drsd wrote:The1llness wrote:Meanwhile the Heat rebuilt from the Big 3 by going bargain bin shopping and pulling out Whiteside & Waiters and are now the hottest team in 2017. Not to mention they're doing this while having a cap albatross in Chris Bosh and haven't been without Winslow most of the year.
Oh to have competent management.
The anti-Tank core arises!
This articulates why tanking does not work. Look at Boston. That team also built itself up without lottery luck AND traded for what will be a top-3 pick in the coming draft.
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There are far more examples of non-tanking teams rising to the top of their conference than tanking teams. Statistically speaking, tanking is an inferior strategy, and that has been proven out. But the tanking crowd doesn't want to listen to this.
It's human nature to want to "get rich quick" rather than work for your money. Tanking is like graduating from high school and deciding to play the lottery every day instead of going to college, getting an entry-level job, and working your way up.
Tanking has three enormous flaws -- 1) You are not guaranteed a top 3 pick; 2) If you get a top 3 pick, you are not guaranteed a star; and, 3) in the process of rolling the dice on 1 and 2, you build a losing culture and your players don't develop the way they would in a winning atmosphere.
Make no mistake about it, the Magic tanked for 3+ years. In year 4 they were arguably still tanking (did not add any higher tier free agents to improve the team and traded away Tobias for expiring contracts midway through season), but Skiles got them to over-achieve and win 35 games. They weren't that good. The strategy of bottoming-out, signing only scrub free agents for 4 consecutive summers and starting all 21-year-olds from Day 1 will have Rob Hennigan looking for a job this summer. Yes, he just missed out on Embiid and Porzingis -- but the Magic were not that close in the win column to the teams immediately above them those years. In other words, tanking a little harder would not have made a difference.
People like to use Hinkie and the Sixers as an example of what the Magic should have done. Really? How many years in a row has Philadelphia gutted its team, sat out players with fake injuries, and lost on purpose? At least 5, right? And what do they have to show for it? MCW, gone. Noel, gone. Embiid, may never be healthy. No evidence to show he can last even half of an NBA season. And the big prize, Simmons, might be a superstar...but might not. And if he does become one, when will that be? And how good will the team be? The Sixers are as bad as we are, with a little more hope. But that hope is currently a name on a piece of paper.
He ruined this rebuild by trying to speed it up. 
