Forget tanking

[LarBrd33]

The opposition to tanking is from short-sighted people.  As Celtic fans, you can't complain about it with a straight face ... The last time we tanked we won the title the very next year.  Danny Ainge has a 100% success rate with tanking.

The question is... Would you rather (as a season ticket holder) pay for 10 years of 30-44 win seasons... A few years of 20 wins followed by 7+ years of 55+ win contending seasons.  Do the math.

Speaking of short-sighted....

What is the bobcats success rate with tanking?  What about the Hornets?  What about the Kings?  What about the cavs and wizards who actually landed a #1 pick and players considered to be franchise cornerstones?

But Danny is 1/1...

If Danny goes to Mohegan Sun and bets on black on one spin of a roulette table and wins... are you going to let him gamble with your money since he has a 100% success rate?  No?  Why not?

There is absolutely zero "math" in your post.  If you can GUARANTEE ME a top 2 pick in next years draft and one of those draft picks will be an 8x all star, sure let's go for it, let's tank.

Danny is one of the greatest GM's alive.  Dude took a dump of a franchise and turned it into a champion just over 4 years. 

I care very little about the mistakes of ML Carr, the Bobcats and Kings.  Cavs had had some beautiful success with tanking.  Bad example.  Ainge knows what he's doing. Tanking doesn't always work... but drastic measures are required if you don't want to be perpetually mediocre.  If you're into teams that are just sorta "ok" every year, you should follow the Nuggets.   Actually that's probably a bad example since they actually just had a pretty excellent season despite being eliminated in round 1.  I figure if Boston ran it back they are looking at a max 44 win season.

[D.o.s.]

The opposition to tanking is from short-sighted people.  As Celtic fans, you can't complain about it with a straight face ... The last time we tanked we won the title the very next year.  Danny Ainge has a 100% success rate with tanking.

The question is... Would you rather (as a season ticket holder) pay for 10 years of 30-44 win seasons... A few years of 20 wins followed by 7+ years of 55+ win contending seasons.  Do the math.

Speaking of short-sighted....

What is the bobcats success rate with tanking?  What about the Hornets?  What about the Kings?  What about the cavs and wizards who actually landed a #1 pick and players considered to be franchise cornerstones?

But Danny is 1/1...

If Danny goes to Mohegan Sun and bets on black on one spin of a roulette table and wins... are you going to let him gamble with your money since he has a 100% success rate?  No?  Why not?

There is absolutely zero "math" in your post.  If you can GUARANTEE ME a top 2 pick in next years draft and one of those draft picks will be an 8x all star, sure let's go for it, let's tank.

Danny is one of the greatest GM's alive.  Dude took a dump of a franchise and turned it into a champion just over 4 years. 

I care very little about the mistakes of ML Carr, the Bobcats and Kings.  Cavs had had some beautiful success with tanking.  Bad example.  Ainge knows what he's doing. Tanking doesn't always work... but drastic measures are required if you don't want to be perpetually mediocre.  If you're into teams that are just sorta "ok" every year, you should follow the Nuggets.

If I was a season-ticket holder, I would love for this team to replicate the last ten years of the Nuggets. 50+ wins almost every year, seven years of the best scorer in the game (IMO, of course, and I'll say Durant is a better shooter) and a pair of near-prime Hall of Fame guards (AI and Chauncey), followed by a roster overhaul that resulted in fast breaks all day every day and some seriously beautiful team basketball?

Yes. Please. Take my money.

[Yoki_IsTheName]

Tanking is never a good thing.

I already said this, you're putting an idea to your competitive players that they are not good enough and our management is not good enough to build a team that can contend, so we suck on purpose to get a superstar.

It will have a very high risk of players losing morale, and eventually leave this team to the point that while we may be lucky to get Wiggins or Parker, there will be no solid core to surround them with because the old players, who are always going to be against this idea is not willing to play for this team because the management lack trust in them.

If we lose, so be it. But doing it on purpose is beyond us.

[rasta1]

But the nuggets needed to be bad to land Melo in 03...otherwise they would be completely different

[D.o.s.]

But the nuggets needed to be bad to land Melo in 03...otherwise they would be completely different

The Nuggets had a solid general manager. We have a solid general manager. Good general managers create good teams with the pieces they've got.

Like Yoki just said, there's a big difference between losing games and tanking. He's a Dubs fan, he knows what tanking looks like. It's pretty easy to deal with rooting for a losing team. It's really difficult to deal with rooting for a tanking team.

[Yoki_IsTheName]

But the nuggets needed to be bad to land Melo in 03...otherwise they would be completely different

The Nuggets had a solid general manager. We have a solid general manager. Good general managers create good teams with the pieces they've got.

Like Yoki just said, there's a big difference between losing games and tanking. He's a Dubs fan, he knows what tanking looks like. It's pretty easy to deal with rooting for a losing team. It's really difficult to deal with rooting for a tanking team.

Yep, that year where Dubs are starting Jeremy Tyler and Charles Jenkins but Mark Jackson hated the idea so much that he is still playing David Lee and Monta Ellis 37 minutes per game. That's the kind of locker room tension the management will bring forth if you tank. The coach was uneasy, and I can't imagine what the players feel like.

You can say that it worked since they have Barnes now, but without the smart signings/trades for Jack and Landry, even if they tanked, it's still no certainty that they'd be contenders.

No we already have a solid core to begin with in Rondo, Jeff Green, Bradley, Sullinger and DeAndre (assuming). Those guys are not world beaters but they are no Andris Biedrins and Dominic McGuire, that core can beat teams and is still young and developing. Add along the smart signings/trades and good drafting and we could be contenders in a few years, without risking losing the morale of the locker room by telling them "they are not good enough to win so let's suck so we can have A SHOT of getting a young superstar that can help you win".

[Casperian]

Players never tank. Executives do.

[Mazingerz]

Players never tank. Executives do.

Chris Webbert and the Michigan Fab Four did

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

This team Ainge built is more smart trades and signings than drafting from the lottery. Granted the trades were made possible from assets accumulated from good drafting with or without (mostly without) lottery picks. You can`t really say the 08 title was down to tanking the year before. 

[freshinthehouse]

Last February we were an elderly team floating around the .500 mark with a GM that has made it abundantly clear that he will not let this team sink into irrelevance just to keep around older stars.  To think this team would be the same next season is naive to say the least.

[connor]

Maybe this is the result of a few drinks in me, but here goes...



Some of you talk so casually about tanking for good draft position and I am getting sick of it.  Despite the fact that it has been pointed out by so many posters on this blog how it almost never works out (see 1997, 2007 and that's just for Boston). 

The big reason this drives me crazy is because season ticket holders have already paid a lot of money to see some good basketball on the floor next season.  My ticket prices increased by 9.5% for next season to $8,000 for the entire season (I'm sure there are plenty of celticbloggers who pay much more than that too).  I have very little interest in paying $8,000 to watch Rondo sit out the season and a bunch of scrubs play crap basketball that way we can have a LONG shot of drafting some 19 year old who may or not pan out.  Am I really about to pay a 9.5% increase for a very very considerably worse product?  That's a question I wrestle with a lot as these trade rumors keep coming.

And the celtics management is comprised of business people.  They understand (which many of you don't) that if they put garbage on the floor then people (like me), will not put up that money any more that they need to keep their team from going in the red.  That's why its not such an easy decision to "yeah, lets just tank".

So please, consider this perspective next time you want to advise the team to tank.  My heart fills up with a little bit of hate every time I read it.

.edit: Mind the language please. We run a family friendly site. No masked profanity either

Edit:  my apology

I feel you pain about having to shell out money for season tickets as if the team is a contender when we are going into rebuild mode, but you realize there is a huge waiting list for Celtics season tickets right?

Part of being a season ticket holder is sticking with the team through the bad times so you still have those tickets in the good times. I know plenty of people who had Patriots season tickets or Celtics season tickets and gave them up during our years of futility and regretted it once we were winning again.

That being said I would expect management to be dropping your prices for next season significantly (even just for the one year) as a thank you for sticking with the team. I have a feeling that during our rebuild that waiting list is going to start shrinking fast.

[SHAQATTACK]

Don't like tanking either...as a fan  it sucks......

But the NBA has constructed the rules and cap limits to the point it hard or impossible to BUY or SHOP for a championship caliber team.   In the old days if the Lakers or Celtics needed a player , they simply paid more .

SO now the only advantage  attraction  left is LOCATION - WARM WEATHER ........that didn't matter in the 50-80's   ....what mattered was basketball and money .....now its about hanging with the movie stars and living in CA. ( how shallow we have become)

California tossing there money away on liberal projects is driving up taxes and that will help run off many athletes or wealthy

Lower your taxes and people will come......see FLORIDA , TX

[PhoSita]

You'll pay good money for the next decade if they get a fresh new star or two in next year's draft.


Tanking is what business folks call an "investment."

[BballTim]

You'll pay good money for the next decade if they get a fresh new star or two in next year's draft.


Tanking is what business folks call an "investment."

  And if they *don't* get a new star or two?

  Tanking is what business folks call a crapshoot at best.

[action781]

You'll pay good money for the next decade if they get a fresh new star or two in next year's draft.


Tanking is what business folks call an "investment."

BBallTim made a good point.

But even if it were an "investment", People don't by tickets as an investment.  People buy them to watch a good basketball team.