Luciferswings wrote:ParticleMan wrote:wow, you are really bending things to make it seem like tanking was important in 2007. it really wasn't.
here are the picks from 5-9 that year:
Jeff Green
Yi Jinlian
Corey Brewer
Brandan Wright
Joakin Noah
you really think Seattle was super excited to pick jeff green over those other guys? really? the best guy turned out to be noah, who was picked 9th and many folks still thought it was a reach.
i think seattle could have cared less whether it was a #5 or #7 pick. the point is, we were supposed to get a #2 pick by tanking. we were supposed to get Durant. that's what was supposed to happen. getting a #5 was the absolute worst-case scenario. how anyone can use that to justify tanking is beyond me. it's a clear example of why NOT to tank. you really have to do some logic gymnastics to make it seem like getting that #5 pick was the key to everything. but i guess people will just keep seeing what they want. fortunately ainge is more sensible.
This is pure assertion, you have no evidence to this effect at all. The reality is it did take a top 5 pick, you have no way of knowing if a worse pick would have worked. Using hindsight to tell us how good the pick was doesn't fly.
You, and Darth, are also getting hung up on the word "tank" as though the intention involved matters. Having high picks is usually an essential ingredient for building a contender is the modern era. #7 picks aren't bad, but generally it'd be better if they were top 5. It's not bad you got M.Smart at #7, it's bad that there's only 1 guy like that on your roster, and he doesn't look like he can develop into the sort of building block you can build a contender around (rather, he looks like a complimentary piece, not a star), nor is there anyone else on your team who can. That's the issue. Making the playoffs, or scraping in, is the problem. Even winning 30 games or less and finishing 7th worst would be fine. Not ideal, but fine. Finishing 16th so you can get swept in Rnd 1 of the playoffs is not so good though.
You're quickly becoming one of my least favorite thinkers and basketball minds on this board.
The intention and the situation in which "tanking" occurs is highly relevant. You're clearly an advocate of tanking which is defined as losing more games than you should based on your talent, competition and roster composition via methods that involve sitting, trading players or shuffling lineups to produce excess losses. Whether or not the Celtics should have pursued that strategy is what we've had to debate here all season.
Where you miss the boat is in your weak level of basketball analysis. Marcus Smart is a star like Draymond Green is a star. It's the intangible leadership, confidence, and defensive versatility that creates a winning identity for a team to follow. This is especially important when your coach preaches a gameplan that is built on outworking the opponent on both ends. Take Draymond Green off that GS team and their entire defensive identity crumbles.
Guys like Sullinger, Crowder, Bradley and Thomas, are all viewed as "low upside" players, but in actuality these guys are all rotation players on pretty much any and every playoff team. They are all big time competitors. Then you have some high skill bigs in Kelly and Zeller. Again, you are writing these guys off but they are actually solid players, as is Evan Turner in his own quirky fashion.
If the Celtics trade a bunch of assets to move up to 6 or 7, people will just remember it as the Celtics tanking and valuing the draft lottery when in reality, they view it in much more of an "opportunistic" fashion where you make intelligent "dips" into the lottery but prolonged stays in the garbage bin of the NBA are big no-no's for any franchise that is actually willing to put in the hard and expensive work of scouting, coaching and building cohesive systems that allow players to flourish.
That's what the Celtics do, so please step off with these weak ass garbage.
Tanking doesn't work unless it's based on a real strategy. Notice how all the teams in the lottery are basically perfectly desperate due to past and current ineptitude. You don't want to have to rely on winning by losing. If you have an injured star and a deflated locker room like the Celtics had in 07'? Absolutely, you tank the **** out of that thing. But you have to be smart, and you have to be flexible.
Ainge knew that Stevens had something going in the lockerroom and he made the call that he thought Stevens and max contract space would allow him to bring in a significant influx of talent this offseason. I agree with him. Also, when everyone is preparing for 2016, Ainge is a year early. So in that sense he was also very intelligent.
Take your seat at the back of the bus homes.