If it would net us Shabazz then I guess. But lets just hope the Rockets do well but they get extremely lucky in the draft. Something tells me that the Magic would somehow someway get the number 1 draft pick
Why stop at next year? Isn't the OKC model everyone wants to emulate saying that you have to tank for 3 years?
You very rarely see true "tanking" in basketball. Only last season, when there was a clear cut star in the making in the NCAA did some teams make roster/lineup decisions to clearly lose games. You saw it in the final game of the season vs. the Hornets when Monty clearly was benching any player who was playing well in order to lose that game. You also saw it with Portland when they elected to start Hasheem Thabeet, and Johnny Flynn. That being said, alot of teams rebuild with young players. Despite what 90% of the posters on here say, the Rockets will not tank the way that New Orleans, and Portland did last year. The best players will play, and the rookies will have to fight for playing time just like they had to in the past, and be better off for it. I think the Rockets will end up somewhere between 30 and 35 wins this season. I think two of their four rookies will have a breakout rookie campaign and look like they have the potential to be future all-stars, and some of the 2nd and 3rd year players will take a step forward to make a name for themselves. Best case scenario, the Rockets end up with a rookie filled 35 win team, and next season that young core establishes a nucleus to make waves in the west for years to come. Possibly a 45 to 50 win team in year 2. If you can get a 50 win team with all 2nd and 3rd year players on rookie contracts, my friends you are looking at the next OKC Thunder, or 90's Seattle Sonics.... Not the 2010/2011 Houston Rockets. The Rockets are not going to be bottom feeders for long.
shabezz ? guy hasnt even played 1 game in college yet and could easily have a dramatic injury during his time before he is eligible to enter the nba . No one tanks before the season starts just to rookies that have no experiece above high school
Their seasons were over so their young guys started getting playing time. Hell, morris was starting a few games at the end of our seseason and we were trying hard for playoff spot
Plus, the next couple of drafts will be nothing compared to the lockout loaded 2012 draft. We already have one possible lottery pick and one more 1st round pick. No need to tank.
How will you and the rest of the "pro-tankers" feel if the front office does just that, and this team ends up winning 40 games? What if by mid season we see that they are playing 0.500 ball and nowhere near a high pick? What if adding a few cheap veterans on short term deals can help the development of the young players, meanwhile adding a few extra wins to possibly push this team into the playoffs. Which brings excitement to the city, the franchise, and gives all the developing players valuable post-season experience. We should not make any short term moves if we are giving up a top 5 pick for a mid lottery. I agree. What if the difference was between the 13th pick and 16th?
A completely ridiculous hypothetical. If we're starting Lin/Lamb/Parsons/DMo/Asik, playing Royce, Morris, Machado and Jones big minutes off the bench and holding injured/banged up players out like tanking teams are supposed to do, there's no way that team's going to be playing .500 ball. On the other hand, if we keep going down the route Morey has been going down, this season will end up just like the last. A disappointing end and a 14th pick.
This is a top-5 team. If they draft lower than #8, I'll be shocked. But, if they do end up #12, that means we've got a number of guys (very young guys) who completely outperformed their acquisition cost. So, I'll be a little disappointed to not draft high but mostly pretty excited that our players (and coach) are so good. Now, if we end up #12 because we made a season's-eve trade for Kevin Garnett, I won't be very happy.
If we're going to go after Wiggins, Morey is going to have to do a lot more than a 16-25% lottery chance. It's just not worth wasting 2 seasons just to wind up an also-ran in the Wiggins sweepstakes. So, I would expect if we are indeed going to tank that there are more trades coming involving our current roster and draft picks that will allow us to leverage into the lottery with a 50% or greater chance of getting that #1 pick. That means acquiring a couple more lottery picks, or at least acquiring the rights to swap draft picks for the highest pick, similar to what Morey did with the Knicks pick in the McGrady trade. And it might mean tanking this season and then trading away our or Toronto's lottery pick for an unconditional lottery pick in next years draft. Until I see something definitive like that, then I'm assuming our guys are going to ball. In my own opinion, I think Morey's mindset is to let the season begin and see how we look coming out of the gate. If we look bad enough, I expect him to pull the plug, move out McHale, and move more talent in trades and start positioning for the lottery this year and next year. If we look bad coming out of the gate, he should be able to sell Les on playing kids, making trades for future lottery picks, and tanking. If we look decent Morey is going to have to sell Les on a direction for this team. In my mind, Asik holds the keys to which direction we take. If he comes out of the gates, playing 32-35 minutes per games, dominating the paint defensively and allowing the kids to get down the floor, and he has developed some sort of offensive reportoire on the pick and roll with Lin, then I expect we'll just keep building off that. On the other hand, if he looks pedestrian, has trouble staying out of foul trouble, and is a huge liability offensively thereby negating his defensive effectiveness, then I think Morey flips him at the trade deadline and convinces Les to tank out while the kids develop and while Morey positions us to dominate the lotto picks in 2014, at least to the extent that we can position ourselves to have over a 50% chance of getting the top pick.
To some here, nothing. To what I believe, tanking is intentionally throwing a game. In NBA, this is usually done at GM/coach level by deciding who plays. Rebuilding is when you try to get younger by getting rid of older players for younger players and draft picks. During rebuilding, team can try to win, but just doesn't have enough experienced players to do it. They look very similar as teams that are tanking are rebuilding as well, generally.
