And you can see this with how competitive the NBA is right now in both conferences. Silver has made it one of his focus to get rid of it because not that long ago half of the teams were tanking and putting out bad products. Now...again, outside of Detroit and maybe Chicago (who is playing surprisingly well anyway) teams are competing for the playoffs. The worst team in the west are the Wolves who are 100% not tanking and right behind them the Kings who thought/hoped this would be the year they broke into the playoffs. The era for tanking is over, Silver is going to make sure of that and thankfully so. It was a blight upon the league. Teams are doing the math and seeing the same thing we're seeing. Why move up the draft for a coin flip at a top pick? Why lose this game to move give us a 0.5% chance better at it? Let's just play our best players. Our situation is different because of the OKC thing but no one should be thinking about it right now. The draft pick we will own has so many moving parts and if people want to own our pick so bad then just finish ahead of OKC and you won't have to worry about them swapping the pick.
It doesn't make more sense to just be competitive than get a top 4 pick. My premise is that even without our big name backcourt guys we're too good/hardworking to ever get a top 4 pick. I think we're following the OKC model from last year and just using this year to train up the guys who will actually be here longterm like Wood and Tate.
Might want to get use to that considering we have 3 guys coming off major injuries. Best part about Harden was he always played.
I think it's an extreme situation. Yes, normally you would have some mildly balanced standings but now teams that are having half their rosters in quarantine are just going to get blown out and it somehow inflates everything.
People here after every loss: (RIP to this actress. While looking up this photo, I learned she died four years ago. )
Top 4 team now... for the lottery. We should hit top 3 just in case the ping pong balls have another team sneak in.
Didn't get to watch much but didn't Victor go for 32 and 9 something, close game? Rebounding must have been bad.
Not sure you guys understand how the math works. Even with the worst record in the league you only have a 50% chance at top 4 pick. Hitting top 3 guarantees you nothing. So worst record in the league, 50% chance of keeping your pick and 50% of tanking for nothing. 100% chance of destroying any semblance of value left on the rest of the roster since you are the worst team in the NBA.
This isn’t hard. Staying competitive most likely gives us the Miami pick. With tanking, we have a 52% chance of keeping the pick. And worst case scenario, if we lose it? We STILL end up with the Miami pick anyway. Might as well roll the dice. Nothing to lose here.
This Rockets team could be a force if they can a star player from the top 4 in the draft. Would be nice to pair with Wood and a resurgent Oladipo & Wall long term. Swap Tucker, Gordon, House for the best picks you can get or as part of a deal for a star.
