This is true, but that risk comes with ANY pick that you end up with. It's just that if you are at the top of the draft as opposed to being in the middle of the draft, you have theoretically a better chance at landing a top-shelf talent. On top of that, in case you don't like your position in the draft, the higher pick presents itself as a more attractive piece to move then a middle of the round type of pick.
That's not really it though. They don't want to play on a team that isn't any better than the team they have just left. Plenty of big names have come here in the past. If you look at the Hakeem and Yao era players WANTED to play here. If this team gets a blue chipper it's fortunes will change. The City isn't the problem.
I'm not saying it's a bad strategy. I have no problem tanking to try to find that star player in the draft... I'm just saying that it's not anywhere near as easy as people are making it out to be. If you want to do it in a short amount of time, you have to have a lot of good things go your way. If those chips don't fall into place, then you're looking at a long rebuilding process.
more painful would be missing playoffs by a game or two. At least I still care about the team success, if we sucked so much I'd just be indifferent to losses, and would definitely not be as emotionally involved.
I picked missing the playoffs barely... But as a Fan honestly every loss is hard and when the Rockets Win it makes my day, so it would be hard for me to see us tanking and losing almost every night. and plus this year was pretty exciting you got to admit we got a look at Chandler Bang, if we can keep Dragic we have him and Lowry (two possible future All-Star PGs) and could run both of them or we could use Kyle for trade bait to make a splash then with that we could be a contending team not to mention we could have up to 3 first rounders In a deep draft or we could try and trade up for a top 5 pick... I feel excited and optimistic for next year. (at least more than i have the past two off seasons.)
Of course it's missing the playoffs, what the hell hurst about 1-2 seasons of sucking?? Last year was bad enough but this year is the worst missing it by 1 freaking game. Any of those 6 or some other games earlier this year would've done it. We are not playoff worthy, true, but that doesn't matter. Now that I see what this made is made of and not being able to handle the pressure I do not even want them in the playoffs, because it's going to be 4-0 sweep guaranteed.
Yeah it's not full proof I know but I think it's time the organization looks into it. Next year they need to IMO... Try to move up in the draft...if they can't do that then actually play the guys they have drafted. They need to roll with their young guys win or lose and if they can win with guys like D-Mo and Morris and whoever is drafted getting heavy minutes then cool.
Obviously, something has to change. This will be the 3rd season in a row where absolutely no progress has been made. Morey might have to change up his approach this coming season if he wants something to happen. Right now, the team is essentially a "revolving door" for players to go to other teams. People can argue that we have been accumulating assets, but honestly it feels like we've been accumulating assets ever since Morey took over and we have absolutely nothing to show for. Sometimes I get the impression that other managers are afraid to deal with Morey simply due to the fact that if he obviously does his homework and it almost make you second guess why you are dealing with him in the first place. Chances are he probably knows something that you don't and as we all know the NBA is full of GMs that don't know what they are doing.
They wanted to play here because of those two dominant centers which we both got from the draft. So how are we getting that blue chipper? Right.. through the draft.
“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.” ― Albert Einstein
I was against tanking before but given our situation, it's quite evident that we do not have a choice. We can't sign a fa superstar, we can't pull off a trade for a superstar, and we keep on drafting in the middle rounds while missing the playoffs as well. As i've said, this is the worst thing that could happen to an NBA franchise. Veing mediocre. Solid enough to compete but not enough to win and make it to the playoffs. Even if we did, odds are, we'd probably just lose in the first round. It's not as if our GM doesn't try. Heck, he went after almost every Superstar but to no avail. Something has to change and it should be big. Yes, i mean major rebuilding.
If you look at the drastic drop in attendance and tv ratings for this season its an easy answer. People don't care anymore. That's even worse than tanking because the fan base has nothing to hope for even in an upcoming draft.
Yes, tanking won't make us better in a year. But sucking for 2,3,4 years with a chance to have a championship caliber team sure beats being mediocre for a decade or so and still continue being stuck there after all those years. The main issue here is Les Alexander, he is a businessman. So tanking for several years and losing more money is not an option to him. He want to keep retooling so our team can still compete so he could sell extra tickets/revenue. It is never a business for us fans. That's exactly why it's so easy for us to say.. "Hey, since we can't get that superstar, we should definitely tank for several years and rebuild via draft." Now that's equivalent to millions of dollars lost to our beloved Les Alexander. We need an owner who's passionate enough about basketball and winning that he wouldn't care losing money if it means building and eventually having a championship caliber team/franchise.
