WTF are you talking about? The Warriors drafted Steph, Klay and Draymond when they were perennial cellar dwellers. The Bucks drafted Giannis and Middleton when they were among the worst teams in the league. And while they haven't won championships yet, the Suns and the Hawks are also excellent current examples of team building through the tank.
Best case scenario, with the sh*t/tank show this franchise is about to endure, they get a player half as good as James Harden. It would be amazing if the franchise had someone of his calibre wouldn't i....... wait.
This is the vision I believe Stone is moving the Rockets towards. While I don't think the goal is necessarily to "tank" this year, it's clear the strategy is to develop and play the young guys. There will likely be growing pains as the youngin's learn on the big stage, but hey that which does not kill you only makes you stronger. Wall must be traded for smaller, expiring contracts or bought out. EG is traded for either some draft capital/expirings or a young player or two. The 2022 NBA Draft Class appears to be loaded again and with just the type of players we need to add to the roster... https://nbadraftroom.com/p/2022-nba-mock-draft/ Adding a talented 3, 4 or 5 would be ideal and 2022 looks to be stocked. I believe we also have the best of the Heat's or Nets' 1st rd picks, so more capital to either use or parlay into a better position or player. Ideally adding a Holmgren or Banchero would rock, but we won't be too disappointed if we land 1-2 of the other guys in that mock. I know I'll be paying closer attention to college hoops this year. In sum, I don't think we try to tank (unless injuries take out some key folks--knock on Wood that doesn't happen), but instead start building our youth movement and see where we land in the standings. I mean if we win 25 games we're a lock for the Lottery, but if we win 35 or more we could be in a Playin position for the playoffs. Personally, I think we'll fall into that range and win 30+ games and be a lottery team. That should still get us a shot at a good prospect. Spit balling the Thunder, Magic, Cavs and probably Wiz should be worse than us, if we get into 6th position and can get an Adrian Griffin Jr or Nikola Jovic would be great. Hell if we luck out and get in the Top 4 again then even better.
Detroit drafted Middleton (39th) and he played his rookie season there. A year later, he went to MIL has part of the trade of Brandons — Knight for Jennings MIL famously took Fredette, Jabari Parker over Embiid, and then Thon Maker the 3yrs years they were in the lottery, in and around the Giannis pick at 15.
We don’t need to tank because we will organically lose a lot of games because we are so young. Hopefully Green, KPJ and Sengun get lots of reps and chances to grow their games. Think Garuba and Christopher will the in the G league until after the trade deadline. With the Wall news - super excited to see how KPJ runs point. Wood is a great pick and roll partner and Green is great off ball. Hopefully Wood can stay healthy and put together a monster season. I know many here want to trade him but given he is only 25 and the perfect modern big men offensively (pops and rolls well) it would be great if he can become a no brainer max guy. All NBA guys not going to free agency anymore so we might just be shopping for role players with the 2023 cap space so hopefully Wood can be one of the stars and stay. Side note - draft looks a bit flatter at the top this year with no clear no.1 and lots of big men so might be ok to have a 4-8 pick. Go Rockets and hopefully we can all enjoy the ride of this no stress season of the young guns having fun and growing.
That is literally what tanking is. You just said we don't need to tank because we're tanking. Tanking is literally focusing on youth and development rather than making short sighted win now moves that hurt us in the long run. I am so confused by what you all thinking tanking is. Do you really think that the players are being ordered to lose? It's so crazy.
Idk about ordered to lose .... but , you can create an environment where winning is not emphasized as being important . You can intentionally rest good players . I think there can be a difference between organically bad but trying and “developing” While making moves “for the future” look at what GS got with 7 and 14 . We have picks from other teams and we don’t have to be top 4 bad this year just cause . I just don’t want it to be a season long effort . If we are close to a pack and can improve our odds by resting some guys then go for it . We will prolly move guys at the trade deadline if not a bit sooner . I’m ok with that . I don’t want wood out for precautionary reasons every other night
Yea…. Do people think the Sixers were ordered to lose or did they just field a historically bad team?
this is what happens when you tank ! I applaud basketball gods for punishing those who ruin the beautiful and sacred game of basketball!
You are right I agree, no way do I think players are being told to lose. But there is no need to go to more egregious measures like sitting healthy players for most of the season or playing absolutely no chance line ups like OKC were doing last season. Play the young guys and if they win, great but ride with them through their lumps as well. Give them a chance to make mistakes and not hook them right away.
Contending I suppose. The diehard in me believes with some progression of young talent and a healthy season (for once) this team could make noise and get into the playoffs. Porter steps up, Green wins ROTY, Wood makes an all-star team, Gordon gets another 6th man award... stars align occasionally you know? I just don't want them to make the playoffs, get bounced and have all that expectation of getting further next year. And also yeah, it would be cool to draft a dynasty like GSW did.
Lmaoo, good lord, WTF are you even talking about? Do you know where those people were drafted? I really hope you are not this dumb, trying to be smart and call people out lol. Middleton was a second round draft pick, Draymond Green was a second round pick, Giannis was drafted in the middle of the first round and not even a lotto pick, Steph and Klay were drafted at 7 and 11, the T-wovles genuinely tanked and blew picks on Rubio and Flynn at 5-6 over Steph. Phoenix's best player was drafted #13, their second best player or arguably best player was brought over on a salary dump trade. Atlanta tanked and then traded away an opportunity at a generational talent like Luka. Lol no, teams do not win by tanking and aiming for a top pick. Philly tried it, and they failed. You realize how many picks get blown at the top with this strategy, and how many teams compound this mistake with bad trades (Hawks losing Luka, Philly losing out on Tatum)? Teams with a good front office win and stay competitive. Philly blew it w #1 overall Fultz, Noel, Okafor, Simmons etc. How many drafts have the Kings blown? Thanks for proving my point, tanking has not generated championships in decades.
I did know all of that. I never said there isn't some luck involved too. But the number one thing is you simply have to evaluate talent well. Many teams do not. Minnesota and Sacramento, in particular, are famous for whiffing on draft picks. On the Suns, a.) Devin Booker was a lotto pick too. And you've conveniently forgotten how important Ayton, the ****ing #1 overall pick, and Mikal Bridges, a #10 pick, were to them on a nightly basis. But of course you are. And it's weird that you're glossing over the tank in Golden State. Steph and Klay were lotto picks. Period. And Philly will never be a real example because the NBA intervened. We will never know what that team would have ultimately looked like had the NBA not forced Hinkie out and put in Colangelo, who immediately started screwing everything up. But the bulk of championships in recent years have been won by the Warriors, the Lakers and the Heat. And we will never be as desirable of a market as any of those markets. The only way we lure star players is by already having star players. McGrady came to play with Yao. Howard, Paul and Westbrook came to play with Harden. That's it. So we need to get a number of shots at drafting a star. That's all we can do to build this thing. Please show me an alternative route the Houston Rockets can feasibly take.
The entire point of tanking as part of a rebuild is that drafting is really hard, and your odds of acquiring the superstar talent necessary to contend for a championship naturally goes up the higher the picks are. Even the very best teams are going to draft busts with top lottery picks. I don't think it's realistic to expect a Durant/Westbrook/Harden trio from three consecutive drafts. If you assume your rebuilding cycle is 4 years, you're probably ecstatic if you get 2 stars, 1 role player, and 1 bust in the draft. Getting to that success rate is a hell of a lot easier if you are picking in the top 5 rather than in the late lottery. I fundamentally disagree with your premise that tanking has not resulted in a championship this decade. In fact, I'd argue the exact opposite, that the majority of champions over the last 10 years have been the result of at least indirect tanking for a year or more. The Lakers are clearly a product of tanking; they had three consecutive #2 overall picks. Two of these assets eventually were traded for Anthony Davis. Furthermore, during this time, they actually owed their draft pick with only top-3 protection, so they actually intentionally needed to be bad to ensure that they kept their picks. If they don't have these draft assets and young players, I find it really difficult to believe they can build a championship roster around LeBron, or even convince him to come in the first place. The Warriors drafted at #7, #6, #11, and #7 in four consecutive years. They needed four terrible seasons to come away with two future hall-of-famers. The year that the earned the #11 spot, they finished #12 in the west; they wouldn't have even made the play-in games if they had existed then. I also want to point out that the final #7 pick they got the year before they started to compete seriously, had top-7 protection on it (otherwise they'd have to trade it away), and they closed the year on a 5-21 pace, traded their leading scorer mid-season for a player who was injured and out for the year, and topped it all off with one loss in the 81st game where they committed goal-tending on the game winner from the opposing team. The Cavaliers had three #1 overall picks and two #4 picks over the course of 4 years; two of their picks were used to get Kevin Love after LeBron's signing. Maybe you believe that LeBron would still have come back to Cleveland if the Cavs didn't have Kyrie and the ability to trade for Love, I doubt that very much. Finally, you have the Spurs; probably the longest stretch, considering that Tim Duncan was not really the focal point of the team by 2014, but that entire franchise's direction was changed by their decision to tank in 1997. If the Spurs draft literally anyone else other than Duncan that year, there are so many alternate timelines where Pop is fired after the season, the Spurs don't get arena funding in 1999 after winning the championship, and the team moves out of the city as soon as David Robinson starts losing a step. Tanking saved basketball in San Antonio, just as Dream saved basketball in Houston.
That's how I see it. Very rarely do rookie stars just start turning teams around. It's gradual process and this team even if all the picks pan out next season, is still not playoff-ready especially defensively. There's a reason why the O/U is at 27.5 wins.
Steph was 7th pick and wouldn't even have been there if the Twolves weren't so stupid. Klay was the 11th pick, so basically the pick of a team that was competing for the playoffs for most of the season. I don't think any team in the NBA tanks a season for the 11th pick in the draft. Green was a 2nd round pick. A complete lucky find of a gem, credit to their scouting and GM on that...and even so Jackson almost ruined his career by forcing him to be a 3. I mean I think the Bucks and Warriors are more representative of teams drafting well than tanking. The Warriors before getting Curry weren't exactly tanking, they'd put up what they thought were competitive teams only to find out halfway through the season were not. Warriors were mostly buyers during those seasons, trying to improve their team, they completely lucked into Curry and then lucked into him being hurt for most of his rookie contract and then lucked into him far surpassing what anyone thought he'd be capable of doing. I think what people mean is it's really not a good idea to concede a season before it even starts. I think the whole idea that a team tanks like this is not so common. Most teams just give up 40-50 games in, I wouldn't really call that tanking either. It's more of a team realizing there is close to 0 shot of them doing anything. Twolves are a great example of this and the Kings too, they really do try to make the playoffs it's just that halfway in to the season they realize it's not happening and thus throw in the towel and become sellers. If the Rockets really wanted to tank this season in this fashion, trade off Ego, trade off Wood, trade off any player that has value for assets basically...but lets say 40 games in the season the Rockets are competing for 6-10 seed, do they become buyers or sellers at the deadline? That's the real question. I think the point here is tanking isn't a 'Win' button people make it out to be. It's the FO and their skill at building teams and finding talent, that's the most important thing, far more important than whether you tank or not. I'd go so far to say tanking has no benefit actually in that not anyone can do it. Cavs a great example of this, tanking for Lebron, getting Lebron, and then wasting most of his young years there. Here's a team that lucked into drafting a great talent and at first did nothing with it. The only time they've been good is when LeGM came back and (rightly) told them to trade Wiggins for Love. Or Garnett's entire career in Minny. Drafted one of the most talented players of all time and wasted it with garbage teams. So the whole idea that just tanking is beneficial itself I resent. If you have a great GM sure, but if you have a great GM he (or she) won't even need to tank to make a contender. Look at Morey. He did it twice without tanking. A bad GM/FO can't build great teams, period, IMO. Tanking for x amount of years will never rid the team from their stupidity...wasting draft picks...playing young players in positions they can't play....just dumb moves all around, not even drafting Lebron or Garnett or Iverson or name player wasting away on bad franchise here...will ever save a bad GM/FO.
Enjoyable thread, well done guys. If your choices are to flat out tank, or develop the young guys, or trade vets (hopefully keep some to mentor). Whatever flavor of tank or rationalization you prefer to sleep, I just want one more high draft pick then lets go get it.
Which is just semantics or mental gymnastics. Vegas thinks we are bottom 5 team for a reason, and I think some (or many CF members) tend to have unbridled optimism before the season instead of a steely gaze. Frankly, Vegas (while not infallible by any means) has more at stake than the fans. It's most probable we are going to be a very bad team regardless of how much sunshine and gumdrops we stuff into pre-regular season. There is no magic bullet to team building but you just need to weigh your current state. Not every team can build through the free agency or have players force a trade there. The Rockets are probably near the top of the middle tier of markets and I'd argue a top third front office. I do worry about ownership. However the bottom line is we aren't the Cavs.... the Kings.... the Pistons... We have proven we have better than above average talent evaluation. We got lucky keeping the #2 pick and we have two consecutive seasons where we keep our picks before giving them to OKC. The main path forward is clear, use the next two seasons to see what we have in our youth which also correspond to a lot of losing. However, we should also be ready to pounce and be predatory. As an example, that shouldn't preclude us for packaging a theoretical 2022 top 5 pick, more FRPs, KPJ, Sengun, contracts for Zion Williamson.
