Scase wrote:Are you suggesting that while we had OG and Siakam on the team we were tanking?
I can fully understand if people want to consider trading those 2 away as when the tank began, I don't agree but I can see the rationale. But there is no way anyone can reliably argue we've been tanking the whole season. So at best we started "tanking" 41 games into the season once Siakam was gone. I would hardly call that the majority of the season.
And my argument is that we didn't go into full tank until the injuries, which again was with like 25 games remaining. I'm by no means suggesting my definition of tanking is the be all end all, but there has got to be at least a base line, and 41 games would have to be the absolute earliest anyone could realistically call this a tank.
Prior to the injuries we were running a full starting 5, and giving limited to no minutes to the rookies/bad players we have. Sacrificing winning to focus on development is a pretty key part of actual tanking.
Prior vs Post Scottie injury :
Ochai 14.2mpg vs 24.5mpg
Nwora 11.7mpg vs 16mpg
Gradey 15.3mpg vs 28.8mpg
McDaniels 8.8mpg vs 13mpg
Jontay 13mpg vs 15.8mpg
Sure looks a lot more like we are sacrificing wins for development there. I get it, more injuries = more minutes, but lets not pretend that there wasn't a very obvious shift since the injuries occurred.
After 40 games and a 37.5% win percentage, if we were to have the same record for the second half of the season we'd end up with 30 to 32 wins and between 50 and 52 losses and much closer to Brooklyn (#8 best odds) or Utah (#9 best odds) in the draft lottery standings.
Considering that record also falls just short of making the play-in tournament, the "best case scenario" for the second half of the season after we traded two (2) of the best starters on our team would be to miss the play-in tournament, but still have to send our lottery pick to the Spurs because it wasn't protected as one of the top 6 selections.
For the next 19 games though, we actually played worse than we had previously by quite a meaningful degree, and if we were to maintain such a 31.5% win percentage for the remaining 23 games of the season, our record would predictably have been 28 wins and 54 losses (34% win percentage).
With such a record, we'd place somewhere between Brooklyn (#8 best odds) and Memphis (#7 best odds) in the draft lottery standings and most likely still have to send our lottery pick to the Spurs because it wasn't one of the top 6 selections.
Without Scottie we've only won a single game (1 win, 12 losses = 7% win percentage) and could go the rest of the season without another one so while I would agree we've been tanking since at least the beginning of March, I also wouldn't argue with alone who thought the decision was made after the OG trade with the impending Siakam trade still yet to come since we knew the direction we were going to take with the team as we re-built it around Scottie and retaining our pick this year (top 6) to go along with the others we had acquired would be more ideal than conveying what would likely be a top 10 pick to the Spurs.
Even if we don't win another game for the rest of the season Charlotte (#4) would have to win 5 of its last 10 games (50% win percentage) and/or Portland (#5 best odds) would have to win 4 of its last 9 games (45% win percentage) before we'd catch up to either of them in the draft lottery odds and while that's unlikely to happen, the Raptors tanking efforts could still use some more steam to maintain the gap between us and the Grizzlies and help ensure we get to keep our pick as one of the top 6 selections...