even in an era with advanced scouting and modern analytics... you still have players slipping through the cracks - like josh richardson, khris middleton, nikola jokic, malcolm brogdon, or end of first round picks like capela or jimmy butler. i'm pretty sure morey realizes this and is willing to trade 4 first round picks just for the fact that he can get similar value in the 2nd round without the guaranteed contracts of first round picks.
Goes against the competitiveness of the star players and Thicc. We're very likely not going to be real bad or plain bad. People think tanking is easy, it requires smarts and how to effectively draft. Morey hasn't shown he can draft well in the first round but he also never had a Top 3 pick other than Harden who was picked by OKC.
I'm ok with tanking when Harden is a year away from free agency. Tanking now would be stupid. Loser ****ing mentality.
Absolutely, you can make good/great picks anywhere, potentially. See Clint Capela. But clearly, the closer to the top, the MUCH higher chances of getting a top pick. It might not be as much of a discrepancy this year, but the worst western conference team picked 18th in the draft last year, because the East usually has a few teams in the playoffs worse record wise than the worst west team. The TWolves picked 20th. But for them, obviously making the playoffs was a better option. And their rookie is outperforming the Nuggets rookie, even though the Nuggets were that last team out.... granted, the Nuggets purposefully chose Porter who we all knew would be injured. So, sure, it's a bit of a crapshoot. And as I said, I'm not advocating tanking. But the Rockets "asset" stock is as low as its been in a while, imo, and getting a pick as close to / in the lottery as possible, in a year where it might become increasingly obvious the team has no shot to win a ring, much less get home court advantage for a single round of the playoffs (we'll know more come trade deadline/all-star break time), might be the best way to improve the team for next year, when once again we are likely to start the year saying "the window is closing, THIS is the year"... Either that, or make a trade using that asset at the deadline are almost "MUST" moves. That's how the 6th seeded Rockets won, right, because they were a different team come playoffs. Bear in mind, I think that's the lowest seed ever to win a ring, and the next lowest in the modern era was the 3rd seeded Mavs. We know the 8th seeded Knicks made the Finals once... in what was, not surprisingly, a horrible eastern conference. The West isn't horrible. As the #1 seed the Rockets wouldn't be the favorite to win the ring. As a 5-8 seed, I'd basically bet all my net worth that they won't.... unless they've made a meaningful move effectively sacrificing that first round pick. If they haven't done that, it's not a young team. It's a veteran team that would probably, secretly, prefer a mysterious CP3 season ending hamstring issue and/or Harden season-ending ankle tweak, miss the playoffs, let the young guys (Hartenstein, Zhou, Clark, Chriss) get some more PT, miss the playoffs, maybe get lucky in the lottery, let DM do his work now with at least 1 much better asset than we thought we might have. imo i suspect though the Rockets will still be within striking distance (5 games?) of something like the 3rd seed around the all-star break, plus, given how competitive the western conference is. So this will be an impossible course of action to justify.
I wouldn't be opposed to it except you got some championship level tanking occurring in the EC. We'd end up at best with a 6-10 pick imo which just misses out on the big boys.
Good point, but the payroll is too high and the players are too good to tank. Also, despite the inconsistent play so far, the Rockets would be elite again, if they were to trade for some decent role players. Some draft picks and expirings should help in doing so. Harden only has so many prime years left and there is no guarantee that tanking will result in a champ level team either. So why not try to maximize current opportunity having a top 5 player already?
So we are going to trade some of our draft picks(mortgage our future) to get a player or two that will still not get us past GS in the playoffs this year?
If we beat gsw in the remaining games: go for 8th seed or whatever matches us with gsw Once gsw beats us: tank
But the thing with GS is they goof off in the regular season and then get focused when the playoffs start......Beating them in the regular season means nothing.
uh no they needed help from the refs and a cp3 injury to beat us after being down 3-2 harden & cp3 will be freshest in the 1st round
Taking is literally the stupidest idea at this point. Everyone but PHX in the west right now is separated by only 5 wins (first to last) 5 wins is nothing. And we're just getting to 1/4 of the way through the season. It would be asinine to consider tanking at this point in the season when we have 75% of the season left to get our **** together. Who cares if we dont get the 1-4th seed. We just need to make the playoffs, and have our **** together by then.
Keep in mind that tanking does take a toll. I am not saying your idea does not have some upside, but I think it is worth remembering that there is downside to tanking. Obviously there is no guarantee that you will see a return on your tanking investment, especially not immediately as you try to bring a young player into the mix. It probably takes at least two years for the draft choice to have an impact. And aside from that, season ticket sales are sure to fall next year if we tank, ratings will go down, revenue for merchandise will go down as well (no one buys the merch of a loser). So from a business standpoint, tanking will hurt. I understand the theory would be that all of these financials will rebound (and be stronger) if our ROI of the tank produces a superstar team. But, I think its worth noting that tanking hurts. Maybe not for those who are paying the bills. But for the Rockets it will be painful.
