How to Support a Tanking Team

This. Sure there’s gems that have been found in later picks but obviously you do enough due diligence the raw talent in the top is just flat out better. You trust your organization to be able to develop it the right way. Which is another discussion. Funny how for the longest people complained about having middle of the road picks when they were picking. Now that they have a legit shot being in the top tier for a clear rebuilding team, folks don’t want to go for it. Nice logic

 

100% agree.

1) Rockets won’t get an instant stud player with the players exiting at the trade deadline. Oladipo would need
to play in March and score 25 a night until the 25th. Even with that teams buying don’t want to send out
key players.......just add to the rotation.

2) like watching the young players develop and look for signs of improvement. Tate/House/Mason/Porter/Patton need repetitions vs live NBA caliber talent. Without Wood its like dodging wrenches. “If you can dodge a wrench you can dodge a dodge ball.” Things get easier for the young players when Wood comes back. No longer dodging wrenches.

3) like watching all the mock drafts and videos of prospects coming into the NBA. Looking at fundamentals and
proper techniques. Fits for Silas screens/cuts/slashes/roll-man (PnR), ball handler (PnR), 3P shooting abilities.

 

For clarity (I should know this already), we will have the worst of the 3 picks (OKC, Miami, Houston) unless we have a top 4 pick?

So Miami would net us a first rounder probably in the 18-22 range when all is said and done. So the draft has some interest this year but the primary interest is in getting experience for Wood, KPJ and Kmart. As well as praying that somehow Tucker and Oladipo can be moved despite horrific play.

In the offseason, maybe we find a couple Capela like mid round sleepers and another Wood-esque free agent signing. Next year could be an interesting year to watch all the young pieces mesh and Wall may become tradable. After a terrible record next year we could be set up for a top draft pick and really good young squad in two years.

Ever optimistic...Rockets for life!!

 

This. I watched Kevin Martin. I have his bobble head. I was totally able to withstand that. Why? I had faith in Morey.

Not only do the Rockets suck at developing players, we suck at keeping them after they develop. We will ultimately trade up again. I don't think the front office learned that lesson properly. We are doomed to repeat it.

 

I don't support actively tanking because it is still not a lock for top 4 pick. However I do support tanking in the form of playing young guys. Try and compete every game but tank by playing the next generation of guys. If we win that isn't a bad thing, if we lose that isn't a bad thing. Hopefully Mason Jones, Porter, and KJ Martin see an increase in playing time.

 

lol r u moving goal posts or am i just not reading between the lines for your posts. U seem to b anti-tank, due to the low percentage odds of lottery pick becoming something special.

If u are anti-tank, u would b the many posters that believe we can compete (not necessarily for a ring, but make noise) = better than losing.

My counter 2 u is that although both have a low percentage of getting a ring, your delusion that we have a chance of winning it if we get into playoffs is (i could b wrong) even lower than tanking for a rookie superstar.

No team has ever won a ring at seed 7-10, and I will bet my posting rights that this current team will not be the ones to overcome those odds. So if the odds are so sht, why avoid tanking? just wonderin. U bring up the chances of hitting a superstar is low, the chances of us winning @6-10 seed is even lower, common sense tanking is the obvious option avoiding it is just delaying the inevitable.

Only reason y i am hesitant in tanking, is i don't know if the Front office is competent enough to stick through it long-term. But i will still propose tanking, cause our options to compete are slim.

No superstar agent is coming via free agency right after harden left. No assets to trade for a superstar. Any small trades to fix this flawed team is not enough to compensate harden, so tanking is the logical option.

 

Just curious, what does a long term tank look like?

 

Tanking honestly depends on the drafting ability of the gm. If we find our superstar/foundational piece, we can start winning again. If we can't find it, than through multiple season, accumulate enough solid players via draft to trade for a great player. Usually tanking team panic or lose track of their goal and do counterproductive moves like waste money to sign aging players to take up space, hindering development time for trhe rookies, or just suck at drafting.

It might seem like it is a low chance of success, it prob is, but this currently team at best is 7-10th seed, and no team has ever won a ring at that seed. It's logical to just tank.

Improving this team to have an okay chance at winning it all, u need a player of a caliber of harden. Anything minor changes, is just all fluff.

U can't improve the team enough to win it all
U don't have the assets to trade for a superstar
U will not attract any superstar after a big one just left

U either force a flawed team to compete playoffs and celebrate a participation ribbon or u tank and aim for a rookie superstar.

 

It's a strawman to say that people that are against tanking think this team can win a championship.

Without rehashing arguments the basics of people against tanking is that there is a price and a risk to making your team a laughing stock and having that label put on your franchise. There is a risk to it that all the heavy pro-tankers like to ignore or completel disregard. It can get to a point where you HAVE to draft a franchise player just to get out of the grave you've dug for your franchise. That's where the Kings are at now by the way and the Twolves.

Tanking long term is not something you should wish for a franchise, many NBA franchises do not return from 'tanking' long term. Some teams have been bad for literally decades, never finding that messiah to lift them back into relevancy.

As for the whole drafting thing, this is true, but even the best NBA drafter's aren't even 50% right, it's not easy to pick players in the draft, it's not easy to scout players and project them to the NBA level.

So my main thing has always been this idea that if you tank fir a season or 3 you'll get out of it...I don't think that's correct. I think even IF you have someone that knows how to draft well they can still mess it up.

So what is the alternative? I think it's quite clear, especially with today's lotto odds. the alternative is building the best young team you can build, being competitive and look like a up and coming young team that might attract FA. If not, you can always trade young assets for draft picks to let others tank for you, especially with these new odds having lottery protected picks is an actual gold mine. The lottery now makes this more than a viable option all while avoiding the risks that comes with bottoming out and tanking.

Now, you don't have to be bottom 5 to get a top 5 pick. In fact, since changing the rules, we've seen multiple teams jump into the top 5, so I have no issues with a team deciding they will compete for that 10th seed and a shot at playoffs...because I also think people also underrated the value and experience that comes with being an 8th seed or low seed in general.

Nearly every championship team had to take their low seed schooling. Do yall remember Harden and Lin going up against Durant's OKC first round? If the Rockets were to make it into the playoffs you can assume it'll be because of C.Wood...which means that first-round experience will be vital for him and will mean a lot more to his development than tanking could ever do.

 

I think the problem with your mindset is that you fear the chance of fking up the tank, it's not guarantee, its risky. But the likelihood of us recovering is still higher than what u r proposing.

Instead of actively aiming for the best pick to grab the best rookie, u are suggesting the GM search far and wide, get lucky and form a group of youngsters out of nowhere to compete well enough to attract a superstar to join us. For all your talk about low chances and what not, finding rando players that can developed into capable role players, thats like asking the GM to hit jackpot after jackpot without picks. Basically asking stone to land multiple Wood type players over and over. lol and u say top 4 lottery pick is a bad idea?

For a guy that complains about the odds of getting a superstar is low, y r u avoiding bottom 5 = chance to maximize the odds? like i said if u are gonna tank, u go all in, and if u are going to compete u do that.

I agree that experience is necessary, but U r just wasting time for the eventual rebuild. All great teams will experience a rebuild sooner or later, we been avoiding it for years. if not now after a franchise player has left when? u r gonna keep making up excuses to delay the rebuild. Our team currently constructed is no championship team.

idk how u can suggest that finding a bunch of youths out of nowhere is a better strat than outright losing for a high draft pick to just grab a better known rookie.

 

The issue I have with the mentality of some tankers is this idea that if you just get this guy (which you have a low chance of getting) it's smooth sailing from here. Most of these players don't stay on the team that drafts them, that's one obstacle, the other obstacle is it's really rare to draft the next Hakeem. Really, really rare.

It's harder to win championships. So whenever people tell me "We just do this and we'll be there" We had an all-time great and we see how hard it is to actually win championships.

The GM doesn't have to search far and wide, these are not rando players. C.Wood, is a perfect example of the kind of players we can find that can be turned into assets to build a contending team. C.Wood wasn't some rando guess, he had tape of him in NBA games, stats, data, whatever. Stone has two of these young players, Tate and Wood, that I think can either be a part of this team long-term depending on results or can be flipped for more draft picks, more rolls of the dice.

I also think again, people really underrate the ability to find stars in the lottery period. Yes, the odds are lower, but the odds are low period. So why tank the value of your organization for a roll of a dice when you're going to get that roll any ways?

Best players under 25?
Jokic, Mitchell, Booker, Bam, Murray, these are all guys out of the top 5.

Are you lucky to draft them? Sure, but you're also lucky to have the #1 pick actually be a franchise player as well. The entire thing is mostly luck because you never know what you're getting, if the NBA is too much for the guys mental or if he'll be Greg Oden and his body can't hold up, whatever the case, it's always a risk...

And that's the thing. We're in the game period, no matter what we're going to have a roll of that dice because we have the draft picks and if we draft well and scout well and make good moves, we'll contend.

I don't get the argument that "Well, tanking works if you have a good gm." Well yeah, of course it does. Unless you're the GM for the Lakers you have to be a good GM period to build a contending team.

If Stone is a good GM he'll make the most of his picks no matter where they are at and he'll make the most of the players he has. If not, then tanking or not tanking will be irrelevant anyway.

People ask what's the real risk of it? Well, I and others have said so in words, but have you heard of something called the 'Gambler's Ruin'? Or 'Gambler's Fallacy'? That's the risk, that we continue playing a game expecting that one day it'll break right for us but it never does...like the Wolves and Kings have for all these years. Basically, if you tank for 10 years, get the #1 pick each year, there is no guarantee you'll ever get another Lebron/Hakeem/Shaq whoever.

Long story short. I prefer the Rockets to play it straight up, like the Heat and OKC are doing. This does not mean (before anyone assigns this to me) that we should keep Dipo, Wall, Ego, I've been on the trade wagon for those guys since the Harden trade. I believe you build a team around young guys you think have a chance at being something, sprinkle in a vet or two (Wall's our vet for now) and see where it takes you. Also remember, winning ups the value for a lot of the young players on your team...

 

have fun watching Nwaba Tate, Wood. lower ur Season expectations and be optimistic that the future is bright.

Same program after the Olajuwon era, the injuries of Yao and TMac and the pre Harden era when KMart was our Franchise player.

 

But the wolves drafted a player #1 in the draft and then tried to pair him with a top 20 player (Butler). Isn't that about the best you can hope for in a rebuild is to get 2 star players? Things move pretty fast in the NBA these days. Contracts are shorter. Players move often. You make the decision to tank for one season, and then almost immediately you need to start moving into win now mode and seek to get better (i.e, the opposite of tanking). If after 4 years you're still bad/mediocre, then your tank has broken down and it's time for a new tank. Repeat again every 4 years.

 

But the whole point is OKC IS TANKING. They are doing it the right way and we should be doing the same thing. You have been saying that tanking is one thing and ONLY one thing. That is not the strategy. The strategy is maximizing all assets until you can capitalize on them. That means what team will be here after 2022? People were suggesting we couldn't get this player...Jarret Allen...because it would upset Cousins and he signed here because of his friend John Wall. Cousins??? In my past posts, I believe you were against the idea of trading EGo, Dipo, and Tucker. If this is wrong then I do not assign all of this to you but more to the point of what our strategy really should be and it is not simply tanking. That is only part of a strategy. The true answer is you have to decide is it better to be halfway down the wrong path or at the start of the right one. If you need 8 players I would say we are 6 or 7 away right now, not 1 or 2.

The NBA will exist in the next decade and so will the Rockets. I dare to believe that however complicated and unknown and risky the Rockets CAN have a better future team than the one we just lost. The key is accepting the reality of what just happened. The Harden Rockets are DEAD. We held on as the Yaoless Rockets for years, not by choice, and most fans don't want to relive that and neither did the players. We can absolutely mess up our future assets and may have lousy management. It is not a strategy before an endeavor that you give up because you will mismanage the success. WE HAVE TO TRY. There are no guarantees.

 

Thunder
2019 Offseason - Traded away stars for a bunch of first round picks
2019-2020 Season - Made playoffs
2020 Offseason - Traded remaining assets

Rockets
2020 After Season Already Started - Traded away stars for a bunch of first round picks
2020-2021 Season - Already Not Making Playoffs and already likely worse record than the Thunder
2021 Remainder & Offseason - Remains to be seen, but likely will be trading what we can

It seems to me that our tank is actually moving faster than the Thunder's...considering we started rebuilding over a year later.

 

And when they take the #5 pick from us we can once again be reminded that Harden should have been traded a year earlier.

 

I like you Twin Towers millennial version proposal Mr Nook.

May the tank run strong the rest of the season