Can we stop with this tanking ?

[fairweatherfan]

Tanking is a bad option, how many teams did that and had success?

Seattle/OKC most recently, and they never had to win the lottery to do it.  They scrapped a solid playoff squad by shipping out their expensive vets like Lewis and Allen,  and built a young core from the #2, #4, #24, and #3 picks over a 3 year period. 

By Year 5 they'd made the Finals and are in a good position to contend for the next several, despite not having nearly as good of a financial situation as we do.

There's no denying the Thunder have enjoyed some pretty incredible luck to reach that point, though.  It's not really a method that you can expect to duplicate exactly.

Oh sure - but if Finals appearances were easy to duplicate they'd have to give out more than 2 a year.  Point is that the full tank approach can absolutely work, and has recently.  But we have a lot more flexibility than that, like how we bounced back from the worst possible pick in 07. 

I'd hate to put all of our eggs in fully tanking, because OKC is the exception and not the rule, but I haven't seen any indication of doing that.  All we've done so far is confirm we aren't contenders by trading 3 guys who'll be a combined 109 years old in their next game.

How dare you apply such reasonable, measured thinking to this situation!  We need extremism and vitriol!

WHY DONT U MARRY A PINGPONG BALL U LUV IT SO MUCH!!!

[mmmmm]

This is one of the most sensible and convincing anti-tank posts I've seen. 

TP

It's against tanking through 2018 which I don't think anybody is advocating for.  I am all in on tanking next year, which makes complete sense. It's basically a strawman argument

Maybe mmmmm can clarify, but I'm fairly sure he was laying out an argument for getting back into contention without tanking at all. 

I'm not sure what you mean about it being a straw man argument.

This^

While tanking in 2014 is a valid strategy, it comes at a cost.  And in my opinion isn't necessary.

As long as we currently _look_ like we might tank, our 2014 pick probably looks pretty valuable.

We should trade it now.   

[mmmmm]

This is one of the most sensible and convincing anti-tank posts I've seen. 

TP

It's against tanking through 2018 which I don't think anybody is advocating for.  I am all in on tanking next year, which makes complete sense. It's basically a strawman argument

Maybe mmmm can clarify, but I'm fairly sure he was laying out an argument for getting back into contention without tanking at all. 

I'm not sure what you mean about it being a straw man argument.

Reread what he wrote.  The only sentence he has about our 2014 pick is "The ones that look the _least_ likely to be in the lottery would be the 2014 Nets pick and probably our own 2014, unless we purposely tank our selves."  Then he never addresses us tanking just in 2014 again.

The people who are pro-tank are saying we should tank for 2014 and then take it from there.  Nobody is saying we should tank so our 2016 Nets pick will be better - that doesn't make any sense.  He is setting up a fake argument nobody is making to argue against, instead of saying why we shouldn't tank for 2014.

That is what a strawman is, you set up this flimsy target to attack instead of addressing the real points people are making.  He didn't address tanking for a year and then building around Rondo/2014 pick with all of these assets we've collected.  That is what people are saying we should do, not tank for the next decade.  Nobody is saying that.

That's pretty much not true, sir.

Perhaps YOU should try to reread what I wrote.

I specifically raised the hypothetical that we could trade the 2014 picks for a stud player.  If we trade them now for such a player, we clearly would not be tanking.   The proposition is either

a) Endure a miserable year of tanking at a chance at a rookie who MIGHT be a star

or

b) Trade that pick for someone who IS a star.  And not have to tank.

And yes, a trade for a real star would take more than one pick.  But that's okay.   Over all, only about a third of first round picks end up being solid starters anyway and smaller percentage end up as 'stars'.   So we would probably end up having to use multiple picks trying to find that 'star' anyway.

The point of he _future_ Clips and Nets picks is then that going forward, we may still manage to get into a draft lottery just through their misfortunes. 

And if we intend to be competitive through all that, out own picks will have thus less value in those years and so we should consider trading them now as part of the package to get that star player now.   So the status of the future picks is relevant to whether we would end up tanking for 2014.

All that DOES require that someone significant be available now.   I raised the hypothetical of Lamarcus Aldridge because of the rumors that he is being shopped.  That may end up being vapor.

But if he is available, and we could get him for 2 or 3 of our 9 picks and not have to give up any of the RR/JG/AB/JS core - it is a no brainer.