round it all out - hold onto enough of our current rotational players to avoid league penalties for straight up tanking, e.g. Clarkson.
We offloaded as much talent as we could get future value for... we only had stars we wanted to retain for the future... so we removed the base from those players... if the structure still stands it doesn't mean the FO is incompetent... it means they are good and lucky that the structure is still good enough.
You are completely missing the nuance of managing a professional sports team and avoiding league penalties announced specifically to minimize blatant tanking. There are 2 parts to all this, one part is the FO deciding who to keep, the 2nd part is the coaching staff trying to be competitive. For this to work and avoid penalties the FO needs to give the coach the worst possible team without blatantly dropping everyone so the league gets suspicious. The coach, for his part, needs to try to be as competitive as possible, again to avoid the league coming down on them for blatant DNP-CDs geared toward tanking. It is the same thing as the president having no knowledge of the aliens in area 51. Plausible deniability. The coaching staff has plausible deniability as they are still playing to win. But if I replace several of your good chess pieces, like knights and bishops, with pawns, and tell you to go win, that chance of winning goes down. But a good player with pieces that surprise you and still play together well can get some surprising wins, despite being hamstrung by a FO that replaced some of your key pieces. See none of this can be blatant or we get penalized, and that is the last thing we want. The worst thing that could happen would be to drop like a rock in the standings then have the league take all that losing effort away from us and give it to someone else because they determine we are tanking against league rules. It is a balancing act to be sure, but do not let that fool you into thinking the goal here is to try to win a championship or something. The goal is to maximize our assets, and get in the best draft position we can without being penalized for it. So at the trade deadline we were performing way way better than the FO thought we should, with a surprise all-star on the roster, so we move our last "star" player. You better believe there were likely teams with better offers for Conley, he is highly regarded after all, but we traded him for a handful of decidedly non-magic beans. The FO is doing the best they can to replace all our good pieces with pawns, but we have a few pawns that refuse to stay pawns, and a coach that is a pretty damn good chess player, and that is the part that we simply cannot control for, and if we do then we get penalized for blatant tanking. So we manufacture a few minor injuries that take weeks to heal, when it really maybe takes days, and we keep some key people out that way. Fudge a few numbers. Take a few "precautions" to bring back Sexton and Clarkson healthy after their boo-boos heal, which, you know, will take much longer than we thought *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*. And the tank gets put back on track, at least as much as we can. We do not have the luxury of an organic tank job like OKC or Houston, which is happening over several seasons so their losing is more organic. We are forcing the issue which makes the tank much harder without waking the giant and getting penalized for it. But tanking it is, nonetheless.
When I raked my leaves I did it well. Didn't work out though. That happens sometimes.
I mean he did it well enough that almost everyone thought we would be one of the worst teams in the league. Vegas had us winning 23.5 games as evidence of how well danny ainge did it. Some rookies and Lauri didn't do it as well as they were expected to.
They are clearly not trying to lose games on purpose. They are, however, managing their roster/rotations to prioritize acquiring and developing future pieces.
Sounds like exactly what we did. Like, spot on. It backfired a bit when one of our young prospects blossomed into a star player in a manner beyond our control, with a nod to @fishonjazz 's leaf raking analogy. Otherwise this is exactly what we did. We had 3 all-stars, whom we have now traded away entirely for young prospects and draft compensation, with the monkey wrench of one of those prospect developing himself into a star player, so not as intended, at least not this early.
Ya and two rookies turned out better than expected and we won some close games that could have gone either way and many teams were resting starters against us etc etc.
DA tried and failed to make this a tank season/team
You can trade away good players for not as good players but you cant force those not as good players to not improve or to continue to play as they always have. Just like I couldn't control nature.
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