There is nothing wrong with it, but it just seems like you're more of a casual fan from the way you see it. It's about winning the championship, sure casual fans would love to watch a team win, but hardcore supporting fans would rather see their team win a championship. Winning the championship is the ultimate victory, winning regular season games are minor victories.
you're wrong, the teams that it sucked for sucked again and made it big eventually. You can only fail so many times. And when you fail in the draft you will fail the next year you won't get magically good all of a sudden. You get the guy you want, then as long as you have a good GM and not Khan then you're good to go.
If the players and owner agree to have kids stay in college for 2 years rather than 1, you can forget about tanking. I can see the "one and done" rule abolished.
Okay, now tell us how many teams have won a title or even contended for one without drafting its star player? Detroit we've established as one and NY/Miami are just different situations. Now who else has done what Morey and Les is trying to do?
Than how is it that since the lotto was introduced there have been only 8 different franchises to win the championship. Not everyone had kahn and not everyone made it big eventually.
The better question is which team won a title and wasn't led by a team that they drafted, by fortune of sucking and having a high pick at some time. When you look at it that way only the bolded teams count. Winning in the NBA is all about landing a star somehow and properly building around him. No bonafide stud, no ring. Getting one via the draft seems to be the easiest way.
The keys are: - You need to have a draft with top prospects, ala The LeBron draft, instead of last years. - You need to have a GM who can identify talent and draft well. The 2012 draft is supposed to be loaded and I trust Morey not to make a mistake.
Keep in mind that tanking to build a contender is a much, much longer process than simply being very bad for one year. Let's go down the current contenders and see how they were built, and the level of suckitude they had to endure: 1. Mavericks: After losing in the first round in '89, an entire decade where the franchise maxed out at 36 wins, no playoffs prior to the arrival of Nash, Dirk and Don Nelson, including 2 of the 5 worst seasons in NBA history. 2. Miami: 2 years of no playoffs after the end of the Mourning Era, helped out by Bill Duffy "forgetting" to pick up Anthony Carter's option, enabling the Heat to sign Lamar Odom; otherwise Wade would be in LA in the trade for Shaq. After '06, 3 years of non-contendership, including one of the 10 worst seasons in NBA history. Partially responsible for 2011 NBA Lockout. 3. Zombies: Outside of one fluky year where they beat the Clippers in the playoffs, 6 years of no playoffs; ultimate failure in that Tanking caused team to be moved. 4. Chicago: Following the Jordan Era, arguably an entire decade of being middling to non-contender; 1.7% chance of getting Derrick Rose, 80% chance of getting D.J. Agustin. 5. Memphis: Arguably, their entire franchise history has been disappointment and failure; 16 years, 2 cities, 10 coaches later, they are now a playoff winner. 6. Atlanta: 9 years in between winning records, including one of the 6 worst years in NBA history, quit on 2 coaches, ugly ownership spats. 7. Boston: 8 straight losing years between 94-01, 4 average to bad years prior to Garnett/Allen trades. 8. Lakers: They don't rebuild/go through pain, just get a superstar to force a trade/sign as a FA. Since moving to LA in 1960, the team has only 7 losing seasons total. So in general, in a normal rebuilding cycle, expect the Rockets to be a non-contender for 6-10 years. It's a process that you'll see over and over again. Just enjoy the team for what it is; don't worry about winning championships for awhile, and don't actively root for the team to lose. Baseball fans can appreciate the game even when they know their team is not a contender; a team that's 0-16 in football can still manage to sell out their stadium; so extend the same courtesy to your favorite basketball team. It will get better eventually, but you can't artificially speed up the process any more than you can make a virus run its course more quickly.
All these teams had top draft talent. Doesn't matter if they acquired it 3 years earlier than their title, or 15. The point is that all those teams except the Pistons were built around a player who was high in their draft class. This includes, Hakeem #1 Jordan # 3, Pippen # 5 Duncan # 1 Shaq # 1 Nowitzki # 6 Billups # 3 The only star in those teams that was not a top 6 pick was Kobe (#13) and the Pistons big 4. Thus this proves that tanking is effective assuming you retain your young talent. Billiups is an exception out of those top picks as he was a late bloomer and was not actually drafted by the Pistons, but it still goes to show how top draft talent is important.
Wrong. Hardcore fans are not the ones willing to wait years and years on questionable picks to get them a championship. Why would they when they have a pretty good team already that is just missing a piece or two. I have already told you that the great draft that many of you are looking for already happened for us. In 2009. All you tankers want to do is trade this and draft that every year with no clear strategy. Only to hope and pick a superstar. That is a terribly weak excuse for a strategy, if you ask me.
Memphis? They drafted Gay, Mayo, and Conley but none of them are all-stars. Randolph is clearly their best player and Gasol is their second. Gay wasn't even there for their playoff run and they were already toe to toe with OKC.
I thought about Memphis but I'm not ready to call them contenders after just one season...show me progression just like OKC did this past season and i'll include them. That said...how did they get M. Gasol? They acquired him by trading Pau Gasol, the 3rd pick of the 2001 draft. This debate would be moot if the Rockets had the 3rd pick of a draft on their roster but we don't even have a prospect of his caliber to move for a superstar.
What are some examples of winning teams trading away core players to actually "tank" for a better pick in recent memory?
Teams win championships by drafting top talent or taking a top pick and trading it for top talent ala Celtics for Ray Allen. We know Morey can assemble excellent secondary players via trade or draft. We need a superstar to build around and no one is signing here. Hence tank.
Seems like there are fire sales every year. There are always buyers and sellers at the trade deadline. Now no one is actually going to say we are tanking.
I don't want to tank but some that come to mind are the Wolves trading KG which basically led to them drafting Love , the Jazz trading Deron Williams to get Kanter basically and the Nuggets trading Melo to get Tristan Thompson.
For instance? I am just interested in some examples of teams successfully pulling off this maneuver in the lottery era, and how they are doing since. People always bring up the Thunder as an example, even though some simple fact checking would tell you it wasn't the case at all.
And how are they doing with that? It's been 4 years by the way. The whole point of "tanking" I thought was for teams without a "franchise player" mired in mediocrity to break that cycle and get their "franchise player". What we know for sure is Deron Williams is a "franchise player". Kanter, maybe maybe no. Seems like the Jazz are doing it backwards. What.
