You arent getting it. It litearlly does. It just means you have to be in the bottom 3-4 , you dont have to be THE WORST. It just makes the whole tanking process easier. Thats what I mean. What, you still have really good odds for a top3-4 for pick if you are bottom 4 it just made their odds even. Lol Morey making an off hand comment jokingly on twitter doesnt prove what his actual thought process is. It is stupid. We still have good odds if WE MAKE IT TO BOTTOM 3. All it did was level it for the bottom 3. I will say again what I have been saying, the odds of selecting that speaical is way higher in the top 3 than it is for a low level lotto pick.
Agreed about the Westbrook trade. It is a sunk cost and nothing can be done to alleviate it. Slightly disagree with your numbers. If the rockets finished a bottom 3 team. They'll have a slightly barely better than a coin flips chance of keeping the pick. If they finish 4th, they'll have a 48% chance of keeping it. If they are 7th they'll have a 32% chance of keeping. 10th = 13%. Of course being bottom 3 is better as 51% is better than 48% and 32% etc etc. But the issue is - how are the Rockets going to be bottom 3 team. They currently have one of the better defenses in the nba. A team full of vets and talented (if flawed) players and are likely an average team. Until they trade away some combination of tucker, gordon, wall, woods, oladipo (all of whom have incentives to perform well) they arent going to be that bad. Should rockets give away tucker, oladipo or attach picks to trade gordon/wall? How many picks would it cost to get rid of wall/gordon. How many potential picks would it cost to simply give away assets like dipo/woods/tucker without waiting to the deadline?
In the last two drafts since the rule change, more teams outside the bottom 6 has drafted in the top 4 than vice versa. 5 vs 3. Two 7th place teams, one 8th place teams, one 9th place team and one 11th place team. The only bottom 4 teams to get a top 4 pick was the warriors, the t-wolves in 2020 and the knicks in 2019.
Exactly. Due to the pick being top 4 protected and also due to the fact that we have absolutely zero chance to even make second round literally zero chance!!! It makes more sense this year than it does in a typical draft year. When you add up all of the variables- going after the top 4 pick seems to be the first low lying fruit This organization can get right now. the rockets organization needs to huddle together and go get or at least attempt to go get it. It’s the first crucial step in a correct rebuild
Yes and in talking about how many teams have been drafting inside the top 4 being good, that does not change the odds. Two drafts sizes are immensely small.
I'll take the coin flip over the 3 sided dice roll or worse! Sure the probability of a top 4 pick is incremental and remains so but the expected value drops off super fast as you move down tiers (which is probably why Morey structured it to cut off at 4). You basically go from barely any difference btw 1 and 2 (your draft position moves by 0.2 slots) to losing 1.1 slots between 6 and 7. For the Rockets its way worse, they drop to like 7 or 8 around pick #5 I think due to the swap. Basically it's worth it to them to be really bad more so than for most teams What would be interesting would be if the Rockets could send their top 4 pick protection out to a mid first round team for swap rights. The mid first round team either moves back a few slots to Miami slot or gets a top 4 pick, the Rockets get to keep that team's #15 or whatever.
It's funny that Heat is free-falling in terms of seeding. OKC will just get their pick swap from them instead of us. We'll end up keeping our own pick at this rate.
No, it's literally harder. Look at the numbers lol. You're literally saying that a 40% chance is better than a 64% chance. It's not easier, it is quite clearly harder. You ALWAYS had to be in the bottom 3-4, the difference is now you don't HAVE to be. No, no it did not. Man it simply did not, no matter how many times you say it did, it did not level it out for only the bottom 3, it leveled it out for the entire field and gave more teams chances to win. That's literally what it was designed to do and that's literally what it does. No matter how many times you say it doesn't you'll still be wrong on this.
And this is the issue. It might actually be harder for the Rockets to tank than to just play straight up. Because some of these guys because of their contract, like Wall, have negative value. But these are still good players that will beat up on teams like Detroit, Washington, Minny, and even sometimes beat better teams like Dallas on any given night. So it just isn't happening. I predicted we'd finish in that 10-14 range since trading Harden because the team is just too good otherwise and they've actually played a lot better than expected. Like we'd have to go out of our way to make the team bad and I'm not sure that's good for the team culture but not only that, we'll be selling low on everyone just for a slightly better coin flip chance at keeping our pick.
No, you arent getting what Im saying, it makes it easier because you dont have to be THE worst. You can just be bottom 3 and have a pretty good chance at a top 4 pick. The difference is the odds are even between the three worst teams of getting the top pick. Its more of a tweak than it is a reform of tanking. Yes, it does, it simply does, specifically for our situation. Obviously, yes you are correct it makes it easier for the field, but for the bottom 3 you still have good odds you should take a chance on. Look at the odds you posted. Im telling you what its like for the bottom 3 which is where we need to be and gives us the best chances of getting our pick. Im not wrong. We can be bad but we dont have to be the worst. Thats why its easier. Im not wrong on this otherwise youd see WAY more pushback on this for how stupid a thing I was proposing. I think we can trade Gordon, Tucker, and House. We'll eventually have to trade Wall too.
It's all a chance...... Getting a Harden doesn't happen very often and your way has it's own risks as well. We just lost our superstar, why would we do the mediocrity churn? Do a strategic rebuild and let the chips fall this season while setting up a two year bottoming out when we have our draft picks. We don't necessarily need to get consecutive top 5 picks or anything....We have Woods who is sort of a blue chip talent on essentially a rookie 2.0 contract. Aside from that, hope the Nets flame out.
And getting a pick between 10-14 is better than 14-20. Get what we can for Tucker and Dipo while hoping Gordon has a renaissance, but don't be left paying for Dipo.
the Thunder own the Heat pick, It’s not a swap. The OKC-Houston deal allows them to swap either their own or the Heat pick with Houston’s as long as the Rocket pick is not top 4. But if anyone this “off-season” thought that of the Rockets, Heat and OKC picks, there might even be an outside chance that the Rockets end up with OKC’s, I’d have thought they should have a psychological evaluation.
They are by far the best of the three teams don’t get it twisted when it’s all said and done Miami will be in the picture in OKC in Houston will both be way at the bottom exactly I hope We lose by 50 tonight I’m seeing about eight prospects right now that have really intriguing potential for next year Jalen Suggs, The two kids that are in the gleague exactly
Guys....be realistic. These games are nice and all....but they arent looking at the bigger picture. <-------------------------This guy is looking at the bigger picture.
Someone lock this thread up. This team is too good to tank. If you think this team is one of the worst in the NBA you're an idiot. This team is going to compete every game. They play hard. They are talented. They are hungry and professionals. You losers want the players to not show up? You want them to start missing practice? games? Be like your hero Harden and quit on the team? Until they are traded or benched, players like tucker, gordon and everyone else aren't going to lose on purpose or skip work to go party in vegas or strip clubs. Until they aren't rockets expect this team to compete. They might or might not make the playoffs. But they will for sure play hard and play with pride.
Tankers dumb as hell. You want to tank for two years then bottom out and compete again, that's nice. Tell that to SAC, MIN, PHX, NYK etc etc who have been ass for 10 years, you don't think they would've liked to just suck for two years and bounce back? The draft is a crap shoot in a normal year, you have no guarantees of getting a star player that will change the direction of your sorry ass team. But this year, when we don't even have control over our own pick, when it is <50% to even keep the pick with a bottom 5 record, it is stupidity squared to try to sell all your players for pennies on the dollar and tank. 50% we are left holding the bag on a turd sandwich, 50% we have even a shot at a game changer. What's the odds of 1. One being available 2. Being able to identify him correctly? <50%, maybe <20%, if it is 20% then do the math, 20%x50%=10%, there's your 1/10 aka 10 years of sucking like all these other sorry teams trying to tank.
