Tanking will be like 3 plus years of last night. Overmatched, try hard, have periods in which we challenge the Rocket's all time record for fewest points. Lose often. Hey at least we will be younger and will be able to jump higher. Wood will net some more first rounders when he leaves to try his hand at a contender. We can imagine some of the firsts being steals and signing their second contract with us, whether we are competitive or not. Look at the positive. Draft day, summer league and the Vipers will be more fun than in the last 8 years. That being said, I might be ready for tanking after another 1/2 season of games like last night.
In general, one should do the best what he/she can control. Being a winning ball club is all this is about. Why can't we attract talents? Not just players, but also managers, scouts, and other functionals vital to the organization. No one wants to work for a loser team. Culture IMO is important. You run a business and people will be one foot out all the time if their future is not best served by working there. I don't buy being a fringe playoff team sucks so we should go for tanking argument. It's all about expectations. To me, making the playoffs this year, give fists to the Lakers/Clippers/Jazz is satisfying. Seeing Wall, and Cousins have big smiles is satisfying to me. I root for those guys to win. I think this championship or nothing approach has been over-blown by the media (the TNT crew especially). Last, I don't even agree tanking is necessary the fastest route to future success. I will give you an example ... 2005 or 6, Van Gundy wouldn't tank in the season both Yao and Tmac were out, and cost us a spot or two in the draft. As a result, we had Battier instead of Brandon Roy, who we really liked in that draft. I remember even Clutch went bananas on this blaming Jeff's no tanking policy cost us. But looking back now, Brandon Roy had his shinning years as a Blazer, but his career was marred by injuries and quit the league in his early 30s. I doubt Brandon Roy was the missing piece given Tmac was declining quickly and Yao's carrer soon ended. We were not going to beat the Mavs or the Pistons even with Roy. And ... we landed Harden out of sheer luck. Now think about this, had we landed Brandon Roy, would we still land Harden. It would probably be a very different scenario. This team hasn't tasted Championship for 25 years now. There is just a lot going on for us to get there than getting a top 4 pick this year. I am not against that, but I am all for focusing on what we can do best and do it best at the moment. I will be fine with that even if we don't make the playoffs.
If 'tanking' looks anything like the 4th quarter last night, I'll pass. That was an absolute embarrassment. Of course, I'm in favor of trading PJ and Oladipo but am skeptical that PJ returns any player of much value at this point.
What have the Celtics Phily and Memphis accomplished by tanking? We went to two WC Championships without tanking. The Lakers didn't tank to get Lebron James and AD. Both those player CHOSE the Lakers. They did literally nothing but create the space for both. The Astros are the 30%. The rare success of tanking. What about the Pirates? Reds? Marlins? Mets? Rockies. I can keep going.
Worse, even if like that, it's not guaranteed we will have the top 4 pick this year. We will also need other teams not suck more than us.
They have been contenders in the east for the last 4 years and Memphis is heading up with one of the youngest rosters in the NBA. The lakers tanking and Cleve tanking allowed them to get assets so Lebron would go to them and those assets became Love and Davis, the chose the lakers because they tanked previously and collected those assets.
Celtics have 2 of the best young stars in the league and already went deep in the playoffs with them. Philly has this years legit mvp candidate in embiid. Memphis have Ja who has already proven he can impact winning by getting them nearly in the playoffs in the west in his 1st year. future all star without a doubt. and that's without their 2nd best player Jaren Jackson who is also another young high upside prospect. The lakers are one of the few storied franchises in the league. that's just obvious. You don't need to prove to players anything to come play for them. They could suck for years and stars will want to come dawn a lakers jersey. You can't do the same for >90% of the other franchises in the league. a number of franchises have been sucking for years and there's no near end in site
This was last year odds for respective teams. We have to be the bottom 3 the worst team to even have a good chance (>50%) to land a top 4 pick. It takes a lot more to top off the Wizards, Pistons and Twolves on the stinkness chart. Other teams like OKC are in the same boat as us. We will have to lose a lot more games, a lot more games to even be in the stickness picture. Meet the tanks, sure. For what? a 30% of chance having a top 4 pick. No, pass.
There is no reason the Rockets will take 3 (or more) season to rebuild the Roster to at least a competitive team with a bright(er) future. Between Wood, Tate, Jones, Brown & Martin the Rockets have almost half of a Roster to continue building upon. Add to that 2 first round draft picks in 2021 and 3 in 2022 and that is now 10 players by the Summer of 2023 when the Rockets should have cap space to bring in, at least, one max level free agent when Gordon and Wall come off of the books. This is all before the Rockets turn Oladipo, Tucker, House and McLemore into either additional picks or young players. Obviously doing that gives some room for busts to be drafted or young players not to develop (Porter?).
Come on. Lebron chose the Lakers because they are the Lakers. AD chose the Lakers because they had Lebron...and they are the Lakers. This is not a realistic example of a tank rebuild that would apply to any of the 29 other NBA Franchises...definitely not the 25 "least desirable" destinations. There were logistics that had to be resolved to allow it to happen, but that was merely an annoyance. It wasn't like an art or anything.
That's just not true, there's tons of tank jobs that pay off. There's lots of non-tank jobs that don't pay off. All of them involve some element of luck. The Spurs engaged in an epic tank job to acquire Duncan and it ushered in a period of near-dynastic dominance where the "Spurs Way" became synonyous with "winnign culture". The Cavaliers responded to the Decision with an insulting letter in MS Comic and years of tanking. The Mavericks intentionally tanked to get Luka, Cuban was gleeful about it. Did they get the taint of "losign culture" - and if so why did the Rockets then hire their coach? You know what changes "losing culture?" Getting really good players that stay good! You know what the easiest (BUT NOT GUARANTEED) route to this is? Drafting them.
Do you think he would have chosen the Lakers if they did not have the assets to get AD? and also have guys to build around, it's a very realistic example why did he not go to the Lakers when he left Miami? Not saying the franchise itself was not a draw or other things but the assets they had were a big factor as well.
If the Rockets can get a 40-50% chance to get in the top 4, vs. a 5% chance by finishing 14th worst (which is about where they currently are), - that is a big difference in those two odds! A 50% chance is a coin flip , a 5% chance is getting 4-5 coin flips in a row. Remember, they're 2.5 games out of the bottom 4. Maybe even closer after tonight. If they didn't have the stupid Westbrook swap and the Miami pick condidtion the argument agaiinst tanking would be better, but, it's not looking good currently.
That's a really weird argument. If I understand you correctly then it appears your position is that organizational competence would have hurt us. That if we had successfully tanked and obtained Brandon Roy, a future star player whose career was tragically cut short by injuries, in the draft that year it MAY have prevented us from lucking into James Harden down the road and, as such, we shouldn't do what it takes to try to acquire a future star player in the draft this year because it might prevent us from lucking into a trade for another star player down the road? I am really scratching my head here trying to understand your point.
It's not just about this year, but the next seasons. There are no guarantees, but trying to medicore your way into acquiring a new superstar seems like the worst of two options.
Let me try again. There are so many unknowns in the tanking approach: 1) we are not guaranteed to have the top 4 pick if we are not the worst team in the league. It is very unlikely we will be the worst team in the league unless we trade away John Wall, Dipo, Gordon for future picks. If we do that, I will for sure stop watching this team this year 2) Even if we land a top 4 pick, there is no guarantee that this person will be the future or bedrock for this franchise. 3) Even if the top 4 pick we land this year is a superstar, he will leave us if we are not contending by the end of his 2nd contract. Enter AD. The downside of tanking: it stinks the organization and stinks the fan base. If it's just this year, maybe Silas and others in the organization will put up with it, and so will the fans. But that is highly unlikely. It will probably take years of tanking to stockpile talents. I don't think there is a causal relationship between tanking and being a contender. Many teams become good again because of many no-tanking factors. One thing for sure though, a bad organization does not turn into a good team just by having good talents. Enter the Kings, Twolves, Pels, of the league. There are so many uncontrollable and moving pieces in tanking approach forgoing winning games. If it were that easy, Kings would have at least made the playoffs by now after the early 2000s. For me, the tanking argument is weird. It predicates on that tanking and hence landing higher draft picks would necessarily be a good thing for the team. That is the upside of tanking is so huge, wining is bad. The goal of the team at any point is to win the championship or else burst. Hence being a fringe playoff team sucks, beating a good team on the road sucks because we are not winning the biggest trophy this year. This to me is a weird way of watching sports.
Or can we just let it run naturally? This is not a tanking team. You will have to trade away Wall, Dipo, Gordon, Cousins to be a tanking team, which will likely piss off Wood. I know many including myself will be happy if this team makes the playoff this year. Nothing mediocre about that.
the end of a 2nd contract for a drafted player is 8-9 years away if the Rockets trade for a superstar, it will likely be a disgruntled one with a year or 2 left on his deal...chances of that player leaving us is much higher than that of a drafted player, and it will happen much sooner no superstar is coming here in free agency to play for some mediocre try hard team people keep bringing up the worst organizations in this league like the Kings and Wolves as an example against tanking... Are u saying the Rockets are as trash as them as an organization? If so, why the confidence that they will build a great team from the ashes of mediocrity? We’re screwed regardless of what happens if the organization is truly on the level of those organizations.
