I'm glad I didn't waste my time a couple of months back putting together a LONG post regarding how "tanking" does NOT INCREASE your chances or odds at winning a title. There are WAY too many things involved and way too many things have to fall into place to actually win a title after tanking. While there's no guarantee of better odds of winning a title by continuing to be competitive and win and make the playoffs, as the Rockets have chosen to do, it's a helluva lot more fun for the fans to endure. I don't understand all the talk recently about changing the draft and teams being bad to get better. READ THIS ARTICLE and make sure you UNDERSTAND THE ODDS OF GETTING the top pick, much less a true franchise changing player - even if you have the WORST RECORD IN THE LEAGUE. If the current system doesn't deter tanking, nothing will. In the NFL, the team with the worst record gets the first pick in next year's draft, period. In the NBA, you are far from guaranteed the first pick if you finish with the worst record. How many years did it take for Dallas to win a title with their "franchise player"? How many people on this board would have run Dirk out of here 1,000times, and called for "trading him and rebuilding" as they failed year after year to win a title. http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/40055/does-tanking-even-work http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/39546/the-oklahoma-city-unicorns No one will ever convince me the odds of winning a title are better by "tanking". It's hard, period. No matter which way a team goes. Personally, I'm proud that my team chooses to do it by continuing to stay relevant and competitive during the process.
Both of these articles are misleading. The only stat that is relevant is that all championship teams, except the 2004 Pistons, have had a franchise player. Therefore, if you want to win a championship, you need to do everything in your power to acquire a franchise player. It is also relevant that the vast majority of franchise players are acquired through the draft. Everything else in these articles is off-topic. It doesn't matter that few teams win a championship after tanking. Few teams win a championship, period. But if you don't have a franchise player, your chances of winning a championship are almost zero.
There's a reason some teams stay at the bottom. I trust our GM to make the right call with high draft picks, whether it's selecting a certain player, or trading the pick for a proven player. I really doubt Morey would draft Thabeet, or Wes Johnson, or Michael Beasley, or Martell Webster, etc.
Doesn't matter anymore. Barring a series of inexplicable turnarounds, we are going into the draft with the Knicks pick only, and it will hover around 15 or 16.
who cares if EVERYONE on here is pro tanking.. Morey and Les aren't so it doesn't matter.. here is one fact u can't dispute.. teams draft their superstars.. and we aren't drafting one EVER at #15-20 range… and until we do draft one we will not get the likes of Dwight, Deron, Lebron, Bosh, Pau, etc.. to ever wanna come here..
So because we trust our GM, we feel better about those miniscule odds of obtaining a franchise player? No way a guy of DM's calibre would ever give a 1st round pick for T-Will? Or let Lin walk instead of SOMEHOW finding a trade partner for Jonny Flynn? (and just to be clear, I had no problem with taking the risk on Williams and I also understood the letting go of Flynn). But, when pro tankers argue that Morey will definitely HIT on that franchise player if he had a top five pick, I argue, as does the article, that the player may not even BE THERE, or LIKELY won't even BE THERE. They are FEW and far between. I like my chances of acquiring one via trade or free agency just as much as landing him through the draft. Has Morey been able to do that yet? No. Many will argue Gasol is past his prime and Nene is over-rated. I agree. Still, Gasol was/is a top 15 player and Nene was one of the most sought free agents this past off season. If not for the once in a lifetime veto, Morey gets a top player and a top free agent more than likely in the same off season. Yao retired LAST YEAR. He's went from trying to build around him to trying to obtain a franchise player - and it's been a VERY short period of time in which this transition has happend. With the way the NBA is now days, with players demanding trades TWO YEARS AWAY FROM BEING FREE AGENTS, and also players taking less to get where they want to play (rarely, but has happened), the odds of obtaining a true game changer via trade or free agency as it is in the draft. Again, Portland, by many accounts, chose to blow it up at the trade deadline. We chose to stay competitive. Both franchises are dealing with injuries to their stars in about the same time frame. Let's see who make the conference finals or Finals first.
It's really hard to use historical data for championship teams because there are so few. Put it this way, there are 30 teams in the NBA. Even if the champion comes from random drawing, odds are you only win a championship once every 30 years. Even then, odds are stacked against smaller market teams. FAs tend to migrate to bigger cities. Bigger teams tend to spend more both in the front office as well as on players(more income). This was even more prevalent back when the NBA wasn't the huge business it is today. Basically, NBA is an unequal industry unlike the NFL. So to say that tanking gives low odds is true. But so does everything else. Even with Duncan, the Spurs had to have DRob already on the team and then draft Manu and Parker. But without Duncan(say they had the 2nd pick and got Keith Van Horn), no amount of solid players they get since then would've mattered. If Cleveland OTOH had someone like Morey or Petrie running that team when they drafted Lebron, he'd probably still be stacking up championship trophies in Cleveland right now. tl;dr version. Tanking may be incredibly high risk, and it may only take you maybe 20-30% towards a championship team, it still gets you a higher return than other methods. But the bad part is that you are going to suck and suck badly.
One thing to note of the players you just happened to mention... They've all either been traded, nearly traded (would have been) or are likely to be traded. None of them are with the team that drafted them!!!!!! That's a whole other side of the story. Yes, you have the few - Durant, Rose, etc... - who are old school, sign and want to stay with their team, but today's league is much different than when teams were drafting Dream, Bird, Magic, MJ, etc.)
I can at least live with or tolerate this type of argument for tanking (although I think the 20%-30% is still a high estimate). Not sure I agree with the fact that LeBron would likely be in Cleveland still, along with trophies. They made moves trying to appease LeBron at several trade deadlines and during several off seasons. While the "experts" aren't often experts, many applauded the acquisitions of Jamison and Mo Williams and liked Cleveland's chances after those types of moves. But, I do understand your point. If the odds ARE 20%-30% of winning after tanking, and the odds are 15%-20% with trying to do it by staying competitive, I like winning now and having to work a little harder....lol. Can't stand the tought of going through five to ten years of being in the bottom five to ten teams. The league is much different today - with much, much more player movement. While the league has/is trying to cut down on that (ie making it easier for teams to keep their stars by eliminating the sign and trade advantage, allowing teams to give more years/money for extensions, etc), it is highly unlikely to reverse where the league has gone. Players move much more now. It's difficult to compare to the past. The MIT conference is all about pioneering. Morey often talks of "the next big thing". The league isn't the same and I believe the odds of getting that franchise changer are just as good via trade or free agency in today's league. Yet to be proven, but New Jersey got Deron Williams. Someone nearly got Dwight. (and likely still will), etc. As much confidence as I have in Morey's ability to draft, I also feel confident in his ability to get a star via free agency or trade, especially if given the same amount of time it'd take to build a contender through the draft.
Players don't want to stay with teams that are terribly managed. It's hard to defend the actions of the Magic and Cavs. Lebron was stuck with a team that was dumb enough to let Boozer trick them and then refused to trade for Amare bc they loved JJ Hickson. Houston is a place that NBA players would gladly stay if we gave them the chance to compete.
The problem here is if you have a good GM you'll never be bad enough to get that top 3 player...unless you're a situation like OKC wherein they stripped themselves bare and THEN hired a good GM. Take a look at the Spurs, they have an amazing FO and they'll never be in a postion to get a top 1 pick again, because they keep getting good players like Blair, Splitter, Neal etc.
agree. plus they're much more likely to bolt from a historical loser. and you usually have to lose for a long time to reap championship benefits from the tank.
who gives a damn about the pro tankers. our 'superstar' will come from the heavens when we least expect it. it's all cyclical. who would you want from the 2010 draft? ohhh john wall he is such a franchise changer. pshh. Lowry and dragic bring more to the table. what about 2011? ohhh derrick williams...hall of famer! he can't even hold parsons jock, to steal a line from stevie franchise. 2012? you would have to be as bad as the bobcats! that's not even possible unless you're the bobcats or have that franchise player john wall. =/ some of you people are delusional, franchise players are not guaranteed in every draft. I guess if one of you can create a time machine tank to 2007-2008 season. then, maybe, we can draft rose! the last true franchise player. you guys act like we're a roster composed of 60 year olds with no young talent. Have faith in maury. he hits more than he misses. just think of lowry, dragic and parsons as high lottery picks. they contribute more to winning than 98 percent of those picks after the 2009 season, when the gods took our yao. here.. go back to the november 2008 and break yao's feet 7 months earlier so we can draft harden. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hoy_en_la_revolucion/6282505655/" title="back-to-the-future-part-ii-original- by *The last son of krypton*, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6052/6282505655_8eb0c0e5dd_z.jpg" width="640" height="360" alt="back-to-the-future-part-ii-original-"></a>
Well put. I did a little number crunching for a thread I wanted to make and still haven't, and estimated the AVERAGE career arc per draft position for guys whom we can now see the full career arc (1985-2002) and the #1 pick was the only one you could really call can't-miss, and even then there were plenty of Kwame/Pervis/Olowokanki players. Average #1 pick from that period: Chris Webber Average #2 pick from that period: Kenny Anderson #3: Shareef Abdur-Rahim #4: Stephon Marbury ...it drops off kind of fast if you miss out on Kobe, KG or Duncan.
I agree. VERY fast dropoff. While I don't agree with tanking, I do understand the thought of "lucking" into that one in a hundred player. I just don't think those that see Durant and Westbrook on the same team understand how long the odds are that can actually happen. Or how long the odds are you become a contender within five to ten years after obtaining that player. And, those odds are only going to continue to increase in today's league, with players moving more than ever.
This. Just showing that it's hard to win with tanking is not enough. You have to compare how hard it is to win with tanking and without tanking. Instead of telling people tanking doesn't work, they should keep pounding the league to change the system to take away incentives for tanking.