If teams are tanking for Wemby the Rockets should....?

We will see two groups of teams. There will be a group of about 10 teams at the bottom and the other teams competing for playoffs. And a huge gap will be there between the two groups in the standings. The bottom group will only beat each other (can't have both teams lose in a game) and will lose every game against the top group.

 

Chet going down before the season starts means they will suck this year
OKC seems to get all the talent

 

I'll never understand the fans who want their fringe or worse teams to "give it all they got" and ultimately say better luck next year. Why would anyone want to fight for a play in spot- likely lose and add major losses on top of that by being out of the top prospects draft positions. In a year when theres a clear cut most years #1 if the once in a generation big wasnt in this draft making that other guy a #2. Thats 2 deep before we get to the other talent. We could ultimately be looking at a future dynasty if we can land the right pick with the potential stardom we already have. What's one 14th seed or Cinderella 8th seed sweep going to do for us? Just take Pops lead. You gonna suck anyway, this is a perfect year to suck the most.

 

man this could help fufill my dream of the NBA adopting relegation in effort to end tanking. It would be so amazing to have a tiny market team like the Rio Grande Vipers get promoted and rewarded with Wembanyama. Would also be equally hilarious to see a team like the Knicks get relgated to the Gleague and have to win to get back up into the NBA.

it will never happen but the moment it does, it would be the greatest sporting league in the world.

 

We're going to have a hard time losing to the tanking teams with the talent we have now. We'll probably still lose a lot of games, but not as many as we would if there wasn't a generational unicorn in the lottery.

 

This will really be the season where we will learn if tilman is a completely hopeless braindead moron, or if we should have some belief in him. If we go 20-62 and are bottom 3, it will give me hope that maybe we have a shot with tilman. Not optimistic though that's for sure

 

I really wish the NBA would do something about tanking…it’s so bad for the overall product

 

Tank like you've never tanked before.

 

They were gonna suck regardless

 

now they can #1 pick suck

 

All anyone can say is how stacked this draft is going to be. A season of improvement and an early pick in this draft should be cause for outrageous excitement. You're not trying to perform such soul sucking basketball to win 5 games to get Henderson.

30 wins and Cam Whitmore at #6 > 9 wins and Scoot Henderson at #2

 

I remember this silly debate last year. We had the worst record and still only wound up with the 3rd pick. There are no guarantees with tanking, only that you can get no worse than the 5th pick if you have the worst record. The Rockets need to win as many games as they can.

 

I propose using the records of past 3 years rather than just one year to order the draft. So you can't just throw one season and get a generational player. You have to suck for three consecutive years. Some team might still tank for it. But it makes it much harder. And it's also harder to predict which prospects will be really great three years later.

 

That would give teams more incentive to tank imo because you get rewarded for longer. A team like houston who had to be broken up, or utah would get demolished by this of course but in general it would encourage tanking more

 

I’m down for anything at this point

I saw this the other day and it got my interest…would need to do away with the play-in tho

At the end of the season, all playoff teams get a week off to rest and game plan. During that week, the 14 lottery teams play a single elimination bracket tournament for draft picks (the two teams with the best records get byes). The winner of the tournament gets the first pick in the draft, second place gets the second pick. The rest of the teams are slotted according to record with the best teams getting higher picks. So theoretically, every lottery team has a shot at the first pick, but if you lose a tournament game, it is in your best interest to have the most wins as possible, in order to be ranked higher than other teams.

 

Why? You think anybody gonna give a F about the 21 extra wins after the season was over?

Be honest you think Spurs prefer Sochan and 10 more wins last year over Jabari Smith for the next 10 yrs?

 

Even if that's true Wemby is a generational prospect. I think most can agree on that. Even people who were doubters last year are coming around

 

Yes, it may give you longer benefit. But if you are just bad for one season and then become competitive again, you probably will just get a middling pick and definitely not a top pick. The goal of most tanking is the chance of getting a generational player which is usually taken at the top. No one really want to throw a season just to get a #10 and then a #15 pick.

The spirit of the draft order is to help bad teams (or teams that lost their franchise player for whatever reasons) rebuild. Using longer period's records helps those truly bad teams. It prevents teams like the '19-20 Warriors from getting a high pick simply because they had some injuries and shut down their key players. (Fortunately they picked Wiseman who has not amounted to anything--yet.)