Its Time to Tank

[rocfan1]

BTW it was a very small mention… but Windy on his pod this AM said that he thinks the Jazz will end up right where we wanted by the end of the season… saying basically we will end up dropping out of the play in. Been so much noise on Mike and the LA teams. I think there is a better than 50% chance we pull the plug.

I agree with you brother. To me it's clear that we should be sellers. I do think we risk pissing JC off and he doesn't return next year. Which I'm fine with.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I agree with you brother. To me it's clear that we should be sellers. I do think we risk pissing JC off and he doesn't return next year. Which I'm fine with.

I think he is more available than they are letting on. I don't think he'd up and leave because the cap space teams aren't real great. So at very least he will need our cooperation in a sign and trade to get somewhere he wants to be. I'm not particularly worried about it either. I doubt another good team is going to let JC start and be JC.

 

[HermanG]

You’re over thinking this. Rebuilds are snowflakes… all a bit different. I just find it hilarious that people think you have to spend years in misery. We are talking about a 32 game tank. You think Mike/KO gonna help us win 2-3 years from now? You really think Beasley/Vando are parts we can’t replace? Sell em off now… get something for your trouble and you can quickly turn around next year and have a more sustainable success with a much higher upside.

JC is the pivot point… if we moved him there’s a chance we really miss him. There’s a chance he bails on us this season though… it’s not up to us. So if you move him you do it with the knowledge he may have been leaving and you take nothing less than a good first rounder to do so. The future picks are the ammo to acquire future starter level talent… I see that as their most efficient use.

It’s just such a no brainer to me. I am fairly sure we end up being a pretty big seller in the next couple weeks. Just reading tea leaves.
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I'm just pointing out OKC is a really bad example to use here, and year 3 of Memphis rebuild is much closer. I would even argue that OKC is close to that same spot in their timeline. But yeah, they are all different. But if we need a benchmark OKC is not good.

But answer this question. If we trade our vets... will we be a competitive team next year.. or will it be another development year? Do you think a bunch of rookies that we bring in through the next draft can immediately step in and play as well as Conley, Vando, Beasley, KO and JC? Rookies (even the best of them) have a learning curve. And mentoring 3 potential starters at once sounds like a plan to **** up development for 1 or more of them.

And yes, I absolutely think Mike will help us win 2 years from now. Not because he is playing starter for us then, but because he is here helping our next PG work out the kinks and speed his development by mentoring him until he turns over the reigns somewhere down the line next year.

We might not get a single pick in 2024 draft and might even gift 11-14 lottery pick to OKC if we are outside of the playoffs and get a bad lottery. Our pick is top 10 protected, not fully lottery protected.

 

[HermanG]

Some people just want to be overly dramatic about a rebuild and would prefer mediocrity.

Discuss the topic rather than make snarky remarks. Acknowledge the existance of options outside of your own opinion or preference. This is not exact science and there is no formula.

Edit: And oh, I'm not the one who is trying to make this team worse on purpose.. so your argument holds no water.

 

[HermanG]

I think I'm gonna run away from this tank thread just to keep peace lol.

It would be nice to discuss optional paths for a rebuild, but obviously there is a very strong consensus among many than tanking is the only correct answer. If someone else wants that as well, please make another thread. I cannot make one of my own yet (probably too new on the board or something).

 

[fishonjazz]

But answer this question. If we trade our vets... will we be a competitive team next year.. or will it be another development year?

Answer me this question. Do you think we will be a competitive team next year if we dont trade our vets? I dont think so unless we draft well and make good free agent signings. Same with if we trade our vets. I think we are only competitive if we draft well and sign good free agents (even better if we trade our vets for younger players who blossum next season)

Our vets aint all stars and the guys backing them up currently are quite good. The dropoff is small and can easily be replaced with players coming back in trades, draft picks and free agents.

Remember when we traded 2 franchise players and conrnerstones and all stars and then weren't even all that much worse the next year (hint. This just happened) Things turned out really good. Im not too worried about how devastating the losses of Conley (old, undersized, overpaid), KO (not very good), and Gay (addition by subtraction) will be after seeing how devastating the losses of two of the best jazz players to ever play here was (not bad at all.)

 

[HermanG]

Answer me this question. Do you think we will be a competitive team next year if we dont trade our vets? I dont think so unless we draft well and make good free agent signings. Same with if we trade our vets. I think we are only competitive if we draft well and sign good free agents (even better if we trade our vets for younger players who blossum next season)

Our vets aint all stars and the guys backing them up currently are quite good. The dropoff is small and can easily be replaced with players coming back in trades, draft picks and free agents.

Remember when we traded 2 franchise players and conrnerstones and all stars and then weren't even all that much worse the next year (hint. This just happened) Things turned out really good. Im not too worried about how devastating the losses of Conley (old, undersized, overpaid), KO (not very good), and Gay (addition by subtraction) will be after seeing how devastating the losses of two of the best jazz players to ever play here was (not bad at all.)

Yes of course. Lauri and Kessler are both gonna continue to develop for sure. I mean Kessler just came to NBA and Lauri is in his first year as a true starter. Why wouldn't we get better if we make smart trades only (like find a better fit than Vando/KO between Kessler and Lauri). Ochai, Sexton and others we have. I trust they will get better.

But the notion here is to TANK. Its even the title of the thread. That means effectively become bad enough that our record / ranking bottoms out. Lauri being as good as he is, we need to trade lots of pieces to achieve that. Any guy we trade who increases Kessler minutes... I'm not sure thats a tanking move at all. If we send out Conley, JC, KO, Vando and Beasley and none of them give back pieces better than we have on our bench... then that is tanking.

I'm saying at least swap pieces who could be better fits and give them a proper run with Kessler and Lauri. If we turn better, we will get to see those guys in the playoffs and truely get a feel for what we have. If we turn worse, then its just natural tanking and at least we can fix it through draft and future trades.

Just consider that there are other avenues... and I think those avenues are the ones this organisation ends up walking. I dont think there will be a huge vet sale or overhaul, and DA will only sell some if the price is an overprice. Beasley and Vando trades are in the tea leaves though... that I do think. And its logical and non-tanking.. since Beasley takes shots away from Lauri while Vando is not a good fit with Kessler but instead fighting for the same minutes.

Also doing that full vet sale when you are in clear range of playoffs could be something Silver intervenes with and makes true of his threat to alter draft orders or dock picks.

 

[HermanG]

Answer me this question. Do you think we will be a competitive team next year if we dont trade our vets? I dont think so unless we draft well and make good free agent signings. Same with if we trade our vets. I think we are only competitive if we draft well and sign good free agents (even better if we trade our vets for younger players who blossum next season)

Our vets aint all stars and the guys backing them up currently are quite good. The dropoff is small and can easily be replaced with players coming back in trades, draft picks and free agents.

Remember when we traded 2 franchise players and conrnerstones and all stars and then weren't even all that much worse the next year (hint. This just happened) Things turned out really good. Im not too worried about how devastating the losses of Conley (old, undersized, overpaid), KO (not very good), and Gay (addition by subtraction) will be after seeing how devastating the losses of two of the best jazz players to ever play here was (not bad at all.)

Oh and btw competitive does not equal contender in my previous answer. My view is the window opens 2 years from now at the earliest, but you dont just jump there from the bottom. You build up to it.

Also you asked me a question back without answering mine. Are we gonna be a good team next year if we turn bad enough to bottom out for the rest of this one?

 

[rocfan1]

Yes of course. Lauri and Kessler are both gonna continue to develop for sure. I mean Kessler just came to NBA and Lauri is in his first year as a true starter. Why wouldn't we get better if we make smart trades only (like find a better fit than Vando/KO between Kessler and Lauri). Ochai, Sexton and others we have. I trust they will get better.

But the notion here is to TANK. Its even the title of the thread. That means effectively become bad enough that our record / ranking bottoms out. Lauri being as good as he is, we need to trade lots of pieces to achieve that. Any guy we trade who increases Kessler minutes... I'm not sure thats a tanking move at all. If we send out Conley, JC, KO, Vando and Beasley and none of them give back pieces better than we have on our bench... then that is tanking.

I'm saying at least swap pieces who could be better fits and give them a proper run with Kessler and Lauri. If we turn better, we will get to see those guys in the playoffs and truely get a feel for what we have. If we turn worse, then its just natural tanking and at least we can fix it through draft and future trades.

Just consider that there are other avenues... and I think those avenues are the ones this organisation ends up walking. I dont think there will be a huge vet sale or overhaul, and DA will only sell some if the price is an overprice. Beasley and Vando trades are in the tea leaves though... that I do think. And its logical and non-tanking.. since Beasley takes shots away from Lauri while Vando is not a good fit with Kessler but instead fighting for the same minutes.

Also doing that full vet sale when you are in clear range of playoffs could be something Silver intervenes with and makes true of his threat to alter draft orders or dock picks.

I do agree with you that we have some differing definitions of Tanking. Bottom line is this is a sellers market so any players we are looking to bring in (OG or Collins) will be really expensive this year. 3 firsts for OG, what has he done in this league to deserve that price tag!? So in a sellers market the best decision is probably to sell off valuable veterans. We've already ran out of minutes with talented players sitting on the bench.

You can't really swap pieces in a sellers market... that becomes really difficult because the buyers are willing to pay more. Likely not the best use of our assets.

 

[fishonjazz]

Oh and btw competitive does not equal contender in my previous answer. My view is the window opens 2 years from now at the earliest, but you dont just jump there from the bottom. You build up to it.

Also you asked me a question back without answering mine. Are we gonna be a good team next year if we turn bad enough to bottom out for the rest of this one?

I think that if we trade KO, Conley, and Gay we will be basically the same good next year or better (depending on how we do in the draft, free agency, and what players we get back in the trades of KO, Conley, and Gay.)
I also think we remain about the same this year but we just have more assets.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I'm just pointing out OKC is a really bad example to use here, and year 3 of Memphis rebuild is much closer. I would even argue that OKC is close to that same spot in their timeline. But yeah, they are all different. But if we need a benchmark OKC is not good.

Wasn't mentioning them as an example or benchmark... just that it doesn't have to be this long drawn out soul sucking franchise debilitating process.

But answer this question. If we trade our vets... will we be a competitive team next year.. or will it be another development year? Do you think a bunch of rookies that we bring in through the next draft can immediately step in and play as well as Conley, Vando, Beasley, KO and JC? Rookies (even the best of them) have a learning curve. And mentoring 3 potential starters at once sounds like a plan to **** up development for 1 or more of them.

I doubt we cut that far, but lets assume Danny finds a home for everyone except JC. So we have JC/Lauri/Walker/Sexton/THT/Ochai - and like 40-50M in space. Say we weren't lucky enough to land a top 4 guy but got someone like Anthony Black or Wallace in the top 10 and one of Jett/Dick/Hawkins with our Minny pick... the Philly pick is spent on a project who toils in the G League maybe. Say we bring back NAW. Say we use the cap space on okayish FA like Hart and Naz Reid. So you have:

Sexton - Black or Wallace
JC - NAW/Dick or Jett
Hart - Ochai/Dick or Jett - Maybe Simone
Lauri
Kessler - Reid soaks up the backup 5 but also can play 4 if we go supersized

That team might be worse than this team, but look at Indy... they have Mathurin, Nembhard in the rotation and Tyrese is also a young guy. Its not like we are relying on the rookies too much. With internal improvement on Walker, Ochai, Lauri, Sexton... I think we are pretty easily just as good. With a real "meh" summer and not a lot of luck tbh. Its also a more sustainable group.

And yes, I absolutely think Mike will help us win 2 years from now. Not because he is playing starter for us then, but because he is here helping our next PG work out the kinks and speed his development by mentoring him until he turns over the reigns somewhere down the line next year.

Mike is helpful in that way... but you can go find a vet mentor that doesn't need 25-30 minutes a night too.. and the 25M can help us get a younger vet at another position. He also might want to make a title run before he completely falls off.

We might not get a single pick in 2024 draft and might even gift 11-14 lottery pick to OKC if we are outside of the playoffs and get a bad lottery. Our pick is top 10 protected, not fully lottery protected.

Okay... so if our rookies and young core are awesome then they take us to the playoffs and OKC can have the pick. If not or if there are injuries we add another high lotto talent.

 

[fishonjazz]

But the notion here is to TANK. Its even the title of the thread. That means effectively become bad enough that our record / ranking bottoms out.

I dont think its possible so no need to discuss that version of tanking. The version of tanking that I would discuss is trade the vets and playing the youth. That version of tanking doesn't hurt our win loss record next season at all imo and I think it actually improves our record next year. Might hurt our record this season slightly which gives us a better draft pick and helps our record even more next season.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

I do agree with you that we have some differing definitions of Tanking. Bottom line is this is a sellers market so any players we are looking to bring in (OG or Collins) will be really expensive this year. 3 firsts for OG, what has he done in this league to deserve that price tag!? So in a sellers market the best decision is probably to sell off valuable veterans. We've already ran out of minutes with talented players sitting on the bench.

You can't really swap pieces in a sellers market... that becomes really difficult because the buyers are willing to pay more. Likely not the best use of our assets.

There is nothing we'd be selling off that we could not go and acquire... look at effing Detroit... they got paid to take Noel and Burks... they got Bogey for free.

There are no guarantees we find replacements but we will get value in selling them off, value in our draft pick being better this year, get value in adding FA or renting out the space... If we lose 5 more games than we would have running it back with some additional rookies (who would rot on the bench if we keep everyone) then who flipping cares.

 

[sip]

I dont think its possible so no need to discuss that version of tanking. The version of tanking that I would discuss is trade the vets and playing the youth. That version of tanking doesn't hurt our win loss record next season at all imo and I think it actually improves our record next year. Might hurt our record this season slightly which gives us a better draft pick and helps our record even more next season.

Yep. The version of tanking that most of us are talking about is a full youth movement with our youngsters and parting out most of the vets. I think that could lock us firmly in that 6 to 9 range for the draft with added possibility of jumping up in the lottery but not expected. Also giving the youngsters heavy minutes the rest of the season should give us a good idea of what direction we need to go in the draft and free agency.

 

[fishonjazz]

Yep. The version of tanking that most of us are talking about is a full youth movement with our youngsters and parting out most of the vets. I think that could lock us firmly in that 6 to 9 range for the draft with added possibility of jumping up in the lottery but not expected. Also giving the youngsters heavy minutes the rest of the season should give us a good idea of what direction we need to go in the draft and free agency.

I agree with all of this but I think the youth movement still gets us into the play-in game or lower seed in the playoffs (6 or 7)
Maybe I believe in the young guys too much (probably) and think our vets are worse than they are (also likely) but thats how i honestly feel. I dont think we see much dropoff at all by trading KO, conley, and gay. Im fine with that. Also fine with a big dropoff. Season of win win.
I think the only way we lose this season is to keep all the vets, keep giving them big minutes and go into off season with less of a sure direction and less information on who to draft or acquire in free agency or trade due to not knowing what we have with the youngsters.

 

[MT Steve]

I think the only way we lose this season is to keep all the vets, keep giving them big minutes and go into off season with less of a sure direction and less information on who to draft or acquire in free agency or trade due to not knowing what we have with the youngsters.

Ah yes, the Corbin Special.

 

[Elizah Huge]

I agree with all of this but I think the youth movement still gets us into the play-in game or lower seed in the playoffs (6 or 7)
Maybe I believe in the young guys too much (probably) and think our vets are worse than they are (also likely) but thats how i honestly feel. I dont think we see much dropoff at all by trading KO, conley, and gay. Im fine with that. Also fine with a big dropoff. Season of win win.
I think the only way we lose this season is to keep all the vets, keep giving them big minutes and go into off season with less of a sure direction and less information on who to draft or acquire in free agency or trade due to not knowing what we have with the youngsters.

Yeah, I don’t think trading guys off will hurt us as much as people think. Sexton is still super underrated on this board. We have been perfectly fine without KO already. If we trade Beasley and Ochai gets his minutes are we really going to drop off much if at all? I don’t think so.

We would have to trade Clarkson and Conley while getting nothing of significance back player wise to really do anything in my opinion.

 

[Elizah Huge]

Sexton/Markkanen/Kessler have played 178 minutes together this season and their net rating is +12.2. That is a small sample size I know but damn that’s really good.

 

[HermanG]

I do agree with you that we have some differing definitions of Tanking. Bottom line is this is a sellers market so any players we are looking to bring in (OG or Collins) will be really expensive this year. 3 firsts for OG, what has he done in this league to deserve that price tag!? So in a sellers market the best decision is probably to sell off valuable veterans. We've already ran out of minutes with talented players sitting on the bench.

You can't really swap pieces in a sellers market... that becomes really difficult because the buyers are willing to pay more. Likely not the best use of our assets.

Selling and not buying when prices are high is a very good argument which I also have considered.

But sometimes discussing subjects like this is hard when you just argue 3 FRPs are too much. FRPs are not all equal.

What if they are projected 20+? Youd rather take 3 guys at 20+ who youd try and develop into legit NBA 2 way starters? How many 2 way wing defender types are drafted per year? How many pan out?

OG is 6th in DPOY odds.. and was leading but top team guys have since passed him since Raptors are bad. So a top 6 defender in the league or better even. Only one younger than him above him on the list is JJJ... #5 overall pick (Bam is 1 day older lol).

 

[Elizah Huge]

Sexton/Markkanen/Kessler have played 178 minutes together this season and their net rating is +12.2. That is a small sample size I know but damn that’s really good.

Sexton/Clarkson/Markkanen have played 342 minutes together and their net rating is +14.1. Even better.