Forget our playoff chances -- no real fan should ever root for their team to tank

OP needs to read up on the No True Scotsman fallacy

 

Nice passion but you're wrong.

 

That is more risky, you are relying on way more moving parts and things out of your control.

 

Have him reset the culture with "military precision" the way he did in OKC according to Tim McMahon and the way he was thwarted in H town by Pacificist Hippie James and his long beautiful hair.

You can't really have tanks without military culture! It fits.

 

We are not a FA destination.

Since 2011, these have been the players who have been drafted in top 4 Anthony Davis, Joel Embid, Bradely Beal, Luka Donic, Trae Young, and others. If you have a chane to get any players like these, you take it and a competent organization will build around them.

Yes, that's why we should do it instead of banking on people coming here.

Hakeem was literally drafted number 1, Jordon was drafted at 3. Durant was drafted at 1. Harden at 3. Luka at 3. Shaq number 1. Steph was number 7. Dwight Howard, number 1. Chris Paul number 4. If you get those type of talents on your team and you are a good organization. You will do great. That's what will make us a great FA destination when we have superstars here to attract them.

 

this team is barely scrapping by against terrible and/or heavily injured teams, but that’s enough to have people gassed up

Watching that Portland game the other night, what are the chances we would beat them in a playoff series if they have healthy CJ and Nurkic? They aren’t even an elite team, they are considered an afterthought in the West.

I’m not trying to give Oladipo 30 mil/yr or more this offseason either, so I’m fine with trading him away for assets

 

Rockets were this try-hard team that competes post-Yao, and nobody wanted to come here. That’s why Morey was at the likes of Nene’s house at the start of free agency and trying to trade for Pau Gasol. That’s why he was out there offering poison pill contracts to Lin and Asik. Morey wanted to trade for Dwight, and Dwight made it clear there was no way in hell he would ever re-sign in Houston so we shouldn’t even bother. It wasn’t until we lucked into not just trading for Harden, but him blowing up into a star immediately, that premier players decided to give Houston a chance. We need that centerpiece player to attract others to come here.

 

Houston isn't a premiere FA destination but we ain't Cleveland.... good players want to play with other good players.

 

I had no idea that my 36 years of devotion of this team meant nothing and that I'm not actually a real fan because I'd like to see them tank for a top 4 talent to add to Christian Wood in this rebuild.

 

How can you say its more risky than wasting away a year and potentially ending up with a Thabeet or Olowokandi or Bennett or Oden or any of the multitude of draft busts?

I have to believe that if you did a value analysis of what high draft picks are 'worth' as a pick - and contrast that with what the players selected are 'worth' 3 years down the road... I believe the majority of times teams would have obtained more value by trading away that pick...

I have to believe tanking for a high draft pick - to then package that pick with other assets for an established upper level player would be more advantageous than utilizing the pick... at least if you're playing the odds of a high draft pick actually turning into an upper level player...

imo

 

I couldn't agree with this more.

Build the culture. Your just as likely to attract great players (Brooklyn) as a late playoff team than you are to hit I the draft (Kings)

 

Because there are plenty of examples of better players being drafted at their positions.

What you are saying is that you are hoping for another James Harden situation. Those are lightning in a bottle situations man. Draft picks in general are def worth more as an unknown quantity for sure. But high lotto picks are at the end of the day, the best way in our situation to build to contender. To get a homegrown superstar like Dallas.

What is the point in trading for a superstar(and lets be real trading for a number one option will gut the team) if we have nothing here to compete with? But if you mean like a young corner stone....I mean yea sure. But no team is going to trade Luka, or Trare, or MPJ or whoever? And what is the point of even getting those guys here if we have no one to surround them with? They will leave the second FA comes. We need a "guy" C Woods as much as like I him is unlikely to be that guy. Especially with Joel, Davis, and Jokic in the league.

 

You've pointed out 5 players in your "since 2011" group. Of those, Davis already forced his way out. Beal is next. Luka, Young, and Embiid haven't won anything, yet. You point out Durant at 1, Harden at 3. What did that win for Seattle/OKC? How many rings did Shaq win in Orlando? How many did Dwight win for them? How many did Chris Paul win with the Hornets?

The interesting thing for me about these "don't settle for mediocrity" tank advocates is that the only examples they can give since the 80s are teams that *didn't* win it all (except for the 3 picks I listed). It's simply not the way teams are built anymore. Look at how many lottery picks the Clippers and Kings and Wizards and Hornets have had over the years. The lottery treadmill is a real thing, all over the league. We just haven't experienced it with our franchise.

 

I'm replying to this post to encourage everyone in these tank/no-tank threads to read it. I think a lot of the discussion is a misunderstanding of what tanking is. To me, this article best defines what "tanking" should be. I don't think the Rockets should purposely lose games by sitting out healthy players or not playing hard or caring about winning. That's just unethical and wrong. I love that these young guys are playing hard and we are a top defense. Why? Because we can parlay them for better assets later to draft or trade for a top 10 player.

See the first few lines from the article:

The Philadelphia 76ers have lost 26 games in a row, tying the NBA record.
Their futility has spawned a new debate about "tanking" — the practice of strategically making a team worse in the short term in order to be good in the long term.

Some, like Coach K, have called it unethical.

Others, like the Atlantic's Derek Thompson, have called it ineffective.

Both of these characterizations are wrong, and they're wrong because they misconstrue what tanking is.

Tanking is not the practice of losing as many games as possible in order to get a franchise savior in the NBA Draft. Tanking is the practice of rebuilding a roster by fully disassembling it, maximizing cap space, and collecting assets. And yes, sometimes "collecting assets" includes collecting what Houston GM Daryl Morey calls "the number one asset in the NBA" — a top-five pick on a rookie contract.

 

Get a load of this liar

You aren’t devoted to this team for ****

You Hartenstein only fan

 

@HP3

Imo it can all be broken down into an investment vs return...

You figure if you tank you are hoping for a high draft pick that can help you be a contender 3 or 4 years down the road - and hopefully that guy pans out and doesnt walk (LBJ) or force a trade (AD) once he's finally developed...

But how often do those picks actually pan out?

You'd figure players drafted 2016 and 2017 should have developed to this point... how many lived up to or beyond expectations?

2016
1 PHI Ben Simmons
2 LAL Brandon Ingram
3 BOS Jaylen Brown
4 PHO Dragan Bender
5 MIN Kris Dunn
6 NOP Buddy Hield
7 DEN Jamal Murray
8 SAC Marquese Chriss
9 TOR Jakob Poeltl
10 MIL Thon Maker

2017
1 PHI Markelle Fultz
2 LAL Lonzo Ball
3 BOS Jayson Tatum
4 PHO Josh Jackson
5 SAC De'Aaron Fox
6 ORL Jonathan Isaac
7 MIN Lauri Markkanen
8 NYK Frank Ntilikina
9 DAL Dennis Smith Jr.
10 SAC Zach Collins

If you had picks 1-10 this coming year... how many guys would you be willing to deal the same draft pick THIS YEAR as was used when they were drafted?

Sure knowing what we know now, tanking to get Bron is a nobrainer... but by that logic, why not just be mediocre and get Kawhi at 15...?

...and really... even from drafting Bron - the Cavs didnt get a chip on the first go round... if it had been ANY other team drafting him with the same results - and he walked at the end of 4 years... theyd have zero championships - EVEN DRAFTING BRON!

 

"Well, you can put lipstick on a hog and call it Monique, but it's still a pig."

people love redefining the narrative these days... depends on what your definition of 'is' is...

but according to Google...
People also ask
What does tanking mean in sports?
In a broad sense, “tanking” is a term used to describe when sports teams lose games on purpose to secure some sort of future competitive advantage. The pervasiveness of tanking in the NBA presents significant problems to the league. ... by making it costlier to tank, which will deter teams from tanking.

 

Ingram, Brwon, Murray and Simmons, Tatum, Fox, Issac and Markkanen are alll players who are worth drafting. All of these players are very VERY young. And they are players you can develop for years. I donno why you are giving a 3-4 year timeline when the team that drafts them has the chance to offer them the most money.

Who cares tbh? Its not a relevant question. There arennt many chances to get these guys from other teams. Because the team we have right now isnt better than the team they would be leaving usually.

Because the higher odds favor high draft picks.

Yea thats because they are a bad organization. Tanking or not, bad organizations will be bad organizations. Tanking doenst make them bad.

 

but Simmons for example was drafted #1... if you had the #1 pick in the coming draft would you swap it straight up for Simmons if possible?
The #5 pick for Fox or Dunn? etc...
My point being that the allure of a top pick is usually worth more than you actually get from utilizing that pick... are there occasions where the player is worth more than the draft pick that was used to obtain them - sure... but just looking at it analytically it doesnt look like a good return on investment to me in the majority of instances...

 

Hindsight is 20/20 and no process is perfect. The rationale you guys have for not tanking is "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong" and I dont think that is fair. We arent just gonna trade for a superstar, and a superstar is not just magically want to be here.

You looked at it analytically from like two drafts bro. And if every analytical team just decided "number one draft picks" no one would ever tank. If we analyzed any picks from any spot in the draft likely none of them would be wroth the investment. Not how this works.