Baseline81 wrote:shrink wrote:Yeah. I’ve always believed the company line, “Why would we tank? We don’t own our own pick!”
But .. that’s not quite true. MIN traded a PROTECTED pick. In Dane Moore’s podcast, he and Britt went into great detail about MIN having years of practice at the “stealth tank.” Britt flat out accused this year’s weird decisions of being part of a stealth tank. So if we had one of the bottom three record, we’d either get ..
A 40% chance at getting a top three 2021 player PLUS owing our unprotected 2022 pick, or ...
A 60% chance at losing a 2021 pick in the 4-7 range, but keeping the 2022.
Is there incentive to tank? Let’s set aside for now the damage continued losing does to the team, and talk only about our 2021 and 2022 picks. MIN will win more games the rest of the way, if they try. It’s more than just having Towns. We could be actively trying to win, facing teams who own their own pick, who are actively trying to lose. If you were just trying to get the most out of your picks, would you rather have the worst record, or, say, eighth worst record?
I’m suspicious now.
I can see why Rosas may be willing to gamble, despite the low percentage.
- Over 36% of the season has concluded. The team is likely to miss even the play-in games, regardless of the coach.
- Due to COVID-19, there's no attendance issue should the losing continue, though that may not be the case next season.
- Top prospects of the upcoming draft playing as advertised.
Good points. Britt also mentioned they might have thought, “Well, we don’t have Towns, so we might as well wrack up the losses early.” Hopefully that means we’re going to see some better basketball out of our beloved Wolfies the rest of the way.