Do we really need to tank......

[guava_wrench]

Do we need to tank? No, we need to make sure we know what our players are made of (because we don't, really, with a collection of former second guns and rookies) -- and we're not going to do this by telling him to lose games.

This is a strawman, as no one is telling players to lose. When we tanked for Duncan, no one told the players to lose games. GMs assemble lineups that forward looking, ditching currently better players for future value. That is what tanking is. It has nothing to do with having players not play hard.

Another part of tanking is resting your best players when they have minor ailments, like Pierce in 2007 with his elbow. But, to be honest, why play your hurt franchise player with nothing at stake?

The tank talk is 80% hype.

[Celtics18]

I find most tank talk silly. Baseball teams trade their best players to minor-leaguers midseason all the time. Teams give up on winning all the time. It is misleading to talk as if teams on the court are losing on purpose. They are trying to win every night. But a smart GM is willing to give up on a season to acquire assets. It would be stupid to do otherwise.

Whatever players you have will play hard. They don't get better contracts for tanking, so players don't tank for the draft. But GMs give up their best players and decide to prepare for the future all the time. Ainge did this.

Looking at KG and Pierce in NJ, it is starting to look like we were doomed either way. Both are very near the end. Even with them, we would not have been that good.

Talking as if players are losing on purpose is just fans talking hypothetical nonsense.

This may, to a certain extent, be what Ainge was trying to do this off-season.  Of course, there's also the chance that this team outplays expectations.  I'm sure he's prepared for that as well, and will welcome the positives that come with having a young team pull together and win games when everyone was counting them out. 

It looks to me like Ainge and everybody else will have to prepare to deal with the possibility of not getting a top ten lottery pick this summer. 
 

[kozlodoev]

Do we need to tank? No, we need to make sure we know what our players are made of (because we don't, really, with a collection of former second guns and rookies) -- and we're not going to do this by telling him to lose games.

This is a strawman, as no one is telling players to lose. When we tanked for Duncan, no one told the players to lose games. GMs assemble lineups that forward looking, ditching currently better players for future value. That is what tanking is. It has nothing to do with having players not play hard.

Another part of tanking is resting your best players when they have minor ailments, like Pierce in 2007 with his elbow. But, to be honest, why play your hurt franchise player with nothing at stake?

The tank talk is 80% hype.

It's not a straw man. Tanking teams are and have been coached to lose before -- by giving extended run to inferior players, even if it's clear that they're not skilled enough to be in any sort of future plans (the proverbial "developing young talent", except that the young talent is, say, someone like Gabe Pruitt who you're playing in favor of someone like Gerald Wallace). Which, in effect, is telling everyone that you're not putting together your best effort to win.

What you're saying, of course, is also true. But that might be just as well. I want this team to keep everyone they have, field their best lineups, and try to win every game.

[lightspeed5]

82 game season. we won a couple. we're going to lose a lot.

our plan was to lose everything except the heat games.

[chambers]

We are rebuilding. We are tanking. It just depends how hard we want to tank.

We've got the front office and GM constructing a team built of young, promising talent with a few veteran trade chips. We have one star, but he's not a superstar. (In most people's opinions he's not at least).
We are already tanking in my opinion because of the roster we have.
It's been built that way. You can agree or not, but it's something that's stood out to me.

Anyway- that's the first step of tanking.
I'm still not 100% on whether Stephens has been given the green light to sit certain players at crucial times. He's obviously still experimenting with line ups.
What is confusing is how much time J. Crawford is getting. I think they're parading him to increase his trade value. Thing is, he can leave next season so I believe they intend to package Crawford with Bass or Humphries and send them to a contender as some solid bench guys.
We are sitting Humphries- when he is clearly better than the time he's getting. If we wanted to win more games, Hump would get more time. Wallace and Bass are being paraded just like Crawford. Sully and Olynyk are genuine 'keepers' at this point. We'll hold on to them unless they are required to get someone like Durant in a trade.

I think the reason we do need to partly tank- at least from the roster stand point, is because you want to develop your young guys. You want to find that gem. You also want their worth at 100% come trade deadline.

Basically by strategically tanking, we are preparing ourselves to get better, quicker- in pretty much every way possible.

Our trade assets develop. Our young guys develop- and we increase our chances at gaining a special player via the draft.
We'll have that pick in the top 10, that we can draft a stud with- or we can use it to trade for a stud. That pick is much harder to find between picks 15-20 than picks 5-10. History tells us this.

We'll know if we're truly tanking coming All Star break/ trade deadline. Problem is even if Rondo comes back by January there's a decent chance that Bass, Green,Crawford, Lee and Avery are all gone by February via trades. Wallace is a huge contract so I can't see him going anywhere unless we trade Rondo or our own lottery pick.

The Magic started last season 13 wins 14 losses and finished bottom. It's too early to see how hard/far we'll be tanking- and much of it rests on the trade opportunities we get for Rondo, Wallace, Bass and Green.

[pokeKingCurtis]

What is confusing is how much time J. Crawford is getting. I think they're parading him to increase his trade value.

Come on, man!

Just look at his freaking stats!

Shooting nearly 50% from the floor, cut down on his turnovers, APG is well above career average despite playing relatively few minutes...

Then you watch what he does on the floor. Stevens really has this talented young misfit on a leash. Craw still takes crazy shots but no longer does so with the same reckless abandon as before. He's now more confident than insane, pumping energy and life into the team. Not a pure point guard but certainly capable as a placeholder (more props to Stevens cutting the ABPG experiment short to 4/5 games).

Are you're one of those who are still enamored with Marshon Brooks?

[dreamgreen]

Win or lose Danny has to find ways to bring in better talent. Nice thing is Bass and Crawford are starting to look like they may have value to other teams, like to find a new home for Lee also.

Need to trim down the payroll, if we want to make any moves in free agency, not sure there will be any players worth chasing though.

[thirstyboots18]

who on this team could lead us to a championship?
Green is far too inconsistent.

  I'd go with the player who's led the team on deep playoff runs in the past. He'll be back soon enough.

Just like Chris Paul lead the Hornets or Clippers to a title? I mean, that KG guy and Paul Pierce really didn't have much to do with it.

They did, Hpantazo,  not because of their scoring...but because of their teamwork.  Stevens is starting to mold this group into a "team" too.  As scoring stars of their teams, neither Pierce no Garnett had been successful at taking home a championship.

[Celtics18]

82 game season. we won a couple. we're going to lose a lot.

our plan was to lose everything except the heat games.

What went wrong against Orlando and Utah?

[D.o.s.]

We are rebuilding. We are tanking. It just depends how hard we want to tank.

We've got the front office and GM constructing a team built of young, promising talent with a few veteran trade chips. We have one star, but he's not a superstar. (In most people's opinions he's not at least).
We are already tanking in my opinion because of the roster we have.
It's been built that way. You can agree or not, but it's something that's stood out to me.

Anyway- that's the first step of tanking.
I'm still not 100% on whether Stephens has been given the green light to sit certain players at crucial times. He's obviously still experimenting with line ups.
What is confusing is how much time J. Crawford is getting. I think they're parading him to increase his trade value. Thing is, he can leave next season so I believe they intend to package Crawford with Bass or Humphries and send them to a contender as some solid bench guys.
We are sitting Humphries- when he is clearly better than the time he's getting. If we wanted to win more games, Hump would get more time. Wallace and Bass are being paraded just like Crawford. Sully and Olynyk are genuine 'keepers' at this point. We'll hold on to them unless they are required to get someone like Durant in a trade.

I think the reason we do need to partly tank- at least from the roster stand point, is because you want to develop your young guys. You want to find that gem. You also want their worth at 100% come trade deadline.

Basically by strategically tanking, we are preparing ourselves to get better, quicker- in pretty much every way possible.

Our trade assets develop. Our young guys develop- and we increase our chances at gaining a special player via the draft.
We'll have that pick in the top 10, that we can draft a stud with- or we can use it to trade for a stud. That pick is much harder to find between picks 15-20 than picks 5-10. History tells us this.

We'll know if we're truly tanking coming All Star break/ trade deadline. Problem is even if Rondo comes back by January there's a decent chance that Bass, Green,Crawford, Lee and Avery are all gone by February via trades. Wallace is a huge contract so I can't see him going anywhere unless we trade Rondo or our own lottery pick.

The Magic started last season 13 wins 14 losses and finished bottom. It's too early to see how hard/far we'll be tanking- and much of it rests on the trade opportunities we get for Rondo, Wallace, Bass and Green.

Crawford's an RFA, same as Bradley. So the C's can play them as often as they want, knowing they're in the driver's seat as far as retaining their services.

[thirstyboots18]

82 game season. we won a couple. we're going to lose a lot.

our plan was to lose everything except the heat games.

"Our" plan?  Who is the "we" in "our"?  It wasn't even a blip on my hope for a plan....

[BballTim]

who on this team could lead us to a championship?
Green is far too inconsistent.

  I'd go with the player who's led the team on deep playoff runs in the past. He'll be back soon enough.

Just like Chris Paul lead the Hornets or Clippers to a title? I mean, that KG guy and Paul Pierce really didn't have much to do with it.

  Sorry, I missed Chris Paul leading the Hornets or Clippers to a title. And, yes, KG and PP had something to do with the Celts getting to the finals and the ECF. Just like players like Wade and Bosh had something to do with the Heat winning the last 2 titles, although I doubt you'd protest the claim that LeBron led those teams to titles, or make some weird claim that Rose and Durant had led their teams to titles.

  "led a team to a deep playoff run" doesn't mean "single-handedly led the team" or "was the only player on the team who made any kind of positive contribution". Except in the case of Rondo, where claiming he led a team anywhere is like waiving a red cape in front of a bull.

[footey]

with the exception of rondo, none of our personnel are starters for a championship team. My best guess is that most will be gone by the time we hoist 18 into the rafters.  We don't need to tank, but this is not the personnel of a 40 win team.  See us in the upper 20 lower 30 win realm.  Enough to work out a couple of interesting trades on draft day, not unlike 2007.

[D.o.s.]

who on this team could lead us to a championship?
Green is far too inconsistent.

  I'd go with the player who's led the team on deep playoff runs in the past. He'll be back soon enough.

Just like Chris Paul lead the Hornets or Clippers to a title? I mean, that KG guy and Paul Pierce really didn't have much to do with it.

  Sorry, I missed Chris Paul leading the Hornets or Clippers to a title. And, yes, KG and PP had something to do with the Celts getting to the finals and the ECF. Just like players like Wade and Bosh had something to do with the Heat winning the last 2 titles, although I doubt you'd protest the claim that LeBron led those teams to titles, or make some weird claim that Rose and Durant had led their teams to titles.

  "led a team to a deep playoff run" doesn't mean "single-handedly led the team" or "was the only player on the team who made any kind of positive contribution". Except in the case of Rondo, where claiming he led a team anywhere is like waiving a red cape in front of a bull.

This year marks the first year that Rondo's the undisputed best player on the team. Any "leading" he'll do happens from here on out, based on the common use of the term "lead."

etc.

so on. so forth.

That's why you can say that Durant or Rose lead their teams and why Rondo's case is a little trickier to make.

[BballTim]

who on this team could lead us to a championship?
Green is far too inconsistent.

  I'd go with the player who's led the team on deep playoff runs in the past. He'll be back soon enough.

Just like Chris Paul lead the Hornets or Clippers to a title? I mean, that KG guy and Paul Pierce really didn't have much to do with it.

  Sorry, I missed Chris Paul leading the Hornets or Clippers to a title. And, yes, KG and PP had something to do with the Celts getting to the finals and the ECF. Just like players like Wade and Bosh had something to do with the Heat winning the last 2 titles, although I doubt you'd protest the claim that LeBron led those teams to titles, or make some weird claim that Rose and Durant had led their teams to titles.

  "led a team to a deep playoff run" doesn't mean "single-handedly led the team" or "was the only player on the team who made any kind of positive contribution". Except in the case of Rondo, where claiming he led a team anywhere is like waiving a red cape in front of a bull.

This year marks the first year that Rondo's the undisputed best player on the team. Any "leading" he'll do happens from here on out, based on the common use of the term "lead."

etc.

so on. so forth.

That's why you can say that Durant or Rose lead their teams and why Rondo's case is a little trickier to make.

  Rondo's been the best player on the Celts for years. And, again, it's a trickier case because of the different standards for Rondo. How far did Durant lead the Thunder when Westbrook was injured? Was anyone besides me watching the Celts beating the Heat in 2012 before Bosh came back? The bulk of the people who will tell you that Rondo needing KG or PP to win shows that he wasn't leading the team will take the opposite stance with the players I mentioned above. That's what makes it tricky.