Shakril wrote:Steelo Green wrote:The Raptors were with Fred, Pascal and OG and were a lottery team but somehow without them, we are too good to tank?
Thunder with Shai tanked but somehow Raptors are too good to do it.
Wolves, Thunder, Celtics, Mavs are minus the Nuggets who are obviously a historical outlier the contenders in the NBA. All come from lottery picks and tanking.
We aren't even close.
Wolves needed 2 decades of beeing terrible. Only a good example for bad managment, but not a good one for tanking.
Celtics had one "bad" season in the last 10 years and that was 2013/14 with a 25-59 record, which is still higher than a tanking team would have. Every other year they were in the Playoffs. I dont see where the Celtics have tanked to become good.
Mavs worst season in recent years was 2017/2018; 24-58 and thats not even bad for a "tanking" team. Before and after they were always above 30 Wins. That is not tanking thats playing hard, despite beeing bad.
Nuggets isnt an outlier, its how championship teams are built. They give their young core time to develop and over time it pays off.
But they dont lose just to have a better pick.
And regarding the Thunder, there seems to be a big misconception about.
After the George Paul, Westbrook, Carmleo Fiasko they were forced to make a firesale as long as their assetts were worth something. Of course after that this team then was terrible, but it didnt cheat the game by losing on purpose - they competed.
Their record since then was:
2021: 22 - 50
2022: 24 - 48
2023: 40 - 42
2024: 57 - 25
Most notably, they improved from year to year.
The first two years they simply were a bad team, but they developed their players by playing hard.
Most of their assetts came also through trading - not through tanking.
Of course beeing cautions with Shai was the right choice, but it was not about losing them games. It was about giving shai the time he needed to be healthy again and it paid off.
OKC didnt care if their record was 10-72 or 30-52, they wanted to develop their players. And thats how you do it.
Essentially it took them 2 years to be in the mix again.
To sum it up:
All your examples for tanking are false. If you want an example for tanking: Look at what the Pistons are doing or 76ers have done. Essentially they failed to develop their Players or/and to build around their talent. Continuity comes into mind.
Embid is everything thats left of the 76ers Tank years and the best they managed was the 2nd round in the Playoffs.
After beeing terrible so many years, you would think they achieve more than that.
OKC is about to eclipse them in their first try.
Back to the Raptors comparsion to OKC:
Raptors are in a different spot than OKC was then. Raptors have 4 young players (Dick, Barnes, Quickley, RJ) that they can build with, they have 1 veteran (Poeltl) on the roster who is young enough and can be part of that team in the future. The rest will be replaced if the opportunity arises. Essentially you already have 5 players for the rotation.
If Barnes is our Shai, than you already have what you want and just need to develop and let them compete. If you dont think Barnes is it, then explore all options to aquire the talent and/or entice a starplayer by beeing a up and coming team, which means - compete.
Tanking only ruins the development of the players and annoys them, which leads them to leave a team.
And after all that you still can strike out on good talent and stand there with empty hands.
