Cleveland won with Lebron (their #1 pick), Kyrie (#1 pick) and Kevin Love (traded #1 pick Wiggins to get him). Also, Lakers traded multiple top picks to get AD and they won a title.
This. Many of the tank proponents claim that tanking gives us the best chance of getting a franchise player. But it also gives us the best chance to help OKC. I'd much rather to hope the Nets' implosion than to hope the odd chance of getting a top 4 picks. And even if we do get the top 4 pick, I don't know the odds of drafting a player this year that will turn out better than Christian Wood. The Rockets are looking to be a .500 team this season, which is fine with me. OKC is probably at the same level, maybe a little bit better. The Heat will do something to get better. The three teams will likely end up not far from each other in the middle of standing. So the swapping won't matter much.
What helps OKC is irrelevant. The first sentence is key, tanking gives you the best chance at a franchise player PERIOD. You don't have to pick between tanking and hoping the Nets implode, you can do both! And we can keep Christain Wood. The Rockets being a .500 team is the absolute worst possible outcome for this season.
Tank proponents? All you need is to be 4th or 5th worst and you would still be in the running for Top 3. The OKC swap is sacrilegious though. The new lottery is friggin charitable.
538 currently projects us to finish with a record of 35-37 and gives us a 38% chance of making the playoffs if the Rockets made the 8th seed, they would get annihilated in the 1st round it would be 1 thing if they made the playoffs with some young team full of promising prospects with high upside, but it would be with a bunch of low talent role players and placeholders like John Wall and Oladipo if he’s unfortunately still on the team past the trade deadline
You just said the Lakers did it last year, right? Things change , maybe the Lakers are the beginning of that change because both teams in the finals would have won by that measure.
Ah shiiiiiiiiiiet the thread is getting spicy again.......... Tankers feeling a little loose again.....
What is this different from Lakers directly picked him? only a few hours late with an indirect drafting. Kobe did not play a single NBA game for any other NBA team in his career, if I remember it correctly.
Incidentally, we have two high picks on our team: Wall (#1) and Oladipo (#2). These are the top 4 picks since 2010: John Wall Evan Turner Derrick Favors Wesley Johnson Kyrie Irving Derrick Williams Enes Kanter Tristan Thompson * Anthony Davis Michael Kidd-Gilchrist * Bradley Beal Dion Waiters Anthony Bennett Victor Oladipo Otto Porter Cody Zeller Andrew Wiggins Jabari Parker * Joel Embiid Aaron Gordon Karl-Anthony Towns D'Angelo Russell Jahlil Okafor Kristaps Porzingis Ben Simmons Brandon Ingram Jaylen Brown Dragan Bender Markelle Fultz Lonzo Ball * Jayson Tatum Josh Jackson Deadre Ayton Marvin Bagley * Luka Doncic Jaren Jackson * Zion Williamson Ja Morant RJ Barrett De'Andre Hunter Anthony Edwards James Wiseman * LaMelo Ball Patrick Williams The asterisked ones are those I would take as my franchise player. Some of the later ones (Zion, LaMelo) are still too early to tell. That's 7 out of 44 (16%). The top 10 players in current NBA (I know it's somewhat controversial. I try to pick more widely acknowledged players.): * LeBron, * Harden, * Durant, Kawhi, * Davis, * Embiid, Jokic, Giannis, * Doncic, Curry Only six of them were drafted top 4, of which only Embiid and Doncic were drafted top 4 in the past 10 years. Of the other four top 4 draftees, only LeBron won a championship for his original team (and he did it after he had left the team first).
True but we could trade up to pick someone we wanted from the draft. The Lakers getting Kobe had nothing to do with tanking. If the Rockets made the playoffs this year, we could simply trade Christian Wood to Team X (whoever gets the 1st overall pick) for Cade Cunningham if we were really that high on him.
Or we use high draft picks to package together with other assets to update talent. You aren't seeing the forest through the trees with this reasoning.... Regardless of tanking or mediocrity.... you need to acquire assets.
I wonder if John Wall gets traded, and if the whole plan was to show off his trade value? Problem is who would take on that contract Miami? Dragic/Iggy/Olynek for John Wall, House, Mclemore, and 1st Rd Pick. If the pick is one of high brooklyn picks just to get the trade going. This way rockets could just waive Cousins. Also Knicks are down for Dipo with getting Rose, they are trying to get into the playoffs. I would send his salary for a 2023 pick mavericks top 10 protected..
OK, but your take completely ignored the 8-10 other All-Star caliber guys in that group. If I told you that there was a 35%-39% chance we'd draft an All-Star with that pick, those odds are pretty good (since some of those guys are super young, the number could be as high as 50%). And that's not factoring in the quality of the draft, which many experts seem to think is extremely high this year. Or that there are other players among those 44 that never made All-Star teams but still became damn good basketball players you want on your team. In 2021, the idea of a single franchise player doesn't really exist. You need multiple guys. If you look at the teams who have gone from terrible to respectable though the draft in the last decade (Golden State, Boston, Philly, OKC pre-Harden trade), they drafted multiple All-Star caliber guys. It wasn't just one player. The Rockets are mediocre right now, but most of the core of this team is pretty old and expensive. We're likely going to be terrible very soon. Also, I think the "tank for a top 4 pick" talk kinda became irrelevent once (A) the Heat were suddenly terrible, too, increasing the odds of getting a good pick; and (B) Wood got hurt. Now it's not really a matter of tanking for the top 4. They're just likely going to be bad regardless. But I just totally disagree with the notion that a top 4 pick couldn't help this team's rebuild. They should be trying to get as many high first rounders as they possibly can.
I actually think Wall is playing himself into and actual tradeable asset. Gordon, too. I'm not sure Stone could move both without attaching firsts right now. But maybe in the offseason he could pull it off if the right team was interested.
Losing culture? We haven't won anything in 25 years, but for trying to get a good position in the most talented draft in many years with a team totally under construction do some fans talk about "losing culture"? Amazing, totally amazing!
I don't like tanking for top 4 pick. If the roster is naturally bad due to injuries or lack of talent that's fine. There's people saying Silas should intentionally lose games which is dumb as hell. If Stone wants to trade away pieces so we are bad next year I'm fine with it too, but I also don't wan to attach picks to get rid of players.
