[BP.com] Treadmill: Breaking the Cycle of Mediocrity

On my behalf, I've never supported or questioned the idea of tanking, because it's an organizational decision and if management feels its best to win as many games as possible in the direction of the playoffs, or opting out for a miserable season. Generally, I do not have any problems with it. If a team is severely lacking in talent and competitiveness or needs a jolt,


What the Blazers are doing, they are essentially super fortunate, very competitive team and franchise to start the year, while the team did not quite meld together. They traded a key piece or two on their team, and found a sucker. Now, they got essentially what is team that already was sort of perennial playoff contender to add with a top 8 draft prospect. Moreover, they are not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, and have a fighter's chance of catching Denver or Houston. If New Jersey keeps losing, the Blazers might have solid shot at a Gilchrist, Barnes, Robinson, or Drummond, while they even have their original pick.

They could very possibly add top 3-8 player, along with another middling pick in the teens, while they still have a shot at the playoffs. That middling pick could Perry Jones, Kendall Marshall, Tyler Zeller, Austin Rivers, or a trade bait for a nice veteran NBA player.

Gerald Wallace was a really good player, but he was going to be owed some money, while New Jersey never indicated (public) that their draft pick was up for grabs.

I cannot say I would not want the Rockets to be in the same situation. We could've given players that equate the value of having Gerald Wallace. It wasn't meant to be I guess.

 

What, the "draft well with the draft picks we end up with then trade the players when their contract is coming up because we don't want to clog up the cap so that we can land that superstar who'll never even look at the Rockets except to use the team as leverage to stay with his own team" approach isn't cutting it for you?

 

If you just look at the NBA Champs post Jordan, and the finals MVP, it is kind of eye opening. The Lakers won five of the thirteen championships and the Spurs four. Four other teams won one each.

The Lakers are pretty much the exception. It seems like every other Champ has someone they found high in the draft helping them get there. If you include the Jordan / Olajuwan era the percentages get even higher.

It's not always a number one pick, but something like top five. It is enough to make you want to use the T word.

 

I don't think what you're defining as "Morey's way" is truly "Morey's way." In fact...given his comments...I'm quite sure it's not.

 

Guess not! :grin:

 

haha go suck a @#@# anti-tank nazis. those guys are almost as annoying as feminists. actually, probably more.

 

despite what some posters choose to live in their own little world and scream out "no tank no tank!!! waaaaah!@!!!", if a franchise needs to succeed, it needs to tank.

i know there are some really old-school posters here, and I'm not trying to pick them out to call out in a personal way, but it seems they are all about

"fundamentals",
"team-ball",
"hardwork over talent",
"no off-court baggage"
"has a great personality"
"being a professional"
"arriving to practice early"

now I wanna say, WHO DA F CARES??!!!!

it seems so strange and ridiculous to me some guys here are so in love with the likes of Shane Battier and Chase Budinger, to list a few. they are hailed as "consummate professionals" and "hard workers who never back down". now when you have the most talented basketball player in the last generation, like Tracy McGrady, he gets bashed because he quit one game and got messed up in a injury cloud and didn't hire the right PR guys to put a super-duper-hard-working i-left-it-all-out-there-on-the-court marketing campaign to the fans. its almost seems like the franchise is a church rather than a sports franchise. we judge players not by their performances and contributions ON-COURT, but how they behave OFF-THE-COURT. 0 points and 2 rebounds in 30 minutes? no problem, "he was a warrior and gave the best effort on the team". 35 points and 7 assists? "OH NO, HE IS A LAZY DEFENDER!!!! MUST BE BENCHED!!!!!!'

now it all great to root for the blue-collar players that we've been treated to a buffet to for the last decade, but come on guys, lets get some stars!!! The only stars we've had since the inception of Clutchfans.com is Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley, Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady, and a twilight Ron Artest for a year. And I'm being slightly generous with Cuttino because he is a personal favourite of mine.

How did we get Yao Ming again? OH RIGHT, WE MUST HAVE TRADED DRAGIC + MARTIN + SCOLA + A PICK TO GET OUR CHINESE GREAT WALL.

it almost seems like if you always dunk, you are a bad player. BECAUSE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO THE FUNDAMENTALS AND LAY UP!!! anyway, that might be a bit extreme, but for those who are like, "WE MUST PLAY TEAM BALL AND AVOID STAR PLAYERS AND THEIR ISO'S LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!", well guess what, the Kings would already be in the WCF while we, lo and behold, get our 10th consecutive 14th pick/8th seed.

out of the pitiful few stars we've had in the last decade,

steve francis was acquired by tanking
yao ming was acquired by tanking
tracy mcgrady was acquired by trading SF3 who we got by tanking (MEANING YOU NEED A STAR TO GET A STAR!!! NO SOME DRAGIC+MARTIN+SCOLA+1ST RD PICK BUDGET PLATTER YOU SUCK 50 DICKS TO GET SOME DUMB GM TO AGREE TO!!!"
ron artest was a great trade, and i love the guy and the player, so I'll give this one to the anti-tankers.

The moral of my post is, TANK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Obvious article while very good is obvious.

See signature the problem is not Morey it's Les not caring about the long term sucess of the team as long as he might get a few playoff game revenues.

You win a championship with DRAFTED stars. Period.

 

So what happens when you set yourself up to land the next young phenom, superstar in the making, by tanking your season and then the draft comes along and you discover that when it comes to drafting future superstars your GM can't tell the difference between a "Darko" and a "Melo"?

Recent history.

2005 - Bogut and Marvin Williams before D Williams and Chris Paul
2006 - Bargnani before L Aldridge. A Morrison before Rudy Gay.
2007 - Yi Jian Lian instead of Joakim Noah.
2008 - Michael Beasley ahead of Westbrook, Love, Gallanari and Eric Gordon
2010 - Wesley Johnson over Demarcus Cousins anyone?

How can tanking be a great strategy when these geniuses draft like this?

Andrew Bynum was the 10th pick in the 2005 draft! 10th!!! so much for scouting.

See the problem isn't that teams have to be bad so they get rewarded by choosing the best talent first. The problem is that apparently they're so freaking bad, they aren't even able to take advantage of the opportunity because they're too incompetent to choose properly.

Look at the monster team that Kahn should have amassed already in Minnesota just by making sensible choices recently versus the team he currently has?

BTW, no reason to necessarily believe that just because Morey can spin straw into gold when it comes to working with lesser picks, that he'd be able to turn high picks into great players. That's an entirely different matter.

 

Those 'genius' GM at least had the chance to be able to pick those studs.

The treadmill team are just ......on the treadmill waiting, watching, hoping ,dreaming and bithing... even with a genius at GM.

 

Low quality idiot post.

Your parents should have tanked for a better offspring.

 

what? you have to draft good players with a high pick? and i thought winning 40 games a year was awesome

 

makes me wonder what you took today.

 

But hoping the player you drafted turns into a star player, is planning for Luck. We could sucks for many years like the Clippers until we finally get our own "blake griffin". Can fans be patient in sucking for 10+ years? It doesn't always work out. Remember, we had our own lottery picks in Steve Francis and Yao. So to people that think tanking is a full proof plan, think again.

 

You have probably never spoken to a female before then.

 

Wasn't Francis a trade from Toronto?

 

Actually, we almost got to contender status with Yao. If we had a smart GM like Morey when we got both Yao and McGrady, we might have already assembled a good supporting cast before their bodies broke down.

 

Since 1980 there have been 32 drafts.

That is 160 players drafted in the top 5 since 1980.

Of those 160 players, only 23 have played on a championship team. That is less than 15%.

The last top 5 picked player to play on a championship team was Dwayne Wade, who was drafted #5 in 2003 and win a championship 3 years later in 2006.

One thing we can conclude about today's NBA that is different from the Bird/Magic era....it seems to take superstar players longer to win a championship. What this means is that the talent is being disbursed much better than it was in the 70s and 80s and the league as a whole is much more competitive.

Now, let's look at the 23 top 5 picks who have win championships since 1980. Here's the list.

Kevin McHale (#3 in 1980) -- won his first ring as a rookie playing alongside Bird & Co. and won a couple more with Bird, Parish, etc.

Mark Aguirre (#1 in 1981) -- was traded to the Pistons in 1989 and helped Isaiah and the bad boys win 2 rings in 89 and 90.

Isaiah Thomas (#2 in 1981) -- finally won 2 rings in his 8th and 9th seasons playing with his buddy Aguirre, the #1 pick in the same draft.

James Worthy (#1 in 1982) -- won 3 rings alongside Magic and Kareem with the first one coming in his 3rd season.

Byron Scott (#4 in 1983) -- see James Worthy, played alongside Magic, Kareem, Worthy......that's 3, count 'em 3 #1 overall picks and a #4. Impossible to do this today with today's lottery system and GM quality.

Hakeem Olajuwon (#1 in 1984) -- took him 10 years but he finally got a ring and then another

Michael Jordan (#3 in 1984) -- arguably the greatest player to ever live, it took him 7 years to win his first after teaming up with Pippen, a #5 pick.

David Robinson (#1 in 1987) -- didn't win anything until Tim Duncan (#1) arrived in 1997.

Scottie Pippen (#5 in 1987) -- Michael's sidekick. Couldn't win a ring without Michael.

Danny Ferry (#2 in1989) -- bit NBA player who wound up on the same team with Tim Duncan and Company.

Sean Elliot (#3 in 1989) -- third fiddle to Duncan (1) and Robinson (1)

Glen Rice (#4 in 1989) -- third fiddle to Kobe (13) and Shaq (1).

Shaq (#1 in 1992) -- won rings alongside superstar perimeter players Kobe and DWade.

Alonzo Mourning (#2 in 1992) -- got a ring playing with Wade (5) and Shaq (1) in the twilight of his career.

Jason Kidd (#2 in 1994) -- in the twilight of his career got a ring on Dirk's team in 2011.

Rasheed Wallace (#4 in 1995)-- traded around and got to Detroit in time to win a ring with Chauncey (3) and RIP (7) in 2004.

Kevin Garnett (#4 in 1995 -- toiled in Minny for years before accepting a trade to the Celtics to be teamed with Paul Pierce (10) and RayRay (5)

Ray Allen (#5 in 1996) -- see Garnett

Tim Duncan (#1 in 1997) -- teamed with David Robinson in his 2nd season to get his first ring. A true franchise player. Has won rings with Parker and Ginobilli since.

Chauncey Billups (#3 in 1997) -- traded around until he was paired with RIP (7) and Rasheed (4) to get a ring in 2004.

Vince Carter (#5 in 1998) -- was a role player on Dirk's 2011 championship.

Lamar Odom (#4 in 1999) -- finally wound up with Kobe and Pau and won a couple rings.

Pau Gasol (#3 in 2001) -- couldn't win jack until he got on the same team with Kobe (13), got his first ring in 2009, 8 years into his career and was Kobe's sidekick, also had Lamar Odom (#4) on that team.

Dwayne Wade (#5 in 2003) -- the last top 5 pick to win a ring, he was the premier player but he still had a very dominant Shaq (#1) and Alonzo (#2) alongside to help him.



Precious few players on this list won rings without at least one other superstar top 5 pick playing alongside them.


Since 1980, the truly dominant players have been.....

Magic Johnson
Larry Bird
Isiah Thomas
Michael Jordan
Hakeem Olajuwon
Tim Duncan
Shaquille O'Neal
Kobe Bryant

followed somewhat closely by

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
David Robinson
Scottie Pippen
Chauncey Billups
Dirk Nowitzki
Paul Pierce
Dwayne Wade
Lebron James
Steve Nash
Karl Malone
John Stockton
Clyde Drexler
Yao Ming
Chris Paul
Derrick Rose
and a few others.


That is 8 dominant player in 32 years. Now, to be fair, I think that there will be several dominant player emerge from the 2nd list over the next few years but still that's not very many.

Dominant multi-championship winning players are few and far between and most of them don't have much chance of winning a championship unless they are on a team with a front office wise enough to make the appropriate trades, drafts, and free agent signings to pair them with other top 5 draft picks or otherwise other top talent that can perform at a superb level under intense pressure.

You cannot build a championship team in the NBA without a champion front office. And then you gotta have some luck. Bad front office teams do not luck into rings. You gotta know talent and you gotta know the right system and right coach to put all the talent together.

Championships in the NBA are truly organizational accomplishments. You won't win by simply tanking and going to the lottery. You gotta know the talent and then be able to steer your team into the talent, whether that be by tanking or by gutting the roster and signing free agents or by making two-bit trades that explode into something great down the line.

 

Good post. But the point here is that while tanking is not a sufficient factor, it is almost a necessary factor for building a championship team.

When the system is such that you have to lose in order to win, you are punishing those who keep trying to win but without a dominant player to get them to contending level. In such system, only a handful of teams in any given season have good incentives to win.

 

Not so sure with the new CBA that anyone knows what the secret sauce is going to be for winning NBA titles over the next decade.