Dishonorable? Sure. A p00n way to do it? Yep. But, you know what, at the end of the day all that matters is winning. No one is going to look back 5, 10, 20 years down the road and discredit our championships because we tanked a few seasons beforehand. As much b*tching and moaning we've done over the Pau Gasol trade, at the end of the day they've won two championships in three years. Losing points in the honor category is not enough to supersede hardware.
For the Rocket's/Knick's situation, 11 times, or 28% of the time, has a team original set to pick #6 or worse jumped into the top 3 picks: 5 times they were initially set to select the #6 pick 2 times the #7 pick 2 times the #8 pick 1 time the #9 pick 1 times the #13 pick So the Rocket would want the Knicks to be at least the #7 worst record or better to maximize their chances of the pick NOT moving up into the lottery and triggering the protection clause.
There is no correlation between tanking and winning rings. NONE whatsoever. If there was, how do you explain the wolves, raptors and grizzlies having 0 rings between the 3 of them the past 10 years, despite the fact that they consistently tank and get high lottery picks year after year? I find it funny posters here always talk about tanking like its a "sure fire" way to get a ring when the team that has the most number of rings (Lakers) haven't tanked in like 10 billion years. Even the Pau Gasol trade you mentioned is a good example of this, the Grizzlies were the ones who tanked and nabbed Pau Gasol, but the Lakers were ones who traded for and used Pau to get 2 rings.
1) A lot of people here want the Rox to tank considering this draft is deep and we'll lose our pick to NJ if we make the play-offs 2) Les doesn't want to tank That's it really.
Tanks again! Yawn. If fiddley dee and fiddlly doo do fiddily diddle then all the dubab dubas can yada yada. Go Rockets!
The majority of the past championship teams in the last 20 years drafted their best player or traded for them on draft night. Don't bring up Lakers either, stars like to play for big market teams. Gasol demanded a trade, he would not have agreed to sign an extension to a team he did not want play for. Also Grizzlies are still reaping the benefits of Pau via trade with Mark. And technically Memphis did not draft Pau, Hawks did. I am not going to argue in favor for or against tanking but top draft picks have value. You can potentially get an all star or trade for a good player. If you have an all star then it is easier to attract other all stars despite not being a big market team.
This is skewed because the past 20 championships' best players are only a couple of players. If tanking guaranteed you Tim Duncan would be waiting for you at the draft then that would be a more popular strategy. But they don't guarantee anything, 99% tanking results in Rudy Gays or worse, busts like Hasshem Thabeet. Of course top picks have value, nobody here is saying they don't. The question here is people act like tanking will get you a ring, and they won't. How do you know a strategy works? You gauge the success vs the failures, right? If you count all the lottery draftees who brought their team a win vs all the lottery draftees who didn't bring their team a ring what do you think is the success rate of tankng to winning? All stars don't attract other all stars, WINNING attracts other all stars. Other than the lure of bigger markets, players want to go to a team that has a lot of fans and win a lot. OTH, lottery teams won't attract anyone even if they have all stars like LBJ or KG. THis is why guys like michael redd turned LBJ and Cleveland down but you had vets signing the minimum just so they can play for the Spurs.
What it comes down to is that we have no real way to control tanking, our players are the type that will try to win. We have good enough players and those with enough expereince that they wouldn't lose to the train wrecks that some teams are forced to put on the NBA floors. Short of something catastrophic or incredibly lucky, we are likely to land another pick in the 13 to 20 range. Unless the NYK pick turns out to be worthwhile.
Dwight Howard on playing for the Celtics: “They have the championship mentality,” he said of the Celts. “It means a lot. Like I said, I like the team. They play hard and they go after it, and that’s what I like.” http://www.iamagm.com/news/2012/01/26/dwight.howard.expresses.some.interest.playing.celtics (Of course, we're not the Celtics. But it's in accordance with what roslolian said.)
That's not how you gauge if a strategy works. You have to look at what your goal is first and then see how most people got there. If you look at how most teams have won championships in this league you will see that it is from high draft picks. The whole tanking doesn't work most of the time argument isn't a good one when you realize that tanking is how most teams got their rings. For purposes of these next statements tanking=being bad. We got our championship from tanking and drafting hakeem. The bulls got their ships from tanking and getting Jordan. The Spurs got theirs from tanking and getting Duncan. The only team that hasn't had to tank is the Lakers and that's because they are the Lakers. Shaq left a really good Magic team to go play in LA so he could star in movies etc. One of the reasons Howard wants to go there is for the same reason. We just can't offer that to players. When you look at the championships in this league you will find that most of them got their from being bad. Of course most teams will never get there by doing that because the best players tend to run the league for a decade but that does not mean that being bad isn't the best way to get a ring when it tends to be the most common way teams win rings. Both attract stars. CP3 was ok with going to the Clippers because they have an all star in blake and some other solid pieces. However, if they don't win in the next two years he will be getting out of there.
It's like comparing sports cars to an econobox in a race. The argument goes "hey, having a high powered sportscar doesn't guarantee winning a race. For the past 20 years, every racing chamiponship had a high powered sports and won a race, but most racing teams didn't win a trophy." What you forget to mention is that 5-6 other racing teams driving in a 10 year old stock Honda Civic, had never won a race. Sure most teams dont' win a championship, but there is a 100% correlation of having no top 5 pick and failing to win a ring or even make it to the finals. Rockets have a 100% failure, if we go by the success of previous teams with no top 5 pick in the starting lineup. It's odd that you mention KG and the Celtics. Pierce campaigned for KG to come over to a lottery team that was 24-58 in it's most recent season. Houston is comparable in market size to Boston. He wanted to play with All-star Yao Ming. Houston, a lottery team, attracted T-mac with Yao Ming. had 4 consecutive lottery seasons and 1st round elimantion in the prior 5 seasons. KG and T-Mac are attracted to lottery teams, if they have an all-star even though it is not in LA/NY/Chi. Cavaliers were a winning team compared to the lottery teams, Rockets and Celtics, 24 wins - 58 losses. The only all-star vet that was still in his prime was Michael Finley, who was waived with the amnesty clause and still getting max money from the Mavericks. That is a unique situation with the amnesty clause that hasn't repeated for the Spurs.
Tanking is really just a gamble. The Wolves, Clippers have been tanking for many years and finally they got star players, but one star player alone cannot bring you championships, you need a good supporting casts. The Nets, Raptors, Warriors, Kings have been tanking for years and they are still along way from a championship. Teams that tanked and were succesfull in recent times, the Cavaliers, the Bulls and the Thunder, they are still working at getting a championship and will most likely succeed in the future except the Cavs who lost Lebron. The Knicks have Carmelo and Amare and Denver and Rockets both have better records. The support staff and coaching are huge factors in winning a championship. Sometimes trades or offseason acquisitions can make a team strong like the Celtics, Mavs and the Lakers. Tanking gives hope but does not guaranttee success. I say let the Rockets play, let Morey make trades and see what happens. Morey and McHale said the Rockets goal this year was to make the playoffs, so they are not planning on getting a high draft pics through losing.
Obviously but the point remains that recent history shows us that good draft picks lead to championship teams.
They consistently sucked. They werent trying to lose. they just didnt have what it took to win. We only want to get a superstar. Stop hatin'.
