Why teams today can't build without tanking(Suns case study)

[Durins Baynes]

That's a silly quote to cite. The argument is not "do a good job", it's that one method of team building is fantastically more likely to succeed (using the lottery, specifically getting top 10 picks, and usually much better than top 10).

[DBoys]

one method of team building is fantastically more likely to succeed (using the lottery, specifically getting top 10 picks, and usually much better than top 10).

If you believe that's true, prove it's true. For every team you claim has "succeeded" by tanking, is there one or more that has not? And if that's true, wouldn't that mean what you propose builds bad teams instead of good ones? You've made big claims but come nowhere close to proving that what you propose is far and away THE way to build a team - - nor have you even proved that it really works at all.

[Durins Baynes]

Dude, I spent large amounts of time on this thread proving just that. Did you read my posts properly?

There are like 2-3 dozen contenders post-99 (most of which I named or alluded to), and of all of them only a handful were constructed without top 10 lotto talent (usually much higher than top 10). The handful of exceptions I broke down to explain (Houston, the Lakers, etc).

Your methodology of "does it work more than not" is not the question we should be looking at. Only 1 team can win a title every year, so by default 29 teams "fail". It doesn't logically follow all those teams who "failed" were actually doing the wrong thing. What I've done is a more sensible way of looking at what works, namely looking at all the contenders who have existed post 99, and whether they were built by using lotto assets, or using other methods. And the overwhelming majority used the former.

In terms of percentages though, those also look favourably upon my thesis. Every year there are 3-4 all-nba type guys you can get in the top 10 (already mentioned), and the #1 pick has about a 70% chance of giving you a star type player (covered in depth). Conversely, there's been one guy like Harden available in the 15 years since the 99 CBA, a much worse %. There's been virtually no teams constructed in the post-99 CBA with alternate methods that led to contenders being created (and the few that have aren't emulatable). That should be the test, not "I want you to look at all 30 teams every year since 99 and tell me what their front office was thinking when they made move X". If you're not willing to trust my current analysis, you won't trust that more subjective one. If you disagree, I recommend you try to disprove what I've said (since I've provided quite a lot of evidence to get a discussion started).

[mysticbb]

The variance of the draft is one of the reasons its so appealing.

Yeah, and the variance of the draft is EXACTLY the reason why it is not a reliable strategy. It is simply luck. You just need to realise that a team basically needs 4 years of being the worst team in the league in order to get one 1st pick, and then you still have a 30% chance of ending with a bust. And that is just the case, if only one team would try that strategy. Now we can add those teams, which are just bad, because they couldn't get better players. Then we may add the other team which thinks tanking is a great idea or another ...

If the tanking effort has best success rate, meaning, the team is the worst team in each of the 4 years. It will end up in average with 1 1st pick, and 3 picks ranging from #2 to #4. For #2 to #4 you will get in average in a player being 0.8 standard deviations better than the average top30 pick, the #1 pick will be 1.8. Overall that makes about 4.2 standard deviations better with those 4 players on the court as an average for their career. That translates to about +6.3 points per 100 poss. That is your tanking effort. Now, that is a good core, but not good enough for a contender unless you can surround them with a clearly above average cast.

That the Thunder ended up with Durant, Westbrook and Harden with their 2nd, 4th and 3rd pick in 3 consecutive drafts is the exception, not the rule. That they additionally got Ibaka with the 24th pick is just simply luck. That they didn't just simply picked better than everyone else can be seen by their other choices. DJ White instead of Omar Asik? BJ Mullens instead of Taj Gibson?

So, and a team needs to get incredible lucky to get that one player who is worth building around by one tanking job. Even as the worst team, in 75% of the cases the team will not end up with that player! And that such a player is in a draft and rated as the best has about a 25% chance as well. So, and now you can calculate the odds that a team with the worst record will get the:

You can land a player that will make a difference.

That is the whole point of my posts. The chance isn't high at all, it is rather low. It is anything, but a reliable strategy. In fact, this kind of strategy will get a GM rather fired.

Here are where the most valuable contracts come from.
1) The superstar - They are worth far more than the max.
2) The star coming off their rookie scale contract - They are worth more than the max and are restricted.
3) Players on their 1st contract, rookie scale or otherwise.
4) Ring Chasers 1) 2) are needed

The issue with your list is that you are going only by the best possibility. Especially for plyaers on their 1st contracts, you are completely ignoring the fact that first round picks have 2 years guaranteed, while they usually need that time to develop or can be even not be as good as the contract asked for.
Yes, Kevin Durant was worth more than his contract, but what about Hasheem Thabeet? Greg Oden? Wesley Johnson? Michael Beasley? And the mighty Thunder picked Jeff Green with their 5th pick in 2007 not Joakim Noah!
A team simply needs luck to get the player; they need to get either lucky to get the 1st pick or lucky that any other team picking before them is overlooking the desired player.

Which means in turn, that Morey would also admit that he got lucky, if he got the good players via "bottoming-out-strategy". And btw, if I would be Morey, who wants his team to compete, I would also tell the world that "bottoming-out" is the superior strategy, because that eliminates competitors and increases the talent pool of the available players, because the "we-want-to-be-bad" teams will not sign them.

And no, it is not a good idea to sign a player to bargain contract and then turn around trading him, because chances are that nobody else will leave money on the table when signing with your team, especially not during the timeframe, when you need to surround that "difference maker" with an appropiate team.

Bottoming-out increases the odds you end up with a contender.

By how much? And who pays the bills during the time the team is bad? Given the facts, the only thing which will be increase with "bottoming-out" is that the team will be bad for quite some time. Take a look at the Blazers, Timberwolves, Bobcats, Kings, etc. pp. Heck, even the Thunder missed the playoffs for 4 years before making it again. And they were not just lucky with the players they drafted, but incredible lucky with being healthy for a long time. They ran out of that luck in the last playoffs.

Signing vets that slip through the cracks to short value contracts and flipping them for more picks/prospects

Do that, and you don't get the vets to sign with your team, when you need them in order to build a good team around your "difference maker".

5) using your cap room to add free agents to your value contracts.

Which is, as I said before, a very short time period. In that time period the Cavs had to sign Larry Hughes, because nobody else was available. The Magic signed Rashard Lewis, the Blazers couldn't even get Turkoglu to sign, etc. pp.

In the end, the big part of that proposal here is that a team should manage their assets well. Yeah, great Captain Obvious. The other part is "being bad by choice", which NOBODY in this thread showed so far being a good idea.
If you need a high pick, damn, if you are smart, trade for such a pick instead of trying to be as bad as possible. Because as the reality shows, a bad team is likely bad again, especially when they have established that losing mentality. And then we come to other business parts: Like the TV deal? You better not run out of that contract during your tanking effort. How about other sponsors? Will they like it, if you get their money and in turn trying to be as bad as possible? How about the season-ticket holders, who renewed their tickets most times before the summer in which you start tanking? Is the chance to end up with a contender that big, that you can easily make up for all the lost money?

Dude, I spent large amounts of time on this thread proving just that.

No, you didn't. Using anectdotals is not a proof of anything. I tried to illustrate the issue at hand with the draft itself, but you simply dismissed the facts. The odds are low, much lower than you are anticipating, to get such great player in the draft to make a tanking effort worth it.


When we look through the most recent conference semi-finals teams:

Heat, got their best players via FA signing, their tanking job failed with Micheal Beasley
Spurs, got their best players via drafting well with late picks, the last "bottoming-out" was for Tim Duncan in 1997
Pacers, never bottomed out, got their better players with those picks a "treadmill team" gets
Grizzlies, started to be good after using their capspace to sign Zach Randolph, traded for an overlooked Marc Gasol. The best player on their team picked with an own pick is Mike Conley, hardly a difference maker. The rest of the players from their tanking efforts: OJ Mayo, left in FA, Hasheem Thabeet, released, yeah, tanking didn't really help them, but signing better players did
NY Knicks, used mediocre picks to select talented players which they traded for Carmelo Anthony, signed Chandler in FA; in fact, signed half their roster via FA
Bulls, got extremely lucky with the getting the 1st pick in 2008, never bottomed-out after their failures with that strategy from 1999 to 2004, because no difference maker was there. Signed Boozer in FA, used the Knicks pick for Noah, signed a cast in FA.
Thunder, tanked for Durant, Westbrook, got Ibaka in a draft, Martin via trading their own drafted Harden, clear tanking effort
Warriors, tanking effort failed, drafted Curry with a 7th pick, because the Timberwolves thought Flynn would be a better choice, tried to get competitive by signing FA like Lee, traded for better players like Bogut.

The reality does not suggest that tanking is a reliable strategy with great odds of getting a contender. But managing the assets well does, using the draft picks for the right players, sign good players in FA, trade for the right players, that's the strategy a team should use. That part of the proposal is true. The other part is just based on luck and the wrong impression that only little luck would be needed.

[Durins Baynes]

Yeah, and the variance of the draft is EXACTLY the reason why it is not a reliable strategy. It is simply luck.

Then why do teams like the Spurs and Thunder keep ending up with good players? I don't think the evidence for the draft being pure luck is strong.

You just need to realise that a team basically needs 4 years of being the worst team in the league in order to get one 1st pick, and then you still have a 30% chance of ending with a bust.

You have about a 33% chance of getting an all-nba type player in the top 10 though (so 3-4 in 10); I use a sampling of top 10 picks in the last 10 year period which is reasonably assessable at this point in time (2010-01). That's much better odds wise. What are the odds of getting James Harden? That's something that 1 team gets once in 15 years (so a 0.222% chance per year, as against a 33% chance- sounds like one is a heck of a lot more likely to me).

That the Thunder ended up with Durant, Westbrook and Harden with their 2nd, 4th and 3rd pick in 3 consecutive drafts is the exception, not the rule. That they additionally got Ibaka with the 24th pick is just simply luck. That they didn't just simply picked better than everyone else can be seen by their other choices. DJ White instead of Omar Asik? BJ Mullens instead of Taj Gibson?

Skill doesn't mean you always pick correctly, it's about averages (the same reason the best team in the NBA doesn't win all the games), and the Thunder (or Spurs) averages are fabulous. We've seen the Thunder get Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka, and now R.Jax from the draft, and I'd expect more good picks soon. Of course having better picks helps, but I don't think it's pure luck.

No, you didn't. Using anectdotals is not a proof of anything.

Actually it is, it's called heuristic reasoning, and it's often very effective (when lab tests with control groups aren't feasible). Pretty much all political science and philosophy is based on it in fact.

I tried to illustrate the issue at hand with the draft itself, but you simply dismissed the facts. The odds are low, much lower than you are anticipating, to get such great player in the draft to make a tanking effort worth it.

You chose a ridiculous sample and metric, with a ridiculous cut off, which in no way reflected a response to my thesis...

...and here's another

When we look through the most recent conference semi-finals teams:

Why are we looking only at recent conference semi-finals teams? Why aren't we looking at, I don't know, teams who you consider to be contenders in a given year, the starting point I've repeatedly suggested. There are obviously years (like 00-03) when the ECF's are not contenders, so why would we look at those teams in the analysis? Unless you're trying to be dishonest that is.

Then just look at this analysis below. It's like you don't even read my posts. For the 10th time- good lotto assets are a necessary, but not sufficient condition for contention (in 90% of cases basically). Yet you provide the same examples that ignore my premise, in order to rebut your own straw man of "every single part of a contender has to come from the lotto" (something nobody has said or believes).

Heat, got their best players via FA signing, their tanking job failed with Micheal Beasley

Yeh, we get it, Beasley was bad. But without tanking to get Wade, they never get Lebron or Bosh (or Shaq). That's what's meant by a "necessary, but not sufficient" condition. They don't necessarily need to get all their talent from the lotto, and it doesn't need to work every single year they tank, but it is an essential pre-condition (because without Wade, then FA fails).

Spurs, got their best players via drafting well with late picks, the last "bottoming-out" was for Tim Duncan in 1997

And again, this is covered. Of course, the Spurs have done a great job drafting. No disagreements there. But without Duncan, who they tanked for, they're never a contender- which is the point.

Pacers, never bottomed out, got their better players with those picks a "treadmill team" gets

A) Not a real contender, B) their best player was a top 10 pick. But these guys are closer to being an example than the previous 2 teams, sure.

Grizzlies, started to be good after using their capspace to sign Zach Randolph, traded for an overlooked Marc Gasol. The best player on their team picked with an own pick is Mike Conley, hardly a difference maker. The rest of the players from their tanking efforts: OJ Mayo, left in FA, Hasheem Thabeet, released, yeah, tanking didn't really help them, but signing better players did

Conley is their 2nd best player (The Grizz were fine when Z-Bo missed most of the season in 2012, and Rudy sure wasn't the difference maker- and if he was, he was a top 10 lotto pick too), and they drafted him near the top of the lotto. Like I said- an essential but not sufficient condition. Marc Gasol is somewhat lucky, but they also needed a top 3 pick they tanked for to trade for him (apparently), so it doesn't hold together either. The Grizz are also not quite a legit contender (though moreso than the Pacers), though I'm happy to count them for the purposes of this. They traded for Z-Bo btw, they didn't sign him.

NY Knicks, used mediocre picks to select talented players which they traded for Carmelo Anthony, signed Chandler in FA; in fact, signed half their roster via FA

- not a contender, plus they got Melo by trading a suite of players which included a top 6 pick (Gallo) and other assets. But let's say we ignore that, and Melo was going to come to NY anyway. That's not a plan teams outside NY/LA can plan for (i.e. almost all of them), so it's not an emulatable alternative strategy.

Bulls, got extremely lucky with the getting the 1st pick in 2008, never bottomed-out after their failures with that strategy from 1999 to 2004, because no difference maker was there. Signed Boozer in FA, used the Knicks pick for Noah, signed a cast in FA.

They got the Knicks pick by trading another high lotto pick who still had perceived lotto value and was coming off a career season (Eddy Curry). Rose was a top pick, highlighting the value of getting top 10 picks (my point), and they got Deng in the top 10 (by trading their unprotected pick next year, which the Suns at the time assumed would be a lotto pick- silly Suns, but given the Bulls record in recent years you can understand their surprise, the Bulls had sucked 6 years running then suddenly more than doubled their win record- which is what gave Eddy Curry the value he had, unfortunately his inability to keep taking diet meds and blood thinners without health risk meant that he couldn't repeat that seasons success, and soon fell into bad habits and fell off a cliff).

Thunder, tanked for Durant, Westbrook, got Ibaka in a draft, Martin via trading their own drafted Harden, clear tanking effort

So another example for my side.

Warriors, tanking effort failed, drafted Curry with a 7th pick, because the Timberwolves thought Flynn would be a better choice, tried to get competitive by signing FA like Lee, traded for better players like Bogut.

Their best player is Curry, who is a lotto pick they tanked for. Barnes was also the product of being willing to lose games, while Klay is 1 pick outside the top 10.

The reality does not suggest that tanking is a reliable strategy with great odds of getting a contender. But managing the assets well does, using the draft picks for the right players, sign good players in FA, trade for the right players, that's the strategy a team should use. That part of the proposal is true. The other part is just based on luck and the wrong impression that only little luck would be needed.

Except you're just wrong. Of the dozens of post 99 CBA contenders virtually all of them needed top lotto talent (i.e. top 10, but usually much higher) as a necessary component of their success- The Spurs, the Thunder, the Celtics, the Bulls, the current Nets, the Grizzlies (if we count them), the Warriors (if we count them), the Heat, the Mavs, the Lebron Cavs, the Dwight Magic, the Ming Rockets, the Clippers, the Pacers (if we count them), the Melo Nuggets (if we count them), the Suns, the KG Wolves, the Roy/LMA Blazers for that one year before the injuries finished them off, The Deron Jazz (if we count them), etc. Bear in mind, some of these are multiple incarnations of teams, like the Duncan Spurs, so these aren't just one off examples. Who's left?
- The 2000 Blazers (formed in the previous CBA, so obviously not applicable)
- The various incarnations of the Lakers (a product of the previous CBA which definitely couldn't be copied in today's CBA, not even by the Lakers)
- The current Rockets (covered already as being something so rare, you can't intelligently plan for it)
- The Webber/Peja Kings (formed in the old CBA, also not emulatable)
- The Pistons (technically this is one for my side, top draft pick Grant Hill was required to get their best player Ben Wallace, and Rip is a long story too, but they were basically a contender type team after Ben left so let's count them. They had 4 extremely unlikely things happen to allow them to get their 4 best players. I am happy to elaborate on this. I think a GM who planned to replicate this model should be fired, there's a reason Joe Dumars failed so badly trying to do it a second time)

So of the dozens of post-99 CBA contenders there is 1 and a half examples formed in defiance of my thesis (the Rockets and kinda, sorta the Pistons). Sounds like pretty horrible odds to me.

[mysticbb]

Actually it is, it's called heuristic reasoning, and it's often very effective (when lab tests with control groups aren't feasible). Pretty much all political science and philosophy is based on it in fact.

Yeah, choosing belief over knowledge, the basic element of heuristic reasoning. You may instead try deductive reasoning sometime, but in that case you would need to stick to facts which are in contradiction to your previously formed belief.

Btw, a team can get a top10 pick without choosing to be as bad as possible. And while you believe that the chances are at 33%, the reality will tell you that with one top10 pick the chances of getting a "diffence maker" are much lower. It is your belief, and your conclusion is based on a false assumption, no matter how much "heuristic reasoning" you want to apply here. What you are doing is just abritarily assign a team getting a better player in the draft with the term "tanking", which is easy to rationalize, if you avoid to define "tanking" in the first place. In that way you can always find a way to dismiss evidence to the contrary of your belief. And that's exactly what you did in this thread.

[Durins Baynes]

Actually that's not what it means. It's based on reasoning, just not the lab test variety, because that level of controlled lab data is not possible in pro sport.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic

No, the odds are about 33% if you have a top 10 pick. The odds don't change because you have one pick. Of course, you've ignored everything substantive I posted (as usual) to focus on stuff that is only tangentially relevant. Remind me why you keep replying to this thread? If you're going to keep dodging every time people try to bring up facts and analysis, what's the point?

[mysticbb]

Well, you didn't say anything "substantive" in regard to "tanking". You just made assumptions and wild speculations, picked arbritarily which teams tanked based on their success with drafted players as well as ignored the facts that much more teams failed with their tanking than succeeded. Then you went on arbritarily assigning players certain values while trying to dismiss the fact that injuries to players (even career-ending injuries) are a part of the reality, just in order to increase the amount of players supposedely fullfilling your desired level of play. Sure, you will even convince a couple of people who are also not able or willing to make an analysis based on facts and using deduction to come to a conclusion, but that will not change the chances of a team with "tanking" in reality at all.

In the other part you played Captain Obvious, and nobody denied that it is essential to manage the assets well in order to be successful.

The basic premise of that thread is essentially based on a failure in the human nature to look for a pattern, where only coincidence and luck are the deciding factors. But instead of accepting to live in a world based on probabilities, people try their best to rationalize any kind of stuff, because it seems to give comfort to them. That doesn't change the world at all, just the perception of things.

[Durins Baynes]

I said whether you categorised it as tanking was irrelevant. My contention was top 10 picks (and usually much higher than 10) were an essential component to building a contender in a post 99 CBA environment 9 times out of 10, analysing the post 99 contenders... to which you offered no reply. The point was not about "you must manage assets well", that's been explained to you about 10 times now, and yet you continue to fight this straw man with all your might.

[nodeal]

Signing vets that slip through the cracks to short value contracts and flipping them for more picks/prospects

Do that, and you don't get the vets to sign with your team, when you need them in order to build a good team around your "difference maker".

Yeah, giving under appreciated players money and then trading them to a win now team is going to cause future vets to not want to sign with you. You must think players are really dumb.

You also claim players prefer teams that have been competing for the playoffs. This is not true everything else equal players are going to prefer the teams with the brighter future not brighter past.

Which means in turn, that Morey would also admit that he got lucky, if he got the good players via "bottoming-out-strategy". And btw, if I would be Morey, who wants his team to compete, I would also tell the world that "bottoming-out" is the superior strategy, because that eliminates competitors and increases the talent pool of the available players, because the "we-want-to-be-bad" teams will not sign them.

Morey didnt say its the most optimal strategy because he wants others to tank. You think Morey wants hinkie to fail? You think he wants to hurt hinkie by encouraging others to tank? He says it because its true. Morey would love it if 16 teams stayed in 5-12 hell forever and he bounced back and forth from top to bottom. If he wanted to hurt other GMs he would have said.

Morey went on to say, doing whatever you can to not finish bottom 6 is the most optimal strategy for rebuilding teams.Bottoming out does not work trade your pick(s) prospects away if you have to, do not bottom out.

He would have then been the one gobbling up these picks and prospects.

2 teams with a star that wants out and not much else on the team. Two new GMs are brought in to fix this mess. 1st GM trades for picks prospects and bottoms out. 2nd GM trades for vets on short and/or average contracts and competes for 8th-9th. All other variables equal do you really believe the 2nd GM is going to have the brighter future?

[Durins Baynes]

I missed that gem. Apparently Morey is so ingenious and crafty, he puts out false ideas in public so that all the GM's crooning over his every word will copy him and fail. What a mastermind.

[mysticbb]

My contention was top 10 picks (and usually much higher than 10) were an essential component to building a contender in a post 99 CBA environment 9 times out of 10, analysing the post 99 contenders... to which you offered no reply.

There is really nothing to reply to, because that was the same before 1999 as well. Or wasn't Jordan a Top10 pick? Olajuwon? If your conclusion is "a good team needs talented players", nobody will deny that. If you want to say that "better players are usually picked higher", nobody will deny that. BUT the thread title says "tanking", which usually means "being bad by choice", and nothing in this thread showed that to be the superior strategy.

Btw, I wrote explicitely what I would do, if I would be Morey. I have no idea why Morey says things, whom he wants to fail or whatever, that is no concern of mine. I just know that appealing to authority doesn't replace deductive reasoning. Black or white doesn't it either. ;)

[Durins Baynes]

It actually wasn't the same before 99, that's how so many of the pre-99 formed contenders were able to exist without following this rule (the 90's Suns, the Kings/Blazers/Lakers who were contenders in the 00's but formed in the pre-99 system, the Jazz, the 97 Hawks, etc -that's only a 3rd of the time frame that has passed since 99, and I just named 3 times as many contenders as have been constructed since then). But you're again dodging the question, so I'll stop encouraging you. Either respond to the thesis I've posed or don't, but quit responding to one of your straw men which purports to tell me what my thesis "really" is.

[mysticbb]

Your "thesis" says that a team can't build without tanking. There was no evidence presented in this thread which would confirm this.

Pre 1999?

Champions

Bulls - Jordan, Pippen, both Top5 picks
Rockets - Olajuwon, #1
Pistons - Thomas, 2nd pick
Lakers - Magic
Celtics - Bird

Runner-up

Jazz - Malone 13th, Stockton 16th pick, incredible lucky in the draft
SuperSonics - Payton, 2nd pick
Magic - O'Neal, 1st pick
Knicks - Ewing, 1st pick
Suns - Kevin Johnson, 7th pick
Blazers - Drexler, 14th pick, got incredible lucky in the draft
Lakers - see above
Pistons - see above
Celtics - see above

CF teams:

Pacers - Smits, 2nd pick, Miller 11th pick, traded top10 pick Dampier for Mullins
Lakers - Jones, top10 pick
Heat - Mourning, 2nd pick
Rockets - see above
Magic - see above
Jazz - see above
Spurs - Robinson, 1st pick
Knicks - see above
Pacers - see above
Suns - see above
Cavs - Daugherty, 1st pick
Blazers - see above
Pistons - see above
Lakers - see above
Bulls - see above
Celtics - see above
Mavericks - Aguirre, 1st pick
Sonics - McDaniels, 4th pick
Bucks - Moncrief, 5th pick
Rockets - Sampson + Olajuwon
76ers - Barkley, 5th pick

That covers about all teams making at least the conference finals once between 1985 and 1998. The amount of teams without a Top10 pick? 2, Jazz and Blazers, two teams getting lucky with their 13th, 14th and 16th pick. Every other team had at least one own Top10 pick on the roster. No idea, but that doesn't look different at all to me.

Really, what you just found out is that a good team needs talent on the roster. That was always the case, going from Russell's Celtics to todays Heat, and the better talent was usually picked with a higher draft pick. But that doesn't mean, that a team needs to be deliberately bad in order to get such pick. There is also no conclusive evidence that being "deliberately bad" would decrease the time a team needs to develop or would give greater odds to become a contender.

The 1997 Hawks had Smith, which they traded for by using their 11th pick Willis and their 1st rounder, they had Blaylock, they traded their top10 pick Robinson for him, and they signed the 4th pick Mutombo in FA. Getting similar level or even better players today by using the same means of trading and signing FA? Houston Rockets. And a similar kind of contender last season as the 97 Hawks? Denver Nuggets, trading for Iguodala, Gallinari, Chandler, McGee, Brewer, etc. pp.

[Durins Baynes]

Your "thesis" says that a team can't build without tanking. There was no evidence presented in this thread which would confirm this.

Pre 1999?

Champions

Bulls - Jordan, Pippen, both Top5 picks
Rockets - Olajuwon, #1
Pistons - Thomas, 2nd pick
Lakers - Magic
Celtics - Bird

Runner-up

Jazz - Malone 13th, Stockton 16th pick, incredible lucky in the draft
SuperSonics - Payton, 2nd pick
Magic - O'Neal, 1st pick
Knicks - Ewing, 1st pick
Suns - Kevin Johnson, 7th pick
Blazers - Drexler, 14th pick, got incredible lucky in the draft
Lakers - see above
Pistons - see above
Celtics - see above

CF teams:

Pacers - Smits, 2nd pick, Miller 11th pick, traded top10 pick Dampier for Mullins
Lakers - Jones, top10 pick
Heat - Mourning, 2nd pick
Rockets - see above
Magic - see above
Jazz - see above
Spurs - Robinson, 1st pick
Knicks - see above
Pacers - see above
Suns - see above
Cavs - Daugherty, 1st pick
Blazers - see above
Pistons - see above
Lakers - see above
Bulls - see above
Celtics - see above
Mavericks - Aguirre, 1st pick
Sonics - McDaniels, 4th pick
Bucks - Moncrief, 5th pick
Rockets - Sampson + Olajuwon
76ers - Barkley, 5th pick

That covers about all teams making at least the conference finals once between 1985 and 1998. The amount of teams without a Top10 pick? 2, Jazz and Blazers, two teams getting lucky with their 13th, 14th and 16th pick. Every other team had at least one own Top10 pick on the roster. No idea, but that doesn't look different at all to me.

Really, what you just found out is that a good team needs talent on the roster. That was always the case, going from Russell's Celtics to todays Heat, and the better talent was usually picked with a higher draft pick. But that doesn't mean, that a team needs to be deliberately bad in order to get such pick. There is also no conclusive evidence that being "deliberately bad" would decrease the time a team needs to develop or would give greater odds to become a contender.

The 1997 Hawks had Smith, which they traded for by using their 11th pick Willis and their 1st rounder, they had Blaylock, they traded their top10 pick Robinson for him, and they signed the 4th pick Mutombo in FA. Getting similar level or even better players today by using the same means of trading and signing FA? Houston Rockets. And a similar kind of contender last season as the 97 Hawks? Denver Nuggets, trading for Iguodala, Gallinari, Chandler, McGee, Brewer, etc. pp.

I can see I'm going to need to break it down for you. The CBA that existed in 99 didn't make the lottery irrelevant, it was still hugely relevant, it was simply easier to build a contender without ever needing to be bad. There were several reasons for this, most of which I highlight on the OP of this thread (a team who completely ignore). However to focus on the other reasons (before I break the teams down):
1) While you talk about teams like the Lakers with high draft picks, they never needed to get bad to acquire the high draft picks they needed back then, because the CBA operated differently, and teams were far more willing to trade you unprotected 1sts (who they might not be able to afford anyway). Today's NBA means means new draft picks are locked in to your team for 7-9 years at least (provided you want them), which makes the draft much easier to use.
2) The lottery was nowhere near as big back then, so while you disingenuously talk about "top 10 picks", in 1988 for instance you could make the playoffs and still get the 8th pick, which made it unnecessary to ever be a bad team, since good teams got good picks also. Earlier in the 80's the worst playoff team got the 7th pick. So, basically a system designed to help big market teams. So duh, of course they didn't need to be bad to get good picks- they got them even if they were good!

Then look at some of the teams you name- the Celtics got Bird because they were allowed to cheat the system and draft him 1 year in advance. The new CBA doesn't let teams pull that kind of bullsh#$. And the Pacers/Blazers made it clear they'd take him #1-2 if he would confirm he'd come play for them. Bird wouldn't. That was an environment where players got a huge amount of leverage to pick what team they went to. The Lakers never had to get bad because it was easy to get unprotected draft picks back then. The Suns were able to exploit the old CBA to build their late 90's contender (see OP). The Kings (late 90's early 00's), Lakers (96 onwards) and Blazers (00) all built their contenders by taking advantage of the old CBA. The Jazz never needed to bottom out because back then scouting was nowhere near as good, and guys like Karl Malone and Stockton commonly fell into the teens. There are hundreds of hilarious stories about how inept and unprofessional the scouting of a lot of organisations was.

Then other examples you cite are teams that do have a top 10 player, but who were contenders even without him. The Suns are a great example. KJ missed a tonne of games in 93, 95 and 96. In 93 in the games he was healthy enough to start the team was 35-12. But without KJ starting (and in all but 2 games he wasn't playing at all) the team was 27-8. So they were basically just as good without him, which isn't to say KJ wasn't awesome- but I wouldn't categorise him as a "necessary" component to their success (no more than Darko being a #2 pick was necessary to the Pistons success, though obviously KJ was far better than that guy). The same trend holds next year. In 1995 KJ was again injured. In the games he was healthy enough to start the team was 22-13. In the games he wasn't starting (almost all of which he didn't play, and played badly over 21mpg in the games he did) the team was 37-10.

Your Hawks analogy is also incredibly dishonest. Yes, they SIGNED the 4th pick Mutumbo. In free agency. They didn't need to be bad to get a pick for him. Kevin Willis was 11th pick... in 1984, when the 11th pick was a solid playoff team, so again they didn't need to be bad to get Willis. He was then traded at age 32! He was not being traded as a valuable lotto asset, he was a non-lotto pick in 1984 who was being traded past his prime, and did not have anything like lotto pick value. This is not about trading guys who were crap, but who once upon a time had been high picks (like Darko), it's about needing good lotto assets. Rumeal was the #10 pick in 1990, had two seasons of underwhelming play, and was then moved in the Blaylock deal. The Nets traded him almost immediately, because he was not valuable (and not perceived as such when they acquired him). The Nets traded him for anything they could get, because Mookie's contract expired in 1993, and he was leaving them. That was the (unfair) old CBA dynamic I spent some time explaining on page 1.

I could go on and on with these teams. The point is in the old CBA you could build a contender without ever being bad fairly reliable, whereas now it's virtually impossible.

[mysticbb]

I can see I'm going to need to break it down for you.

Just claiming things != providing hard evidence ;)

Btw, LeBron James, Dwight Howard, James Harden, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony, Marc Gasol, Chris Bosh, Tyson Chandler, Joakim Noah, Kevin Garnett, Deron Williams, etc. pp. All these are players either signed in FA, traded for or where actually picked with a draft pick from a different team. That alone should be enough evidence that no team needs to be bad in order to become good. The Pacers didn't do that for their current team, the Rockets didn't do that, the Bulls didn't do that, the Lakers didn't, the Mavericks didn't, the Spurs didn't. Yeah, at one point in time those teams might have been worse and got lucky with a draft pick, but if we go far back enough we can proclaim each team to have been bad and therefore are fitting your idea. But in that way we don't learn anything about it.
Matter of fact is that good teams usually had luck with draft picks and/or signed/traded for good players. That's how it works. But there is really no evidence that you need "less" luck in the draft than you need to aquire a good player in a trade or via FA.

And regarding the idea that before players fall more often in the draft: I suggest going through the draft:

1999 - Terry, 10th, Kirilenko 24th, Ginobili 57th
2000 - Turkoglu 16th, Redd 43rd
2001 - Richard Jefferson 13th, Tony Parker 28th
2002 - Prince 23rd, Boozer 34th
2003 - David West 18th, Korver 51st
2004 - Kevin Martin 26th, AL Jefferson 15th, Josh Smith 17th
2005 - Granger 17th, David Lee 30th
2006 - Rajon Rondo 21st, Paul Millsap 47th
2007 - Marc Gasol 48th
2008 - Brook Lopez 10th, Ryan Anderson 21st, Serge Ibaka 24th
2009 - Ty Lawson 18th, Taj Gibson 26th
2010 - Paul George 10th
2011 - Leonard 15th, Faried 22nd, Parsons 38th

I guess, the only reason you think the scouting got so much better and players aren't falling down as much anymore is based on your biased view, because you know how the career of players picked in the 80's turned out while you have no clue how the career of players recently picked will be.
When I checked with my metric how good players performed based on their respective draft pick, I saw no significant difference in the average performance level for the Top30 picks between 1979 and 1999 in comparison to the average performance level of the Top30 picks between 2000 and 2010. #1 picks didn't perform in average better, #2 didn't, #3 didn't. The funny thing is that between 1979 and 1999 as well as 2000 to 2010 the #3 pick performed in average better than the #2 pick. But whatever ...

[Durins Baynes]

The post you just made flat out ignores my earlier posts. For instance, you mention teams like the Spurs, Mavs, Pacers, Heat, etc, as though I didn't cover all those teams already. But wait, there's more:

Yeah, at one point in time those teams might have been worse and got lucky with a draft pick, but if we go far back enough we can proclaim each team to have been bad and therefore are fitting your idea. But in that way we don't learn anything about it.

This is where reading what I'm saying helps. Nobody is looking for random picks that once upon a time were bad, but weren't relevant. The test is whether those good picks were an essential component of becoming contenders. So obviously nobody is pointing to the 2004 Pistons and saying "see, they had Darko, a #2 pick, that's why they were good" (not least of all because that was a pick they acquired for virtually nothing). The picks I'm pointing to are ones that were essential components to that success. Wade was obviously an essential component of the Heat's success, because without him they don't get Lebron, Bosh or Shaq, and win zero titles. It's a necessary, but not sufficient condition to have top 10 lotto talent in 90% of cases (in the post-99 CBA). That's why your responses like "Kevin Willis was a #11 pick, and they used him to get Steve Smith!" were so silly, since they'd drafted Willis in 1984 and by the time he was traded his value was much lower (plus he wasn't in the top 10, and back then the #8 pick went to a playoff team, meaning of course you never had to get bad to get the pick, which is the point).

There are two post 99 eg's that hold together (one and a half really)- Houston and the Pistons. Yet clearly many teams were able to become contenders in the pre-99 environment without ever getting bad (and I explained many of them, to zero rebuttal from you).

[mysticbb]

Wade was obviously an essential component of the Heat's success, because without him they don't get Lebron, Bosh or Shaq, and win zero titles.

What has Wade to do with the Heat getting O'Neal in a trade for Odom and Butler? Nothing. And the most essential part for the Heat to get James and Bosh? CAPSPACE!

You are creating your own fantasy world in which everything is exactly the way that it fits your agenda.

It's a necessary, but not sufficient condition to have top 10 lotto talent in 90% of cases (in the post-99 CBA).

And as I showed that was the same before as well. Yeah, Captain Obvious, good teams have good players. :)

That's why your responses like "Kevin Willis was a #11 pick, and they used him to get Steve Smith!" were so silly, since they'd drafted Willis in 1984 and by the time he was traded his value was much lower (plus he wasn't in the top 10, and back then the #8 pick went to a playoff team, meaning of course you never had to get bad to get the pick, which is the point).

Willis was traded in 1994, at the age of 32 after posting a 17/11 with 2.4 bpg season, having a career high in Win Shares and WS48 and his 2nd highest PER. The guy was at his best when he was traded. He posted again 17/11 with 2.4 bpg in the next season for the Heat. Having Willis to trade for Smith was at least as essential to the Hawks as it was for the Heat to have Wade (well, in fact, it was more essential in that case, because the Heat could have been able to sign James, Bosh and Wade even without having Wade before on the roster, because they had the CAPSPACE to do it.)

There are two post 99 eg's that hold together (one and a half really)- Houston and the Pistons. Yet clearly many teams were able to become contenders in the pre-99 environment without ever getting bad (and I explained many of them, to zero rebuttal from you).

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWUJvTyl-m4[/youtube]

Here is the translation: http://www.efraimstochter.de/astrid_lin ... sch_.shtml

Have fun!

[Durins Baynes]

Shaq had a list of teams he'd accept a trade to, or else he'd get surgery and just sit the season out. The Heat were on it, and Wade was the primary reason- Shaq (and Riley) were adamant about keeping Wade on the team too. So if they don't tank for Wade, there's no reason for Shaq to want to play there. He didn't want to get traded somewhere where there was no talent for him to play with, how could he show Kobe up that way?

Anyway, you have made it clear with your video clip that you have no interest in an actual debate, you just run for cover when called on your arguments with facts. The examples you cite are not "necessary" conditions to being a contender, as I covered. For instance, the Suns record when KJ was hurt plainly shows they were a contender even without him.

[DEEP3CL]

This thread is nothing more than illogical rhetoric. Teams can definitely be built without tanking, the elements are just different when it comes to the NBA.

And the OP saying Indiana isn't a contender is just an utter fallacy, and they're example #1 of building without tanking. They used a combination of free agent signings and smart drafting to build what they have no.

And the reason this tanking thing just doesn't work is because for one the NBA lottery system is all screwed up. Case and point of seeing Cleveland getting the #1 pick but didn't have the worst record. Until that is fix, tanking is no given. Because if teams knew they could finish with the worst record and was assured the #1 pick, then we'd see a rash of tanking.