The real cost of not tanking

[Moranis]

is ending up with a player that is thought of less than a gimp project from Cameroun. Glad to see Hood made it out of the first round. Looks like a nice kid.

I cannot get the song 'where is the love' off my mind right now.

Where is the fireworks promised by the Cs.

This has been one disappointing season.

I hope we have learned our lesson, and TANK HARD next season.

just to point out the obvious -- tanking achieved nothing.  Cleveland -- not the team with the worst record nor a team with a record worse than us -- won the lottery.  this year was just more proof that the lottery is a crapshoot and pinning your hopes on winning it is foolhardy at best. 

Philly was the prime example of all out tank effort this year and they still only got the 3rd pick. 

I'd rather have the team play to win and just let the chips fall where they may.

yeah but the Bucks and Sixers that did tank also got very good prospects both with much higher ceilings than Smart.

[GreenWarrior]

is ending up with a player that is thought of less than a gimp project from Cameroun. Glad to see Hood made it out of the first round. Looks like a nice kid.

I cannot get the song 'where is the love' off my mind right now.

Where is the fireworks promised by the Cs.

This has been one disappointing season.

I hope we have learned our lesson, and TANK HARD next season.

if our intent was to "tank" I think we would have done a better job of it.

[Fafnir]

Eh we could have been in position for Exum/Gordon but I don't think we're out-tanking any of the bottom two.

[Eja117]

Tanking. Doesn't. Work.

Never did. Never will.

The only thing that works to win the lottery is to be the Cavs and preferably send Gilbert's kid with the bow tie and glasses.

Which is fine, but if you're the Cavs you'll never be good because you're the Cavs. You'll see the player take their talents to a beach.

So the lottery never works.

Last time we tanked?  Billups/Mercier?  This time? Exact same thing but probably not as bad and our young players actually won a game every once in a while.

[LilRip]

The tanking got us Smart and Young, which is a pretty good haul IMO. I'm excited to see them in action, particularly Smart.

You know what NOT tanking gets you? Capped out with a disgruntled all star and a cast of role players good enough to win but not good enough to make the playoffs. Im not talking about us. See: Minnesota.

just being a bad team got us Smart and Young -- 2 players that look like they'll be solid NBA players for years.  What Philly did was what I call tanking and seems to be what the OP is saying the C's should have done.  That's my bone of contention -- gutting their team of almost all talent didn't get them the top pick and in the end, they didn't need the top pick to get arguably the top player in the draft.

Eh, it was a weird year. I thought the tank was in when Ainge didn't sign a center, and when he traded away both Crawford and Lee. I don't think the players or the coaches ever played to lose (though I think BS was given room to experiment with lineups), but it seemed that Ainge certainly was.

Also, the Sixers got a top 3 pick for their tank, which would have been one of Wiggins, Parker or Embiid. So for all the talk about gutting their roster and trading Hawes and Turner for 3 second rounders or something (I forget the deals and am too preoccupied to look it up now), you could actually make the case that they traded Hawes+Turner for the rights to Joel Embiid and 3 2nd round picks. Not a bad trade IMO.

Ask yourself, would you trade Green-Bradley-Smart for Wiggins/Parker (assuming Embiid was healthy) plus a future first rounder and 2 future 2nd rounders? I don't think you could get other teams to agree to that right now.

[BballTim]

is ending up with a player that is thought of less than a gimp project from Cameroun. Glad to see Hood made it out of the first round. Looks like a nice kid.

I cannot get the song 'where is the love' off my mind right now.

Where is the fireworks promised by the Cs.

This has been one disappointing season.

I hope we have learned our lesson, and TANK HARD next season.

just to point out the obvious -- tanking achieved nothing.  Cleveland -- not the team with the worst record nor a team with a record worse than us -- won the lottery.  this year was just more proof that the lottery is a crapshoot and pinning your hopes on winning it is foolhardy at best. 

Philly was the prime example of all out tank effort this year and they still only got the 3rd pick. 

I'd rather have the team play to win and just let the chips fall where they may.

yeah but the Bucks and Sixers that did tank also got very good prospects both with much higher ceilings than Smart.

  Right now we don't know the ceiling of any of the top picks in the draft. It's rarely the case that the top picks are all better than all of the picks after them.

[knuckleballer]

Tanking. Doesn't. Work.

Never did. Never will.

The only thing that works to win the lottery is to be the Cavs and preferably send Gilbert's kid with the bow tie and glasses.

Which is fine, but if you're the Cavs you'll never be good because you're the Cavs. You'll see the player take their talents to a beach.

So the lottery never works.

Last time we tanked?  Billups/Mercier?  This time? Exact same thing but probably not as bad and our young players actually won a game every once in a while.

Tim Duncan and the Spurs and the Thunder say hello.

[Future Celtics Owner]

is ending up with a player that is thought of less than a gimp project from Cameroun. Glad to see Hood made it out of the first round. Looks like a nice kid.

I cannot get the song 'where is the love' off my mind right now.

Where is the fireworks promised by the Cs.

This has been one disappointing season.

I hope we have learned our lesson, and TANK HARD next season.

just to point out the obvious -- tanking achieved nothing.  Cleveland -- not the team with the worst record nor a team with a record worse than us -- won the lottery.  this year was just more proof that the lottery is a crapshoot and pinning your hopes on winning it is foolhardy at best. 

Philly was the prime example of all out tank effort this year and they still only got the 3rd pick. 

I'd rather have the team play to win and just let the chips fall where they may.

yeah but the Bucks and Sixers that did tank also got very good prospects both with much higher ceilings than Smart.

  Right now we don't know the ceiling of any of the top picks in the draft. It's rarely the case that the top picks are all better than all of the picks after them.

If you go by stats Smart is the best prospect. And when he shoots better he will be the best prospect.