It is one thing if you want to tank because you are excited by the small chance of finding a franchise talent through the draft. I have no problem with this. There are many ways of building a team.
If you are going to argue that tanking is the BEST way to build a team, then I expect some sound argument backed up with facts.
I don't want to presume to speak for Larry here, but this is an argument that has raged between pro-tankers and anti-tankers all summer long, and I think that there's a basic misconception -- or, perhaps, a half-purposeful misunderstanding -- that is at work.
When people advocate for tanking as an avenue for a rebuild, I usually take the meaning of "rebuild" in that context to be a desire to build a truly elite team."Elite" meaning perennially winning 55-60 games, challenging for a top 5 record in the league, with a realistic shot at winning a championship. What's more, I think the implication is usually that such a "rebuild" would mean not one season like that, or even a handful, but ideally an extended period of being one of the best teams in the league (i.e. a "dynasty").
By looking at the state of the NBA now and in the past, we can see that building a team that competes at that level for that period of time requires you to have multiple superstar talents, at least one of which is a top 5-10 talent, a player who can stake a claim to the MVP trophy each and every season in which they are healthy enough to compete for the majority of 82 games. It is simply not enough to have a handful of secondary All-Stars.
My feeling is that those who are "anti-tank" are usually not necessarily talking about this kind of scenario when they protest, vociferously, that there is no evidence that tanking is the best way to rebuild.
Often, such arguments will refer to the fact that many, many teams toil through losing season after losing season and yet do not come up with a franchise superstar, and never reach that holy mountaintop of contention. Those teams instead just suck, endlessly.
Here's my point:
Is tanking the best way to rebuild? It depends on what the ultimate goal of your rebuild is. Is tanking the most reliable way to build your franchise back to respectability? By "respectability" I mean that your team is relevant and reasonably enjoyable to watch during the regular season, the playoffs are pretty much guaranteed, and your team has a shot at winning at least one playoff series.
My answer is that no, all-out tanking is not the best way to do that. To get to respectability, I think you can take a more measured approach, without ever completely bottoming out. If you just make smart moves via trade and free agency and draft well in the mid to late lottery, you'll have a really good chance at building a respectable team with a competitive core that will last you for a number of years.
Moreover, bridging the gap between one era of respectability and another shouldn't take more than a handful of years if you play your cards right, barring really bad luck. If your franchise is located in a major city, as opposed to a small market, your job is even easier.
Building a "dynasty," though? Actually winning a championship, and especially multiple championships? That is exceptionally difficult to do without having high lottery picks at your disposal -- however you choose to use them. The only sure way to get high lottery picks is to be terrible for at least one or two seasons.
The best chance you have at building a truly elite team as defined above is to lose a lot of games.
For the historical proof of this assertion, consult any of the myriad of posts made by "pro-tankers" who list all of the championship teams of the past 30 years or so (what we might call the Modern Era of the NBA), noting the methods that those teams used to acquire their best players.
Nevertheless, the difficulty with setting as your primary goal the construction of a "dynasty" is that your odds aren't great. Even relatively well-run teams have stumbled through years and years of mediocrity and inconsistency in the hunt for that Hall of Fame talent. The nature of the lottery is that it's a crap shoot. You can be the smartest guy in the room, but the odds are still awful.
Not every team that lands that historic combo of superstars even wins a championship. The true greats of the game have left dozens of not-quite-as-great teams in the wake of their decades of dominance.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that "respectability" is too low a goal, but "dynasty" is hoping for a bit too much. It's easy to get caught up in pining only for championship glory. I get trapped in that frequently. Like every other Celtics fan, I've been spoiled the past few years.
After the team spends a while in the purgatory of "player development," which inevitably brings with it tons of "player turnover" and not much you can really safely invest yourself in, I think simply having a stable, competitive team to root for will seem like a lot.
In any case, I think we should all expect that Danny will do everything he can to guide the team back to being truly competitive, not merely respectable -- hopefully for an extended period of time. But even a 3 year window, as was originally expected with the Big 3, would be exciting and fun. If we end up with a dynasty, then that's just our fantastic luck.
Nevertheless, I do think that the best and quickest way for Danny to restock the team with elite talent is to give him some high lottery picks to work with. 
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Topic: To Tank or Not To Tank, That is the Question (Read 66246 times)