And then when some of your picks fail and you carry on tanking, the ones who were good will leave to good teams anyway because they're sick of playing for a bum ass franchise that never tried to compete. False economy you're preaching, go ask the Kings.
There are no guarantees for the draft, but it's already been posted historically how higher picks have been stars for championships. It increases the odds of winning one significantly than without a superstar. We still haven't heard your plan to win a championship? It's one thing to criticize, it's another to create and actually have a plan with substance backing it up. The Kings never got a superstar, the same for Milwakee and Phoenix until they drafted correctly. But to even have a chance to get one, like GSW, Spurs etc. they had bad seasons and top picks. What is your plan? Do you have one?
Dumbass plan is for our team is to try our best to make it into playin, try our best to not get embarrassed by the warriors. Get bounced and try our best to draft a superstar at 13-16. Repeat same thing next season. Regardless of how sht we look he gets turn on by the effort and passion not the results. I swear this poster is the same as Texans fans that brags about winning afc south and then turn their brain off when that same exact team gets massacre by a superior team in playoffs.
Maybe you should work on your reading comprehension. Instill a strong work ethic in our players and develop them properly, if that means we get 7th pick instead of first then good, we can teach that person the same way. Play hard, fight hard, develop the youth, whoever they are. There's a lot more teams who've won that way than deliberately thrown games, care to disagree?
When you have to attempt to insult a poster in a debate it means you don't really have facts or substance to back up your argument. You never addressed the Spurs point earlier or provided a long term plan past the short view of this year and a pick. If we trade the vets then start playing younger players to fight, play hard etc. we'll instill those values and still get a top pick, as well as gain experience. If we make a play in we are out of the lottery, no 7th pick. On the back end of the first round, do you think we'll draft a superstar? Does this core have the potential to win a championship over the years, or does it need more talent? Aside just from short term vision, what is you plan for years 2, 3, 4 etc? That is not a long term plan with specifics, that's get in the play in because it feels good emotionally and logically figure out how to win a championship later. Can we play, fight and do what it takes to win with a superstar? Will we likely win even more games?
Reposting this, as it was buried in the thread earlier, along with other posters info. Alright, I know people are passionate about this. So I'll start bringing numbers and supporting evidence. Although there are rare exceptions, (04 Pistons etc.) typically you need a superstar or MVP caliber player to win a championship. You also need at least one star or superstar to typically attract others in free agency to build a superteam to win a title (LeBron, Curry, Durant etc.) If you have facts or numbers that say otherwise please share, I don't care about being wrong I just want to get to the truth of the mattter to win a chip. Here is statistical evidence of getting an all star per draft pick. I couldn't find one for finding an MVP caliber player yet, but looking. What Are the Odds to Become an All-Star for Each Draft Pick? Figure 1: Probability of drafting an All-Star player (with at least one appearance) as a function of draft-pick order. The uncertainty on the y-axis is purely statistical. The red-line corresponds to an exponential fall fit performed on the data. NBA DRAFT-ALL-STAR CORRELATIONS "Another thing we can see from the graph is that star potential goes down very quickly after the first few selections. Based on the logistic regression, the #1 overall pick has a 64% chance of becoming an All-Star. By the time pick 5 comes around, that probability is more than halved to 30%. Pick #10 has roughly half the star potential of pick #5, at 16%. The situation is even dicier from here. Historically, picks in the back half of the first round become All-Stars only 8% of the time. Hoping to snag the next Nikola Jokic in the 2nd round? Well, only about 3% of these 2nd rounders reached All-Stardom. Of course, the All-Star threshold is not the only marker of player value. There are plenty of extremely useful players in the NBA who have never made an All-Star team. Ask the Rockets how important P.J. Tucker has been for them. Getting a player who will someday be a league-average starter is extremely valuable at, say, pick #15. But the NBA is a league built around stars. The quickest path from watching the playoffs on the couch to advancing far enough to be beat by the Warriors is to acquire at least one franchise-changing contributor. Every team is hoping on draft night that they will snag an All-Star of tomorrow. But for selections made after the top 2 or 3, that is unlikely to happen." How Likely Is Each Draft Pick to Someday Make an All-Star Team?
As much as I love us to be in a competitive state, this roster is not built for one right now. Experience and maturity comes into play and most of these guys are rookies and or is still new with this team. Poking around wins here and there wouldnt be bad. Heck this 5 game winstreak has been my happiest state since like Hakeem represented us in the draft.
This is soo untrue. What good players have left the kings? The kings just suck at drafting. They have no good players staying or going. Demarcus Cousins was traded away and that's about it.
I would hazard a guess that those picks earlier on were the very young players......that transitioned into the Euro players.... DD
Rockets prioritizing picks over quality players in the Harden trade is exactly the kind of moves that helps tank without "intentionally throwing games." Watching KPJ run the point to see if we have something here instead of watching John Wall take bad shots is exactly how to tank without intentionally throwing games. I don't think that even the people who are pro maximizing landing a top 5 pick want the Rockets to purposely lose games. Most want the Rockets to compete and watch young guys develop. That's a huge myth and misunderstanding. Me personally, I just want more swings at the bat. Getting a #1 pick doesn't guarantee anything. Getting 3 top five picks 3 years in a row doesn't guarantee anything. But, the odds of landing a star player increases with each top 3 pick. After those 3 years Rockets get a day to day look at these players to decide who stays and goes. To be clear. Getting top 5 pick is a 3-4 year plan. I'd personally rather have control over rookie contracts than to trade all of my high quality assets for a star player that I now can't build around because I just gave up all of my assets. Trading for Westbrook pretty much forced Rockets into rebuilding this way. Even if we had quality players on bigger contracts we wouldn't have the cap space to outright sign 2 stars or the assets needed to trade for them AND build around them. Not having the rights to our picks 3 years in a row will do that. The name calling that goes around here is so childish though. It deteriorates the conversation quickly. People can disagree without one side being stupid. The only truth is successful rebuilds can come in many shapes and sizes. I'm just glad the Rockets picked a direction instead of being on the mediocre treadmill.
It's more than just drafting, teams like the Kings, Pelicans, and Timberwolves get lucky in the draft then panic and fumble building around their franchise guy. The Twolves may have broken through as Edwards plays like a linebacker in a guard's body and they actually have an identity.
You act like the Timberwolves weren't in the playoffs just a few years ago with Jimmy Butler playing the Rockets... Besides the Kings almost all the other teams have made the playoffs. Tanking pretty much works and works well as long as Vlade Divac isn't your GM.
I don't think the Rockets gathered all those picks to take them, I think they want to leverage them to get a disgruntled star, ala Harden...... There is no way you suck so long that picks eventually pan out.....you either get an ALL TIME great right away, or you get some developing players. This year, in all honesty, we have guys that are developing and 1 out of 4 that looks to be a guarantee in Sengun.....with Green looking more and more likely as well...... SO 50% - of potential All-star players is a good haul. DD
I wouldn't call the Twolves and Kings competent franchises. I am pro rebuilding for the Rockets and just pointing out that it's more than just picking the right player.
No one willfully tanks. Rockets can be fun all they want like they were with Harden.....doesn't mean they'll be able to win it all. lol You are asking to tread a path of mediocre we have been down before. There's rebuilding and retooling on the fly then there's the Sacremento and OKC flat out kind of tanking. If we wanted to tread the play in we would have kept MDA. I don't get why you guys can't see it for what it is. We literally done everything to make this a non winning team. Fun to watch? For sure....but the GM has taken steps to rebuild like it or not. Too late to turn back now. It would be pointless. Thank Harden.
The suns were sht/at the bottom for three years in a row 2016-2017, 2017-18, 2018-19. Look where they r now. She'll shock from all that losing is a bullsht narrative pushed by folks who doesn't like tanking
Agreed. Rockets acquired the most flexibile asset, draft picks. With how Rockets traded up to get Sengun it gave me more confidence that they weren't just blindly accumulating picks and are willing to cash in
