Its Time to Tank

[Tremendous Upside]

This. Time to get what we can for Vando. The guy is an energy guy that makes you feel like he is doing more than he is for us on the court. But activity does not equal effectiveness. We could get an asset or 2 for him, even if just a few 2nd rounders, or such, and that would open up room for Kessler to play more.

Yeah, in an ideal world he would bring back some picks, but other teams can read advanced stats too.

 

[HermanG]

Screw the tank.
There is no formula.
There is just a promise of "maybe".
More specifically, "maybe in the future we can draft the right guys and build a winning team around them".

Top 10 guys are often not who we think they are coming from the draft. Evidenced by the fact that most of the time we draft others before them. And since it seems like a fairly accepted fact that you must have a top 10 guy to truely compete, well... how to exactly draft him?

Lets look at best players in the league right now (in no particular order but hopefully covering all that appear on anyones top 10):
Luka - 3rd (important notice, despite being top 3 the two guys drafted before him are total scrubs, and Hawks were willing to downgrade away from Luka)
Tatum - 3rd (drafed behind 2 guys who havent made an impact yet, and maybe never will due to health reasons)
Giannis - 15th
Steph - 7th
Jokic - 41st
Durant - 2nd (and the guy drafted ahead of him was the more "surefire" guy in Greg Oden... you see KD needed a lot of work "in the weight room" before he could become legit in the NBA)
AD - 1st and rightfully so.. but even though he is back to top 10 now, he hasn't been consistently up there. Furthermore, the team that drafted him has 0 championships and another team that paid the ransom reaped the benefits.
Embiid - 3rd (as a talent he was the best but health concerns dropped him to 3rd)
Booker - 13th
DM - 13th
Ja - 2nd
Zion - 1st
SGA - 11th

Shouldnt there be more #1s in that list than Zion and AD? Also count how many chips guys drafted top 3 won for the teams that drafted them? Hint: 0.
Get this: there are no top 3 picks from past 15 years who won a chip for the team that drafted them as their best player. Kyrie won one with Lebron, but playing the second fiddle. Tatum might break the trend. Might.

Oh and btw, that is 15+ years of drafts there. So 38 total top 3 picks that are not on that list which still has 5 guys picked outside of top 10 (40%). To be fair, some of those 38 top 3 picks that are not on that list were up there for a moment before disappearing... but vast majority have turned good to decent or just slipped to total irrelevance after doing next to nothing.

Lets look at 2015 just because these guys are in their absolute prime right now... yet some of them are out of jobs. Booker was #13, but these guys where valued better than him. Which of those has ever even been mentioned as a top player? No one. Potential top 10? KAT only. But we now know he isnt.

1	1	Karl-Anthony Towns*~	C	Dominican Republic[n 2]	Minnesota Timberwolves	Kentucky (Fr.)
1	2	D'Angelo Russell+	PG	United States	Los Angeles Lakers	Ohio State (Fr.)
1	3	Jahlil Okafor	C	Nigeria	Philadelphia 76ers	Duke (Fr.)
1	4	Kristaps Porziņģis+	PF/C	Latvia	New York Knicks	Baloncesto Sevilla (Spain)
1	5	Mario Hezonja	SG/SF	Croatia	Orlando Magic	FC Barcelona (Spain)
1	6	Willie Cauley-Stein	PF	United States	Sacramento Kings	Kentucky (Jr.)
1	7	Emmanuel Mudiay	PG	DR Congo[n 3]	Denver Nuggets	Guangdong Southern Tigers
1	8	Stanley Johnson	SF	United States	Detroit Pistons	Arizona (Fr.)
1	9	Frank Kaminsky	PF	United States	Charlotte Hornets	Wisconsin (Sr.)
1	10	Justise Winslow	SF	United States	Miami Heat	Duke (Fr.)
1	11	Myles Turner	C	United States	Indiana Pacers	Texas (Fr.)
1	12	Trey Lyles	PF	Canada	Utah Jazz	Kentucky (Fr.)

There is an average of 2 guys per draft who at some point during their career get elevated to the elitest tier of players. Some drafts there can be as many as 6 or 7, other drafts you struggle to find a single one. And we just suck at telling who those guys are before they are drafted and sometimes even after seeing them play for a few years.

Its all smoke and mirrors. Picking 1st or 7th or 25th is not what eventually sets teams apart. Winning chips these days is much more about player development, coaching and team building (trades included). Only thing high pick gives you is a better chance for a better embryo to try and develop. But some of the even most hyped ones are just tainted, hopeless and destined to be busts regardless of where they land.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Screw the tank.
There is no formula.
There is just a promise of "maybe".
More specifically, "maybe in the future we can draft the right guys and build a winning team around them".

Top 10 guys are often not who we think they are coming from the draft. Evidenced by the fact that most of the time we draft others before them. And since it seems like a fairly accepted fact that you must have a top 10 guy to truely compete, well... how to exactly draft him?

Lets look at best players in the league right now (in no particular order but hopefully covering all that appear on anyones top 10):
Luka - 3rd (important notice, despite being top 3 the two guys drafted before him are total scrubs, and Hawks were willing to downgrade away from Luka)
Tatum - 3rd (drafed behind 2 guys who havent made an impact yet, and maybe never will due to health reasons)
Giannis - 15th
Steph - 7th
Jokic - 41st
Durant - 2nd (and the guy drafted ahead of him was the more "surefire" guy in Greg Oden... you see KD needed a lot of work "in the weight room" before he could become legit in the NBA)
AD - 1st and rightfully so.. but even though he is back to top 10 now, he hasn't been consistently up there. Furthermore, the team that drafted him has 0 championships and another team that paid the ransom reaped the benefits.
Embiid - 3rd (as a talent he was the best but health concerns dropped him to 3rd)
Booker - 13th
DM - 13th
Ja - 2nd
Zion - 1st
SGA - 11th

Shouldnt there be more #1s in that list than Zion and AD? Also count how many chips guys drafted top 3 won for the teams that drafted them? Hint: 0.
Get this: there are no top 3 picks from past 15 years who won a chip for the team that drafted them as their best player. Kyrie won one with Lebron, but playing the second fiddle. Tatum might break the trend. Might.

Oh and btw, that is 15+ years of drafts there. So 38 total top 3 picks that are not on that list which still has 5 guys picked outside of top 10 (40%). To be fair, some of those 38 top 3 picks that are not on that list were up there for a moment before disappearing... but vast majority have turned good to decent or just slipped to total irrelevance after doing next to nothing.

Lets look at 2015 just because these guys are in their absolute prime right now... yet some of them are out of jobs. Booker was #13, but these guys where valued better than him. Which of those has ever even been mentioned as a top player? No one. Potential top 10? KAT only. But we now know he isnt.

1	1	Karl-Anthony Towns*~	C	Dominican Republic[n 2]	Minnesota Timberwolves	Kentucky (Fr.)
1	2	D'Angelo Russell+	PG	United States	Los Angeles Lakers	Ohio State (Fr.)
1	3	Jahlil Okafor	C	Nigeria	Philadelphia 76ers	Duke (Fr.)
1	4	Kristaps Porziņģis+	PF/C	Latvia	New York Knicks	Baloncesto Sevilla (Spain)
1	5	Mario Hezonja	SG/SF	Croatia	Orlando Magic	FC Barcelona (Spain)
1	6	Willie Cauley-Stein	PF	United States	Sacramento Kings	Kentucky (Jr.)
1	7	Emmanuel Mudiay	PG	DR Congo[n 3]	Denver Nuggets	Guangdong Southern Tigers
1	8	Stanley Johnson	SF	United States	Detroit Pistons	Arizona (Fr.)
1	9	Frank Kaminsky	PF	United States	Charlotte Hornets	Wisconsin (Sr.)
1	10	Justise Winslow	SF	United States	Miami Heat	Duke (Fr.)
1	11	Myles Turner	C	United States	Indiana Pacers	Texas (Fr.)
1	12	Trey Lyles	PF	Canada	Utah Jazz	Kentucky (Fr.)

There is an average of 2 guys per draft who at some point during their career get elevated to the elitest tier of players. Some drafts there can be as many as 6 or 7, other drafts you struggle to find a single one. And we just suck at telling who those guys are before they are drafted and sometimes even after seeing them play for a few years.

Its all smoke and mirrors. Picking 1st or 7th or 25th is not what eventually sets teams apart. Winning chips these days is much more about player development, coaching and team building (trades included). Only thing high pick gives you is a better chance for a better embryo to try and develop. But some of the even most hyped ones are just tainted, hopeless and destined to be busts regardless of where they land.

Wait... so you say screw the tank then list off the top 13 players in the NBA and over half were taken in the top 4?

 

[HermanG]

Wait... so you say screw the tank then list off the top 13 players in the NBA and over half were taken in the top 4?

With combined 0 championships won for the teams that drafted them.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

With combined 0 championships won for the teams that drafted them.

When you measure success as only championships then every team building strategy can be dismissed as stupid with a handful of outliers... because the nature of title teams is they are outliers. The goal should be to be a top 5 team over a 5-6 year window and hope to get some breaks that lead to winning a title.

All roads lead to failure... all roads can lead to success. You simply need to choose the road most likely to lead to long term success. If we don't land a star in this year's draft it gets hard to see us building on Lauri's timeline as the other picks we own are 2025 and after. We can trade and try to find other stars but those guys don't come on the market all the time. In our situation it would be much better to land a top 5 pick than make the play in and draft somewhere in between 12-17 (that is a range you can easily trade into unlike top 5).

 

[HermanG]

When you measure success as only championships then every team building strategy can be dismissed as stupid with a handful of outliers... because the nature of title teams is they are outliers. The goal should be to be a top 5 team over a 5-6 year window and hope to get some breaks that lead to winning a title.

All roads lead to failure... all roads can lead to success. You simply need to choose the road most likely to lead to long term success. If we don't land a star in this year's draft it gets hard to see us building on Lauri's timeline as the other picks we own are 2025 and after. We can trade and try to find other stars but those guys don't come on the market all the time. In our situation it would be much better to land a top 5 pick than make the play in and draft somewhere in between 12-17 (that is a range you can easily trade into unlike top 5).

I like the concept or being competitive and building up with a purpose, while being opportunistic.

Not sucking on purpose and trying to luck out. While there are 7 top 3 picks there, the 38 missing top 3 guys from the same timespan are more telling of the true gambling nature of draft.

Even more so, the 13 #1 picks not present are almost all red flags. I suppose I dont need to list them.

 

[sip]

I like the concept or being competitive and building up with a purpose, while being opportunistic.

Not sucking on purpose and trying to luck out. While there are 7 top 3 picks there, the 38 missing top 3 guys from the same timespan are more telling of the true gambling nature of draft.

Even more so, the 13 #1 picks not present are almost all red flags. I suppose I dont need to list them.

You don't seem to get it. At this point there is no benefit to keeping vets and trying to win games. Whether it is focusing on what type of potential our younger player have or the improvement of our draft pick the best thing for this team is to trade away the vets.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I like the concept or being competitive and building up with a purpose, while being opportunistic.

Not sucking on purpose and trying to luck out. While there are 7 top 3 picks there, the 38 missing top 3 guys from the same timespan are more telling of the true gambling nature of draft.

Even more so, the 13 #1 picks not present are almost all red flags. I suppose I dont need to list them.

I can respect it... I just think if you take the top 5 picks each year and compare the value to the say 10-15 picks in the draft that the hit rate is likely double what the 10-15 range is. The biggest thing we need to build the franchise is talent.

I will say the 10-15 range is surprisingly fruitful. If we can acquire a pick in that range by consolidating picks I would do it.

There are so sure things and there are lots of roads to success. I think the road we are currently on could work but its also the same road that has lead to some treadmill teams. Landing a top 4 pick with the current basket of players and assets we have would propel us forward significantly imo. Not landing and AS talent in this draft will put us squarely on the treadmill imo. Can we land that with a pick in the 10-14 range? What will the other picks look like? We can kind of control one part of that equation and I still think we should manage it a little if possible.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

You don't seem to get it. At this point there is no benefit to keeping vets and trying to win games. Whether it is focusing on what type of potential our younger player have or the improvement of our draft pick the best thing for this team is to trade away the vets.

I think you get some mentoring value... but its not as critical as say getting Ochai more minutes to develop or finding time for an undrafted guy that pops. You can do some of both but I think we just added one vet too many. Now we have a big enough lead in the standing it will be hard to drop without selling off two guys.

You don't want a complete garbage situation like Philly during the process but you can still build and be respectable and land with the 5th or 6th worst record and a good shot at a difference maker.

 

[HermanG]

You don't seem to get it. At this point there is no benefit to keeping vets and trying to win games. Whether it is focusing on what type of potential our younger player have or the improvement of our draft pick the best thing for this team is to trade away the vets.

The fact that I see things differently means "I dont get it"? There is no universal truth mate, there are just different paths.

Also, where do I reject the idea of trading anyone? I'm pro trading, just not pro dumping talent just to raise picks. In fact Ive been most vocal about trading our best vet (JC), but not because I want to tank. But because I want someone who fits the system better.

 

[HermanG]

I can respect it... I just think if you take the top 5 picks each year and compare the value to the say 10-15 picks in the draft that the hit rate is likely double what the 10-15 range is. The biggest thing we need to build the franchise is talent.

I will say the 10-15 range is surprisingly fruitful. If we can acquire a pick in that range by consolidating picks I would do it.

There are so sure things and there are lots of roads to success. I think the road we are currently on could work but its also the same road that has lead to some treadmill teams. Landing a top 4 pick with the current basket of players and assets we have would propel us forward significantly imo. Not landing and AS talent in this draft will put us squarely on the treadmill imo. Can we land that with a pick in the 10-14 range? What will the other picks look like? We can kind of control one part of that equation and I still think we should manage it a little if possible.

Why do we have to land AS talent in the draft? Why cant we use the assets we got to get one?

We have a borderline top 20 guy whose ceiling we dont know yet. What if we find a guy next to him by using our assets?

Then few targeted pucks and trades to round out the roster and boom, we might be a real competitor in a two years.

If we dump talent and record, we wont be able to trade for those guys.. or sign them drom FA. They refuse to come.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Why do we have to land AS talent in the draft? Why cant we use the assets we got to get one?

We have a borderline top 20 guy whose ceiling we dont know yet. What if we find a guy next to him by using our assets?

Then few targeted pucks and trades to round out the roster and boom, we might be a real competitor in a two years.

If we dump talent and record, we wont be able to trade for those guys.. or sign them drom FA. They refuse to come.

Having one good half-season does not make you borderline top 20. I would say Lauri has top 30 potential, and right now he's probably like borderline top 35.