Detroit tank next season for #1 pick - Luka Doncic

[Kilo]

Zion isn't Luca's level of franchise game changer. This upcoming class doesn't really impress - it seems like a down year.

[Manocad]

Why didnt Detroit tank for Luka?!? He's a baller!!

Next year it's Zion time and again Detroit will be like 7-8-9 seed on East and again get something mediocre.

So sad.

Why? Because a team can’t outright tank in the true sense; the league would step in. You can’t start your worst five players every game while the best five stay on the bench, players can’t play obvious zero defense (think All Star game level), intentionally miss shots (NEVER gonna happen), etc. Basically all a team can do is rebuild like they do in all the other sports—trade away talent for future picks, shed salary and the talent that goes with it for future picks/lesser players, and lose the good ol’ fashion way—just being a lousy team. The rest of the process is the same tried and true recipe; get a couple/few draft picks that hit then build around them via trades/free agency.

So why didn’t the Pistons go that route? Ownership felt that with an additional star player (Blake) the team could compete now. Not the case obviously but hindsight is 20/20. Question answered.


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[vege]

So why didn’t the Pistons go that route? Ownership felt that with an additional star player (Blake) the team could compete now. Not the case obviously but hindsight is 20/20. Question answered.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

It's a little more complicated than that. People don't go watch rebuinding teams, Detroit is a small market team with an owner who doesn't want to lose a ton of money for the next few years to rebuild (new arena etc etc etc).

And the odds of a rebuilding work are not great. Hinkie did a great job and Philly tanked for nearly a decade and they still haven't got any results for it. They're still missing a few pieces and there's always the risk of an injury to Embiid, which would restart the whole process for them (happened in Portland with Oden and Roy)

This guy is absolutely brilliant, he is a Philly fan and made a video covering the whole process, it's not that simple to rebuild and it's painful and a couple of bad decisions can screw everything.

Watch on YouTube

;t=3s&ab_channel=iNerdSome

[Manocad]

The point still remains that the team felt adding Blake would put them at a highly competitive level, thus the particulars of how to properly tank/rebuild and why are moot at this point really.


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[Kilo]

Gores is a LA guy, and Blake was THE basketball superstar there for many years while Gores was probably following the NBA on the periphery - a NBA name he knew because of the coverage Blake got. So he thought Blake would put asses in seats in Detroit.

A four game sweep elimination ain't going to excite the fan base here. We see it for what it is. Our two playoff home games will not even sell out. Gores is a coked out embarassment when he's at games, is a business scumbag ripping off inmates with ridiculously overpriced phone call rates and doesn't seem to understand the NBA or Detroit fan base all that much at all.

[Kilo]

Philadelphia blew Noel, Okafor and Fultz to get Emiid (who still doesn't play B2B) and Simmons. Saric is nothing special either - but they flipped him for something at least. Will be funny as hell if Butler leaves in the off-season that's for damn sure.

[JNewton]

Gores is a LA guy, and Blake was THE basketball superstar there for many years while Gores was probably following the NBA on the periphery - a NBA name he knew because of the coverage Blake got. So he thought Blake would put asses in seats in Detroit.

A four game sweep elimination ain't going to excite the fan base here. We see it for what it is. Our two playoff home games will not even sell out. Gores is a coked out embarassment when he's at games, is a business scumbag ripping off inmates with ridiculously overpriced phone call rates and doesn't seem to understand the NBA or Detroit fan base all that much at all.

This. But hey, at least it seems like he's wiling to spend if by some miracle a worthwhile team is ever built here again. Any long timers here will remember my gripes on the Davidson regime pinching pennies on a less punitive luxury tax with a team that was a legit championship contender.

[buzzkilloton]

So why didn’t the Pistons go that route? Ownership felt that with an additional star player (Blake) the team could compete now. Not the case obviously but hindsight is 20/20. Question answered.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

It's a little more complicated than that. People don't go watch rebuinding teams, Detroit is a small market team with an owner who doesn't want to lose a ton of money for the next few years to rebuild (new arena etc etc etc).

And the odds of a rebuilding work are not great. Hinkie did a great job and Philly tanked for nearly a decade and they still haven't got any results for it. They're still missing a few pieces and there's always the risk of an injury to Embiid, which would restart the whole process for them (happened in Portland with Oden and Roy)

This guy is absolutely brilliant, he is a Philly fan and made a video covering the whole process, it's not that simple to rebuild and it's painful and a couple of bad decisions can screw everything.

Watch on YouTube

;t=3s&ab_channel=iNerdSome

Thing is nobody is going to see the pistons either. Were 23rd in average attendance and 2nd last in the nba in attendance %. This is in a completely new arena.

http://www.espn.com/nba/attendance/_/sort/allPct

If we just stick to not contending or rebuilding were never going to climb out of the attendance pits. Sure if we rebuilt its going to lower attendance at first but look at the end result. The sixers are now 1st on the attendance draw.

So Gores the business man can continue to go all in for 1st round playoff exits which offer him the current quota or rebuild and get fans excited in a few years. Staying on this course for the next 5 years isnt going to fill seats and this seasons attendance will be that arenas peak till he changes things around here.

[vege]

So why didn’t the Pistons go that route? Ownership felt that with an additional star player (Blake) the team could compete now. Not the case obviously but hindsight is 20/20. Question answered.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

It's a little more complicated than that. People don't go watch rebuinding teams, Detroit is a small market team with an owner who doesn't want to lose a ton of money for the next few years to rebuild (new arena etc etc etc).

And the odds of a rebuilding work are not great. Hinkie did a great job and Philly tanked for nearly a decade and they still haven't got any results for it. They're still missing a few pieces and there's always the risk of an injury to Embiid, which would restart the whole process for them (happened in Portland with Oden and Roy)

This guy is absolutely brilliant, he is a Philly fan and made a video covering the whole process, it's not that simple to rebuild and it's painful and a couple of bad decisions can screw everything.

Watch on YouTube

;t=3s&ab_channel=iNerdSome

Thing is nobody is going to see the pistons either. Were 23rd in average attendance and 2nd last in the nba in attendance %. This is in a completely new arena.

http://www.espn.com/nba/attendance/_/sort/allPct

If we just stick to not contending or rebuilding were never going to climb out of the attendance pits. Sure if we rebuilt its going to lower attendance at first but look at the end result. The sixers are now 1st on the attendance draw.

So Gores the business man can continue to go all in for 1st round playoff exits which offer him the current quota or rebuild and get fans excited in a few years. Staying on this course for the next 5 years isnt going to fill seats and this seasons attendance will be that arenas peak till he changes things around here.

A rebuild would be a lot worse. It's not my money, neither yours, so it's easy to say something like that. The main goal of a rebuild is to get a superstar, we already traded for one, we have a horrible team around him and that got to be fixed.

[DBC10]

So why didn’t the Pistons go that route? Ownership felt that with an additional star player (Blake) the team could compete now. Not the case obviously but hindsight is 20/20. Question answered.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

It's a little more complicated than that. People don't go watch rebuinding teams, Detroit is a small market team with an owner who doesn't want to lose a ton of money for the next few years to rebuild (new arena etc etc etc).

And the odds of a rebuilding work are not great. Hinkie did a great job and Philly tanked for nearly a decade and they still haven't got any results for it. They're still missing a few pieces and there's always the risk of an injury to Embiid, which would restart the whole process for them (happened in Portland with Oden and Roy)

This guy is absolutely brilliant, he is a Philly fan and made a video covering the whole process, it's not that simple to rebuild and it's painful and a couple of bad decisions can screw everything.

Watch on YouTube

;t=3s&ab_channel=iNerdSome

Thing is nobody is going to see the pistons either. Were 23rd in average attendance and 2nd last in the nba in attendance %. This is in a completely new arena.

http://www.espn.com/nba/attendance/_/sort/allPct

If we just stick to not contending or rebuilding were never going to climb out of the attendance pits. Sure if we rebuilt its going to lower attendance at first but look at the end result. The sixers are now 1st on the attendance draw.

So Gores the business man can continue to go all in for 1st round playoff exits which offer him the current quota or rebuild and get fans excited in a few years. Staying on this course for the next 5 years isnt going to fill seats and this seasons attendance will be that arenas peak till he changes things around here.

Yep. We already tried the "rebuild on the fly" approach for basically a decade now with absolutely nothing significant to show for it. I'd like to think we'd be in a better situation if we took half that decade to dedicating asset collection (picks, hidden G-League gems like Covington, etc) and putting somewhat of a scrappy team that is hungry for playing time than where we are now. But we've been marred with ownership issues and being a small market team, but still, what we have right now ain't it chief.

Plus getting a high draft pick is exciting, and at least can get thinking of the long term. And it rallies fanbases.

[vege]

It's a little more complicated than that. People don't go watch rebuinding teams, Detroit is a small market team with an owner who doesn't want to lose a ton of money for the next few years to rebuild (new arena etc etc etc).

And the odds of a rebuilding work are not great. Hinkie did a great job and Philly tanked for nearly a decade and they still haven't got any results for it. They're still missing a few pieces and there's always the risk of an injury to Embiid, which would restart the whole process for them (happened in Portland with Oden and Roy)

This guy is absolutely brilliant, he is a Philly fan and made a video covering the whole process, it's not that simple to rebuild and it's painful and a couple of bad decisions can screw everything.

Watch on YouTube

;t=3s&ab_channel=iNerdSome

Thing is nobody is going to see the pistons either. Were 23rd in average attendance and 2nd last in the nba in attendance %. This is in a completely new arena.

http://www.espn.com/nba/attendance/_/sort/allPct

If we just stick to not contending or rebuilding were never going to climb out of the attendance pits. Sure if we rebuilt its going to lower attendance at first but look at the end result. The sixers are now 1st on the attendance draw.

So Gores the business man can continue to go all in for 1st round playoff exits which offer him the current quota or rebuild and get fans excited in a few years. Staying on this course for the next 5 years isnt going to fill seats and this seasons attendance will be that arenas peak till he changes things around here.

Yep. We already tried the "rebuild on the fly" approach for basically a decade now with absolutely nothing significant to show for it. I'd like to think we'd be in a better situation if we took half that decade to dedicating asset collection (picks, hidden G-League gems like Covington, etc) and putting somewhat of a scrappy team that is hungry for playing time than where we are now.

Would we? We drafted Greg Monroe, Stanley Johnson, Henry Ellenson, KCP, Brandon Knight, Luke Kennard, etc etc etc. You really think we would've done better losing on purpose and drafting around the same place or marginally better than where we drafted SJ/Monroe/KCP?

[Manocad]

It's a little more complicated than that. People don't go watch rebuinding teams, Detroit is a small market team with an owner who doesn't want to lose a ton of money for the next few years to rebuild (new arena etc etc etc).

And the odds of a rebuilding work are not great. Hinkie did a great job and Philly tanked for nearly a decade and they still haven't got any results for it. They're still missing a few pieces and there's always the risk of an injury to Embiid, which would restart the whole process for them (happened in Portland with Oden and Roy)

This guy is absolutely brilliant, he is a Philly fan and made a video covering the whole process, it's not that simple to rebuild and it's painful and a couple of bad decisions can screw everything.

Watch on YouTube

;t=3s&ab_channel=iNerdSome

Thing is nobody is going to see the pistons either. Were 23rd in average attendance and 2nd last in the nba in attendance %. This is in a completely new arena.

http://www.espn.com/nba/attendance/_/sort/allPct

If we just stick to not contending or rebuilding were never going to climb out of the attendance pits. Sure if we rebuilt its going to lower attendance at first but look at the end result. The sixers are now 1st on the attendance draw.

So Gores the business man can continue to go all in for 1st round playoff exits which offer him the current quota or rebuild and get fans excited in a few years. Staying on this course for the next 5 years isnt going to fill seats and this seasons attendance will be that arenas peak till he changes things around here.

A rebuild would be a lot worse. It's not my money, neither yours, so it's easy to say something like that. The main goal of a rebuild is to get a superstar, we already traded for one, we have a horrible team around him and that got to be fixed.

??? A rebuild is literally "build again," i.e. replace the entire team or the vast majority of it. It doesn't mean, and I'm sure people don't mean it as such, "just get a superstar and keep the rest of the team intact."

[SVG]

Only if JRK was our GM, we would've been doing great rn. Instead I traded for Blake Griffin minus the hops

[The_Irony]

at the end of the year it always seems like pistons win 4 outta 5 or 6 outta 10 games for "pride"

instead of not playing Drummond and another starter and losing 2 outta the last 10 and getting pick 5 instead of 8. those small details keep a franchise on a treadmill.

I love when dinwiddie blasted SVG and said he didn't care about developing young players and wanted to win now. the idiot could have done both. the nets are playing better than us


it doesn't have to be as obvious as having a crap lineup for 82 games

[Spider156]

So why didn’t the Pistons go that route? Ownership felt that with an additional star player (Blake) the team could compete now. Not the case obviously but hindsight is 20/20. Question answered.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM mobile app

It's a little more complicated than that. People don't go watch rebuinding teams, Detroit is a small market team with an owner who doesn't want to lose a ton of money for the next few years to rebuild (new arena etc etc etc).

And the odds of a rebuilding work are not great. Hinkie did a great job and Philly tanked for nearly a decade and they still haven't got any results for it. They're still missing a few pieces and there's always the risk of an injury to Embiid, which would restart the whole process for them (happened in Portland with Oden and Roy)

This guy is absolutely brilliant, he is a Philly fan and made a video covering the whole process, it's not that simple to rebuild and it's painful and a couple of bad decisions can screw everything.

100%. I can name sooo many failing teams that have tanked. Orlando, New York, Washington, Toronto with Bosh (they signed Lowry), Atlanta, it's been almost two decades since Michael Redd and Bucks are finally competing again lol Chicago is trash, Cleveland is one of the worst. If you wanna see what a team looks like without having a megasuperstar like Giannis and Lebron, look at Miami. Perfect team example, they're just like us without the warm weather and big market and they're struggling hardcore to get talent. 76ers went through a decade of losing, lost Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, Michael carter Williams, Elfrid Payton, Mo Harkless, and they're about to lose on Fultz. Those guys all don't play for the 76ers, Fultz is out next, they killed his shot. Then there's Jrue Holiday, Evan Turner, Vucevic, AND last but not least Thaddeus Young who is killing it on the Pacers now winning just as much as 76ers this season and for what? Trading Paul George? Get the point? You can draft all you want, all those players are drafted by Philadelphia. They are one Embiid injury away from tanking all...over...again. They'll draft a guy like Bridges, just to max out a player like Simmons who can't shoot. A team could fall apart really quickly in the NBA. Remember the real dynasty: Lillard, Roy, Batum, Aldridge, and Oden. Best starting 5 I can think of all drafted. Portland hasn't won a game in the first round of playoffs in how long? Tanking isn't the answer, it's good drafting and trading. Signing someone is lucky, it's not easy.

[DBC10]

Thing is nobody is going to see the pistons either. Were 23rd in average attendance and 2nd last in the nba in attendance %. This is in a completely new arena.

http://www.espn.com/nba/attendance/_/sort/allPct

If we just stick to not contending or rebuilding were never going to climb out of the attendance pits. Sure if we rebuilt its going to lower attendance at first but look at the end result. The sixers are now 1st on the attendance draw.

So Gores the business man can continue to go all in for 1st round playoff exits which offer him the current quota or rebuild and get fans excited in a few years. Staying on this course for the next 5 years isnt going to fill seats and this seasons attendance will be that arenas peak till he changes things around here.

Yep. We already tried the "rebuild on the fly" approach for basically a decade now with absolutely nothing significant to show for it. I'd like to think we'd be in a better situation if we took half that decade to dedicating asset collection (picks, hidden G-League gems like Covington, etc) and putting somewhat of a scrappy team that is hungry for playing time than where we are now.

Would we? We drafted Greg Monroe, Stanley Johnson, Henry Ellenson, KCP, Brandon Knight, Luke Kennard, etc etc etc. You really think we would've done better losing on purpose and drafting around the same place or marginally better than where we drafted SJ/Monroe/KCP?

You're not understanding my point. Those guys were all in the top 8 and really, in that draft slot where not a lot of excitement happens and only invites mediocrity. Knight was 8, Moose was 7, KCP 8 (again), SJ 8, Ellenson (who cares too far), etc. If we had drafted in the top 5 multiple consecutive years and having multiple draft picks some odd years, we would look drastically different than where we are now. That and we never actually had a GM that could draft really well for the future, and only about recouping talent to retool and not complete a full rebuild.

[Manocad]

You can’t draft well if you don’t have draft picks. Making moves to get high draft picks—call it tanking if you want—is for only that purpose—getting draft picks. Having a number of high draft picks who fail is a function of bad drafting; it has nothing to do with the method for getting those draft picks. So it’s disingenuous to say that the method for getting draft picks “doesn’t work” relative to drafting well.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[vege]

Yep. We already tried the "rebuild on the fly" approach for basically a decade now with absolutely nothing significant to show for it. I'd like to think we'd be in a better situation if we took half that decade to dedicating asset collection (picks, hidden G-League gems like Covington, etc) and putting somewhat of a scrappy team that is hungry for playing time than where we are now.

Would we? We drafted Greg Monroe, Stanley Johnson, Henry Ellenson, KCP, Brandon Knight, Luke Kennard, etc etc etc. You really think we would've done better losing on purpose and drafting around the same place or marginally better than where we drafted SJ/Monroe/KCP?

You're not understanding my point. Those guys were all in the top 8 and really, in that draft slot where not a lot of excitement happens and only invites mediocrity. Knight was 8, Moose was 7, KCP 8 (again), SJ 8, Ellenson (who cares too far), etc. If we had drafted in the top 5 multiple consecutive years and having multiple draft picks some odd years, we would look drastically different than where we are now. That and we never actually had a GM that could draft really well for the future, and only about recouping talent to retool and not complete a full rebuild.

How that worked for Phoenix for example? Their best player was drafted later in the lottery, other than Ayton they blew all their top 5 picks......

Hinkie main explanation to why he was tanking and get as many lotto picks as he could, was to find a super star, which he eventually found in Embiid. We already have that. We have Blake. We need to put a competent team around him.

SVG managed to get talent for nothing (for financial flexibility in fact). Tobias, Morris etc. We need to get a few of those guys around Blake and Andre, and we need to get rid of the garbage (Reggie Jackson/Jon Leuer/Langston Galloway).

We also need to learn how to deal our drafted players before they have 0 value (Monroe/KCP/SJ) Kennard is probably going the same route, he has shown flashes but he has been awful.

[BDM22]

Yep. We already tried the "rebuild on the fly" approach for basically a decade now with absolutely nothing significant to show for it. I'd like to think we'd be in a better situation if we took half that decade to dedicating asset collection (picks, hidden G-League gems like Covington, etc) and putting somewhat of a scrappy team that is hungry for playing time than where we are now.

Would we? We drafted Greg Monroe, Stanley Johnson, Henry Ellenson, KCP, Brandon Knight, Luke Kennard, etc etc etc. You really think we would've done better losing on purpose and drafting around the same place or marginally better than where we drafted SJ/Monroe/KCP?

We never bottomed out. Going outside of the top 5 every year really puts you much further into "crapshoot" territory in the draft.

You either have to really draft way above your position like Golden State did for a couple years in a row (just one or two isn't enough), hoping other teams miss on guys and everything lines up perfectly. Or, you have to cash in on top picks like Cleveland (Lebron, Kyrie), Boston (Tatum, Brown, the pick that got them Kyrie), San Antonio (Duncan), Miami (Wade), OKC (Westbrook, KD, etc), etc.

Obviously teams can very easily screw up having a bunch of top picks, but it goes without saying that you dramatically increase your odds the higher you move up in the draft.

The reward for desperately trying to stick to the middle of the NBA standings rather than the bottom has us with poor draft position, no playoff wins, and a brand new arena filled with empty seats.

[Spider156]

Yep. We already tried the "rebuild on the fly" approach for basically a decade now with absolutely nothing significant to show for it. I'd like to think we'd be in a better situation if we took half that decade to dedicating asset collection (picks, hidden G-League gems like Covington, etc) and putting somewhat of a scrappy team that is hungry for playing time than where we are now.

Would we? We drafted Greg Monroe, Stanley Johnson, Henry Ellenson, KCP, Brandon Knight, Luke Kennard, etc etc etc. You really think we would've done better losing on purpose and drafting around the same place or marginally better than where we drafted SJ/Monroe/KCP?

We never bottomed out. Going outside of the top 5 every year really puts you much further into "crapshoot" territory in the draft.

You either have to really draft way above your position like Golden State did for a couple years in a row (just one or two isn't enough), hoping other teams miss on guys and everything lines up perfectly. Or, you have to cash in on top picks like Cleveland (Lebron, Kyrie), Boston (Tatum, Brown, the pick that got them Kyrie), San Antonio (Duncan), Miami (Wade), OKC (Westbrook, KD, etc), etc.

Obviously teams can very easily screw up having a bunch of top picks, but it goes without saying that you dramatically increase your odds the higher you move up in the draft.

The reward for desperately trying to stick to the middle of the NBA standings rather than the bottom has us with poor draft position, no playoff wins, and a brand new arena filled with empty seats.

Nah man. We just got our superstar. We finally have a player that can actually play. We need to just make a trade and it'll happen but we're gonna have to wait for it.