Drafting with a high pick is never, ever a sure thing (just look at the end of our bench). Win every game we can. Pro Tankers aren't real fans.
Why does it have to be such a specific situation? The point is that teams have managed to improve without tanking when they were in a similar spot as us (or sometimes even WORSE) and ultimately win a championship in doing so: Lakers trading for Pau, Boston trading for Garnett and Allen, Heat trading for Shaq (and that was before Wade was really a superstar). Name me one team that has successfully tanked their way to a star that led them to a championship after the lottery system was put in place? The ONLY one is the Spurs, and even that barely counts because they already had a solid team, but after Robinson and Elliot got injured, they decided to let them rest, tank, and stack their team even further. Not nearly the same thing as gutting your team for the purpose of losing games... especially when you're about to have lots of cap space with most of your best players till under contract.
Yeah, finishing 10th will be a lot better for us than finishing 7th, right? You're not very good at reading threads or post times, are you?
This is a terrible way to think. The Hawks made their team as good as they possibly good by giving Joe Johnson max money but that isn't working out too well for them. You don't hold onto being an average team when the roster has proven that they can't win. What future would we be mortgaging if we had traded Scola and Martin for draft picks and/or younger players? Fighting for a low seed playoff spot in a deep draft when you lose your pick if you make the playoffs is mortgaging your future.
Actually yes it will because if we finish 7th we have no loto pick and if we finish 10th we do have a lotto pick. If the Knicks somehow don't make the playoffs we can get two decent players with those lotto picks and possibly a really good one if the balls fall our way or we can even trade up and get a star player.
You misunderstood what I said when I said you don't mortgage your future... What the Hawks did is mortgaging their future. You don't overpay a player or trade for an aging star when you're not close to contention. ... But no, trying to make the playoffs is NOT mortgaging your future. That's just ridiculous, especially in our situation. You cherry picked my post to ignore the parts that explained this. There are zero guarantees of what quality of pick we'll get in the draft. There's no guarantee that it's any less of a gamble than hoping to trade for or sign a star, and not only that, but it takes longer for it to pay off. You ALWAYS try to win. Winning breeds winning. People who can't understand this don't understand sports.
You realize that it makes no difference if it's a lottery pick or not unless we get crazy luck in the lottery and land a top three pick, right? Which is all but imposible. So you're talking about the difference between picking like 11th and picking maybe 16th or 17th in the scenario I brought up. And in a worst case scenario, if we JUST miss the playoffs vs having the worst record in the playoffs, you're talking about the difference between picking 14th and picking 15th. That's worth it to you?
There is a 100% guarantee that we lose our first round pick if we make the playoffs. History shows that it is easier to win championships through the draft than it is through trading and signing but you can ignore that if you want. People who can't understand that this franchise has two championships as a result of tanking or being bad or whatever you want to call it don't understand sports. Lotto picks when championships plain and simple. Look at the best teams in the league: Heat, Thunder, Spurs, Mavs, Lakers, Bulls, Orlando and even the Clippers now. ALL of those teams are good right now because of the lotto picks they made.
What part of we don't get our pick if we don't make the playoffs don't you understand? If we make the playoffs the NETS GET OUR PICK.
The Heat? If any team she be skeptical of Lottery picks it should be us. 4 2009 Busts and 2011 D-leaguer. I still love PP.
Maybe because most intelligent people over the age of 30 who know that wallowing in mediocrity for 20 years is not going to work..??? DD
