Good article that goes into detail about why tanking is not a viable strategy for finding an NBA superstar. The past three seasons the NBA has been dominated by players that were not a top 4 pick. Also, in cases where a lottery team picked a good player with a top 4 pick, they eventually get traded away and become stars on other teams. It's becoming harder to acquire superstars with a top lottery pick due to the rise of international play and poor talent evaluation in the draft. In Stone we trust!
We used to be able to watch these guys play in college for extended periods and get a more accurate evaluation. The trend of early entry into the NBA has been bad for the league for this reason among many others.
I said this before we started tanking that tanking was no longer a viable way to rebuild. That trades, and draft capital FOR trades is the way to go. So obviously I like the article. It seems it is very hard to extrapolate out when kids coming into the league aren't really NBA ready, and get hit with money and fame etc, do they have the work ethic and the humility to reach a top level. A good number of the up and coming star players were not at the top of the draft class - maybe this year is different and Wemby and Scoot change this, but Philly knows that sometimes top picks don't get it done. DD
Interesting that they left Joel Embiid off their list of top 10 players because, according to their metric, he has provided less value than Bobby Portis and Donte DiVincenzo. Also they don't count Luka as playing for the team that drafted him because he was technically drafted by the Hawks? Seems like they're cooking the books a little bit to make their point here. It also says Mason Plumlee has added more wins to his team than Steph Curry, Giannis, and Tatum. What a weird stat.
So the alternatives are? (Don't have an owner that signs clearance rack scrubs to a championship contender to avoid the luxury tax and then alienates the entire front office and star players? Oh.)
The slam on Jalen is pre-mature. He could still be the best player in that draft, in fact, I think he will be. Mosley has already hit his ceiling in my opinion, which is a really good defensive player with little to offer on the offensive side of the ball. Jalen did not have the benefit of college ball, a decent coach, and some vets to show him the way.
I HATE hate hate tanking, especially for a super young team. The bad habits these guys pick up, along with the losing mentality, are things that are going to be hard to break as they get older. Tanking is literally for losers.
not that great of an article which is pretty much trying to use a 19 year old drafted jalen green as the headline. Aka premature assumption. A player who has been dominating the last few seasons and one of the top mvp candidates Joel Embiid picked at #3.
While its interesting article, it doesn't change anything. The team with the #1 pick is still going to choose who they think is best, and ditto for the #2 pick, and so on.
People knew tanking wasn't a magic ticket. It was just the best choice to have the biggest chance at the best choice. NBA got rid of tanking for the worst, but it mostly made the tanking by tier rather than fixed position. If there are 3 guaranteed "not likely to get you fired" picks with 3 hidden diamonds, you still want to tank for the 1-5 picks. There's no way for you to pick the hidden gems so even then it's about maximizing chances at the players on your leaderboard.
It is also odd that the arbitrary cut off was top 4 picks. Surely he should be including at least pick 5 (and possibly at least to 8). The worst team in the NBA has a 48% chance of picking 5th (ie, of the 5 picks they could end up with, the highest probability for the worst team is 5th). So at least pick 5 should be included in discussions. Following that, unless one assumes that the only team in the NBA that was tanking is the team with the worst record, further picks need to be included in the assessment. Ie, if 3-5 teams tank in a given year, picks 7-9 should be considered. The following chart is based on information from the last 30 years, showing the likelihood of selecting an all-star at a certain position. Caution should be exercised given that it doesn't account for recency, and therefore doesn't directly correlate to the article in the OP. I'm not an advocate of tanking. But as a pragmatist I can see why a team might pursue that path for a couple of seasons in order to replenish talent stocks. The goal of a rebuild is a star to build around. To find a star there are 3 main options: free agency, trade or draft. The trade option is more viable with young talent to offer a team, so restocking quickly on talented players is important
And the alternative was what…. Trading for Simmons? Herro? Trading for picks, keeping Allen, and fillers? Cross your fingers the ping pong balls bounce in our favor instead of sending that pick to OKC? Then trying to shuffle assets until you find a franchise player?
We traded James Harden 25 months ago. We have four players picked in between 2-17 of the last four drafts. One of these players went to a ****** up G league season before draft. One of them played in Turkish league at 18 and dominated. The other two were college sophomore and freshman respectively. They are both currently our best defensive players. They both can guard 1-4 and debatably the 5. They are all 20 and one is 19. This nitpicking over how they look on Feb 3 2023 is just too much. I love Sengun the mist but he also has been a pro for years. Hence looking advanced. Im gonna be disappointed if Smith,Green and Sengun aren’t in the All Star game by their 4th year. Other than that, improvement is not always linear just because you wish it was.
These players coming out as Mcgrady prototypes. Lavine, Green, etc.. Scoring mentality, and goto scorer. Do these players translate into bottom 2nd tier to 3rd tier stars? can they carry there team without help? you wonder if Green will have a complete game someday. Probably not. Lavine can score but do they really do anything else?
That's been true for decades, but doesn't change the fact that this article title/tweet is trash. Jalen has had bigger games than Mr. Glass in Detroit. You could have just as easily made the title about him and the Pistons. Ridiculous hate for anyone this early into their careers. Inconsistency was always expected. Singling out the Rockets when it comes to tanking? Make the article instead about how the Rockets never got the top pick being last place. Don't hate on the young players who were never expected to go #1 in the first place. I'm not going to read the article either, but did they mention San Antonio blatantly tanking by trading away their best player coincidentally when Wemby is going to be in the draft? Nah. No one ever talks about that. Nor do they mention how the Spurs are the original tanking team when they tanked for Duncan. Just 1 coincidental bad losing season in the middle of a bunch of winning seasons right? Same as the Wemby sweepstakes. Just a cowinkadink. Wemby to SA!!1 I don't want to see none of them and none of yall when Jalen is hitting his mid 20s and fully matured and balling out of this world. Same with Bari clamping dudes up and routinely making All Defensive teams and splashing 3's from Jalen kick outs. We just happened to get 2 very young bodied players who were always going to need time to mature physically and fundamentally. I can say this with confidence though, the NBA media is pushing real hard for an anti Rockets landing spot for Wemby.
Current superstars: curry, kd, joel, jokic, luka, lbj, giannis, tatum. They were drafted 7, 2, 3, 3, 2nd round, 1, 15, 3. So 5 of the current 8 superstars were picked top 3
