Tanks, but NO Tanks: The lottery odds against drafting a franchise player

It's definitely a creative approach, but as LongTimeFan points out, Morey has yet to really find success with it. In the past two seasons there were reported negotiations for the lottery picks of Minnesota, Philly, and Sacramento, and probably others, but all came to naught.

If it takes Morey another few seasons to "trick" a team into giving up a high lottery pick, wouldn't it have been more efficient to get the pick by tanking a season?

 

Yes agree totally. The same goes for Boston and Detroit championship teams. The only exception is San Antonio. But Tim Duncan is probably the single most dominate player since he was drafted. Plus you have to have the worse record in the league to get an even 25% chance of getting the first pick. Only one other team since Duncan has had the worse record and got the first the odds are a lot more likely that you will have the worst record like CHicago and Watch Houston beat you out and draft Yao Ming while you get some point guard who I can't even think of his name. Playing for the worst record is a losing proposition. Even the first pick is not likely to guarantee you a franchise player.

 

That is not it at all. If it was a guarantee that if we take a step back now, we can take a greater step forward in the future, NO ONE would be arguing with you. The point is, even if you take a step back now, there are no guarantees. In fact, not only is there not a guarantee, history tells us that your odds of taking a greater step forward is probably less, or at best the same as trying to trade up while maintaining a competitive team.

Another point, by tanking you assume that once you get your talent, there is a magic switch that you can just turn back on. In reality, cliches like "chemistry" and "a winning culture" do hold some value. Once you lose that edge, there are no guarantees that you can just get it back.

The Clippers have their generation talent in Griffin. The Kings have TWO blue chip players now to build on in Evans and Cousins. The Timberwolves' hopes are panning out with Love absolutely exploding. The best case scenarios are playing out. Yet still, none of them can stop losing.

Not every team can turn out like the Thunder, and even they are guaranteed nothing.

 

The only two championships the Rockets ever won were with Dream and the Rockets tanked to get him.

End. Of. Debate.

And tanking gives us TWO chances to land a franchise player, because while we are tanking, Morey can still be looking to trade for a star player.

In other words, tanking does not block Morey from patently waiting for a star to fall in his lap.

Something else, if the Rockets tank for a high draft pick, that pick could be trade bait for the sort of star player we currently don't have the assets for.

In other words, except for foolish pride or terminal illness, there is no logical or practical reason for any Rocket's fan to oppose tanking. None.

Oh, and did I mention the Rockets were able to draft Dream, and eventually win two championships, because they tanked?

OK, I mentioned that, good.

 

There are good years to tank and bad years to tank. This is one of the very bad ones. Irving is living up to the hype and will likely go #1. All others are questionable. You guys are going to need to name some of these prospects you're all drooling over.

 

WHO THE **** IS THE NEXT DREAM IN THIS YEARS DRAFT?

END. OF. DEBATE.

 

it's hard to trade when you tank, because your players typically don't carry much value.

 

But then look at the teams that have won the title in the past 20 years. They've either won them two ways: either they had a "best in the era" player like Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Jordan, Hakeem or Shaq and surrounded them with the appropriate supporting cast... or they "rape-traded" a bunch of teams and maybe they won it with pure talent (or maybe a combination of the two). In the past 20 years, I would say the Pistons team you mention is the only team that doesn't fit this mold.

The original post spells out the odds of going about winning a title the first way... it's pretty slim. Getting there the way Boston did it would actually be far more likely. Think about where Boston was where they had basically Pierce, Al Jefferson and a bunch of scrub role players. Right now we have Martin, Brooks and Scola and a bunch of role players. Boston just got lucky, made two good trades, already had a good system in place to be a competitive team and they made the finals two out of the past three years.

Now, I'm not going to sit here and claim that this is what will happen to the Rockets... it's actually the exact opposite. I'm here to point out that this has such a slim chance of happening. News flash Rockets fans: building a team capable of winning titles takes a lot of luck. Now... while it takes luck to build said team, that doesn't mean no skill is involved.

And that's why it doesn't really make sense to rebuild right now. Now, if I'm the Cavs or the Raptors. Obviously I'm not going to try and make trades for Granger or Iguodala. Because those teams don't have the assets to pull off rape-trades like Boston did and build a championship team that way. They are better off trying to get as many lottery balls as possible and hope they get the #1 pick when the next Lebron James comes out of college. However when you are talking about a team like us... we actually do have said assets to pull such a deal off. So why tank for 3-4 years, endure the stress of 20 win seasons... when we are just as likely to build a good team the way Boston did it (which was pure luck on their part) but with the benefit of getting to at least watch semi-competitive basketball instead of watching NBDL players all season.


And here is the other reason no one is thinking about.

Let's say we do rebuild. Let's say we get a top 5 pick (which as we've already established isn't that likely to happen). And lets say we pick the best player in the draft (or tied for the best in some cases). How is that working out for New Orleans and Utah right now? Anyone betting on them winning a title soon despite picking the best players of that draft that season? How did that plan work out for Portland? Sure, Oden was a bust but Roy and Aldridge were the best two players in their draft (perhaps you include Gay).

How do you think it's going to work out for Chicago? They did the best you could do short of landing Lebron James in free agency. They picked the best player in their draft, cleared cap space to sign another all-star caliber player and also have some pretty solid role-players in Noah and Deng. But you get the feeling that unless something big happens Chicago isn't going to even be making the finals for the forseeable future.

How did it work out for Houston? Houston back when we had the #1 pick, presented a really good chance of it working out. Yao didn't have the hype that Lebron did but he was a big guy, and he ended up making multiple All-star teams. We traded for Tmac and were on the short list of contenders in the West. Now, I don't mean to bring up bad memories... blame whoever you want for why we didn't win. Blame injuries, blame Tmac, blame JVG... the point is that it didn't happen despite picking probably the best player in that draft.

But Yao didn't win rookie of the year that year. It was Amare Stoudemire that year. And speaking of Amare... how did that work out for the Suns? Talk about the group of players they put around him (and he wasn't even the best player on that team)... and they don't even make a finals the whole time he is there.

Lets go down the list of ROY winners now. Pau Gasol... now he did eventually win a title with Kobe, but when he was the star of the show in Memphis... it didn't happen. Elton Brand's career got destroyed with injuries. Allen Iverson made the finals that one year but otherwise nothing. Same with Jason Kidd. Okafor was ROY the same year Howard was drafted. Howard was actually the best player in that draft... and he might win a title before his career is over, but he might actually be the exception that proves the rule too. You couldn't count the number of rape-trades and borderline allstars that Otis Smith has drafted or signed with one hand. And the biggest one... Lebron James. Obviously he's going to win a title, but not with the team that drafted him. So how did that work out for Cleveland?

Now, a fair counterpoint that I assume you are already preparing to make is that all of these players and teams I've mentioned have been consistent 50 win teams, usually making the playoffs every year if not going further. So if you don't ever win a title you at least have a entertaining team to watch. However, I would argue we are one solid player away from being there already. It might even be a guy like Marcus Camby plugging up the middle and making our defense better.

I think I've made my point. It's not looking good for us to make a serious title run in the next 5 or so years, but that alone isn't a reason to rebuild. You are looking at like a 3 in 20 shot of grabbing that "best in era" type of player that would definitely win you a title... and that's ASSUMING you get a top pick and pick the best player in the draft (which isn't always a given).

 

You can't just draft Hakeem Olyjuwon every season though. If you read my novel-sized post I just made, I point out how guys like him are VERY rare picks. It sounds obvious, I know... but apparently it's not to some people in this thread.

 

There's also no guarantee that our presently constructed team will ever seriously contend for a championship. There are no guarantees either way, so bashing my approach for a lack of guarantee should cut both ways.

And as far as the teams you listed: The Clippers, Kings, Thunder, and Timberwolves all have more valuable trade assets than we do. The argument against 'tanking' is that we can trade for a star player instead of having to suck for one.. and yet there are several franchises with better assets than we currently own. If another franchise player goes on the block, they move to the front of the line -- we stay in the back. Rebuilding through the draft doesn't mean you have to keep the players through their entire development -- you can flip the high draft picks for elite talent should they become available. Again, I'll lay out the scenario that nobody responded to earlier:

But say one does become available again -- Chris Paul for example. And let's take our two different routes to rebuilding.

You want to keep our core players while trading our assets for upgrades. Ok, hypothetically, say we traded Battier, Jeffries, Patterson and the NY 2012 for Iguodala. Then Paul becomes available. Who are you going to trade for them? Odds are they're not going to want high-priced players that are in their late 20s to build around.

Now let's say instead of staying the course, we traded some of our core guys and landed a top three pick, which we drafted Perry Jones with. That is MUCH more appealing to New Orleans than a bunch of 2nd tier stars that are being paid 10+ million a year.

Being able to land the high draft picks helps us in two ways: it gives us building blocks for a future foundation AND gives us trade assets that are comparable to the ones that teams expect for their elite talents.

If we can land a top five pick in the draft without trading Martin, Brooks, or Scola I'd be all for it. I've said that I'd like to move our pick + Martin to move up for someone if we deem them worthy. But just staying the course and exhausting whats left of our assets for guys like Iguodala or Gerald Wallace? That's just not worth it, IMO. We need these high potential guys, whether they be for us to build around or to include in a trade for an established star.

And no larsv8, I'm not pessimistic, but realistic. Clutchfans seem to agree that we only have 'average' assets. (http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=197395) We're not going to be able to land a truly elite player unless we have a highly coveted player, as Favors is for Denver.

 

BTW OP this was basically what I was trying to get at too.

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=197601

 

Also, I know this isn't really the topic we are discussing, but it might be an argument worth exploring. We've all posed the question "would you rather have one title and a bunch of 20 win seasons or no title and a bunch of 60 win seasons?" and most of us would probably pick the former. However, I think the better question might be to ask if it's okay to be just a 40-50 win team. Obviously I would rather watch a 60 win team than a 40 win team. But if my choices are either watch a 40-50 win team for the next 3-4 years or tank for 3-4 years and have maybe a 1/4th chance at grabbing a star player that probably won't even win a title... I might choose the 40 win team. It does kind of suck to win only every other game, but this team is very watchable.

 

The only way to tank and hold value in your players is for the team to be inexperienced, then other gms see the players as inexperienced, mid range players (like we have a glut of), esp anyone over 25-26 in a tanking team are just seen as bad players.

 

Only way they would blow up the team and restart would be if the Rockets were utterly bad. Like Timberwolves/Kings bad.

 

Would you rather have been the 06-7/07-8 rockets or the 06-7/07-8 celtics?

We won more games than them over the 2 year stretch, they finished last one year, first the other...

 

I think everyone would agree with you. In fact, probably put the odds of us winning a title by not tanking at almost the same as the odds are for tanking and grabbing the next Lebron James in the draft: virtually zero.

Most people I think are arguing though that since both options are slim to none, then they would rather watch a decent team than a very crappy team.

Also, I think it's worth pointing out that if we tank for awhile trying to fish for a draft pick. Morey's and Adelman's jobs will be on the line. So even if 5 years down the line you get a #1 draft pick, Adelman and Morey might have already been fired by then. I think the combo of them could be great if you kept them together for 5-10 years.

 

The only time in the last 20 years that a team has successfully rebuilt by tanking is SA in 97. The NBA doesn't work that way, you can't just get a high draft pick and then expect success. It's very rare.

 

Brilliant! Trade for a player that is untouchable, that fixes everything!

 

Not only more efficient, but absolutely guaranteed to get the team a high draft pick. On the other hand, Morey will keep working the phones and keep hoping that some team will finally take his bait and trade him a top pick.

I agree about the financial repurcussions. But I don't think a losing record necessarily hurts the value of the players. I think most GMs probably understand when teams are tanking (as well as overachieving) and factor that into their evaluations. Winning the MIP award will inflate the value of Brooks, for example, but maybe not as much as we'd hope it would.

That said, I've loved almost every one of Morey's moves. In just a few years he's shown himself to a smart and creative GM, one of the best in the business. I'm just not convinced that his method of building a contender is the best method. In fact, it could end up being more time consuming.