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

No strategy is guaranteed, but tanking doesn't exclude eventually trading for a star player. In fact, tanking might get you the draft pick that another general manager would be willing to trade his star player for.

There really is zero downside to tanking, not for the Rockets, not this year, and there is a chance that tanking lands us a young franchise player, or gives us the option of trading the high draft pick for an established star.

 

Only noobs tank.

 

The zero downside thing is simply not true.

The funny thing about tanking is that if also tanks the value of our players. Good luck getting anything good back when everything you have to trade is pissed off veterans and lazy young players with ****ty numbers.

If by tanking you mean the sell everything for picks -approach: If there was a magical way to trade most of our players for good picks then sure, we should consider it. The thing is that the teams who hold the good picks, won't trade them for older players with big contracts very easily. Hell, some of the teams who consistently have the good lottery picks have no real intention of ever getting out of the lottery because of the cheap talent and the promise of better future they can sell to their (gullible) fans.

What we can do (and IMO should) is play hard, win the games you can, buy every pick available to us, groom the talent and flip it for better value. Morey has shown he's definitely better than average at making deals, so at least to some point, we should be very actively trying to find value(even if small) in trades. If you can consistently fleece value out of the other team, the more trades you make, the better. Somewhere along the way you are going to find a player or two to build around.

 

you can't guarantee it, but what you can guarantee is that our current direction will have us mired in mediocrity for the indefinite future, last year we got pick 14, this year, it'll be 13-17, next year it'll be 13-17? the year after?

 

Lowers the value of our roster? The same roster people want to trade for Iggy? So we shouldn't tank, because it lowers the value of players that you want to trade for a star? Why not simply say you'd prefer trading for the star instead of tanking, because it boils down to the same thing. And if that's the case, which star?

Please name the star that we need to trade for in order to make us a contender? You can't because there isn't one, not one that we can realistically get.

And please prove how tanking lowers the value of our roster. Look at Minny, they have a horrible record, but there's not a GM in the league that isn't positively drooling over Love. Kahn could trade Love in a split second, and their record sucks.

 

sad isn't it, there isn't a team in the league who has less potential trade value than houston does right now, we have good expendable pieces, but really, no one wants to trade for expendability unless their goals aren't roster improvement, and right now, with a lockout pending, salary cap clearing isn't really on the cards.

 

The idea we shouldn't tank, because it would lower the value of guys that Morey is somehow going to trade for a young star is simply ridiculous.

And I'm still waiting for someone to name the star we're suppose to trade for.

News flash, there's no one sided trade in our future. Stern put a stop to that. And star players want to join other star players, so it's tough to get one unless you already have one.

So who is this star we're suppose to trade for or sign?

I bought in last Summer, because I assumed Bosh wouldn't want to be a sidekick. I was way wrong about that. The NBA culture has changed, and Houston is at a severe disadvantage compared to glamor cities, such as LA, NY, or Miami.

We're going to have to draft our first star, and the higher the pick, the better our odds, so tanking is our best strategy.

 

Every single team knows it too, so no one is going to let people trade up to the potential superstar level, you're right the landscape has changed, they want to play together, and no one is trading that potential star than can then lead to others.

 

How it lowers the value of roster?

Simple. If we want to lose a lot of games, we can't be scoring really well, defending really well, or be very efficient. This trickles down to every player's individual numbers. The organizations who are currently competing want to have players who have good numbers or otherwise, in intangible ways, contribute to winning. If the player has the ability to play well, he probably will because his earning potential is on the line. That's also the reason you can't fake injuries, because the players aren't going to want to do that.

If we really tanked (lost on purpose), we'd also be creating a losing culture. If we manage to find the new franchise player, we then have to get rid of at least some of these "nowadays lazy losers". Finding good value for them can then be difficult, so you actually have to trade "Could have been 20-10 stats, pure hustle Luis Scola but now is 14-6 pissed off, lazy Luis Scola" for lesser value that it could have been worth.

As for Kevin Love, yes he has value. Would some winning organization trade a real star for him? I don't necessarily think so. Now if Kevin Love was the best player on a Minnesota team that was 22-6 at the moment, then there probably would be more demand.

Also, regarding Minnesota, they have been in the lottery for a while. What do the have to show for it? They have nearly nothing of value outside of Love and Beasley. Are they losing because they make bad choices? Probably. But I would also argue that all that losing has lowered the value of their assets.

My preference is that we play hard and win, and improve the team aggressively at every opportunity while trying to stay as flexible as possible with the players' contracts. If we can flip a already developed player for a good pick, we do it because we are really not contending right now. Instead of trading 8th pick for Battier, we would like to be doing Battier for 8th pick when those deals are available.

 

You can win without a star, but you NEED elite defense.
Bring out your inner-Piston.
We need more toughness, more physicality.


But maybe, we can take a shot at some of these available "potential" guys around the league.

Anthony Randolph, for instance, has superstar potential.

 

How can you judge Blake Griffin, John Wall, Favors or any other rookie, a month into the season ? They haven't even played a season, yet. How can you judge sophmores from 1 season and 1 month?

Kobe averaged 5.4 pts on 40% in his 1st month, but he has definitely led the Lakers to the playoffs. His shot wasn't falling at all.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bryanko01/splits/1997/

Nash averaged 6.9 pts and 3.6 asts in his 1st month. He was shooting well, but he wasn't leading his team anywhere.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nashst01/splits/1997/

Dirk averaged 6.6 pts on 31.6% FG and 23.5 3pt% in his 1st month. His 1st month was February, due to the NBA lockout. He was an awful shooter and was overpowered as a PF on the defensive end by scrubs.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nowitdi01/splits/1999/

Deron Williams averaged 13.6 pts and 4.9 assists in his 1st month. He did better than the previously mentioned rookies. He was decent but the Jazz were back in the lottery again.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/willide01/splits/2006/

Dwight Howard averaged 9.4 pts and 10.6 rebs in his 1st month. Fans and media were still debating who would be better between him and Okafor. Now he is an unquestionable star.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/howardw01.html

Kobe, Nash, Dirk, T-Mac, Dwight Howard and Deron Williams show that player doesn't always come out as an immediate all-star like LeBron or Duncan. It takes some players until their 3rd year.

 

How about Rajon Rondo? He has had way more success than Greg Oden. I can't figure out why any team would build around a 7'ft bubble boy that has been injured every season for his rookie contract over an elite PG like Rondo.

 

I wish I could delete. I forgot that you were looking only at lottery picks.

 

are the odds of getting a superstar some way other than the draft better?

No method is likely, but what way is the most likely?

 

Incorrect. They've proven that they can continually draft very good NBA players. Players who wind up on other teams when the Clipps won't pay them max money. Apples and oranges.

 

And right now they have 1 guaranteed franchise player in Griffin and a possible 2nd one in Gordon.

DD

 

Exactly. People forget that their lottery picks are not resigned. They make money on the cheap rookie scale contracts and let the players leave.
They aren't particularly good at scouting and drafting compared to other teams that go to the lottery like the Thunder or Bucks.

An organization that is poor at scouting and drafting will problems, no matter what position they are at.

If you are drafting in the 15-30 range over and over again, you never get a Duncan, no matter how good your scouting is.

Spurs are good scouts but they would never had a Duncan, one of the 5 all-time greatest PFs, at the 28th pick like Parker.

Presti could have only gone so far with the Thunder, drafting in 10th and lower picks.

Here is analysis of how well certain teams draft for their draft position for 1989-2008(20 yrs).It would be interesting to redo the analysis with a shorter timespan to see how the Rockets fared with Morey.

http://www.82games.com/bestdraftingteams.htm

 

The Lakers have never tanked. Look at them.

 

The rockets did draft Dream and Yao.

 

Exactly look at them, They are in a big media market and popular destination for NBA free agents and rookies.