Anti-Tankers: Those Sixers are just losers, huh?

[thelead]

How can you watch what the Sixers are doing and say that tanking is for losers? What is your logic?

[MagicMadness]

Warning: Personal attacks, disrespect and/or baiting will lead to profile warnings and possible suspensions.

I'm fine with tanking. At least we were "trying" to be good for the first half of the season.

Once you realize your team super sucks, pull the plug I say.

[rcklsscognition]

They're 3rd in the east now. We are praying to be 3rd worst in the league.

More importantly, Brett Brown looks like he has pulled off the very rare tanking coach to legit playoff squad transition.

[the_process]

How can you watch what the Sixers are doing and say that tanking is for losers? What is your logic?

Tanking is the right thing to do. Don’t let the old heads get you down.

And don’t get it twisted... it’s the old heads who hate tanking. I can say that pretty definitively after going through 3 years of arguments.

Rooting for you guys to get some lotto luck this year. Word of advice: take Jackson (if you don’t want him, Philly can put together an attractive package to take him off your hands).

[Cosmic_Backlash]

How can you watch what the Sixers are doing and say that tanking is for losers? What is your logic?

It's pretty easy to look at and argue both ways. Tanking is so incredibly variable for two reasons

1. You aren't guaranteed the top pick
2. You aren't guaranteed what levels of depth there are in talent

Some years are better to tank than others, and unfortunately you can't really plan those out multiple years in advance. You cant' be like "ok, I'm going to tank 3 years from now cause I like this one player, where if I'm the worst team in the league I have a 25% chance of getting him".

There are lots of teams that don't tank and still progress. Look at the Jazz this year, never commited to tanking and could end up in the 4th seed potentially.

There isn't one size fits all solution, but tanking is viable... but so is not tanking.

[FFBlitzace]

It's a very simple concept. 25% (and soon, 14%) is far from 100%, but it's the best odds available. The top pick isn't guaranteed to produce the best player, but it's the best pick in the entire draft. Just because your management doesn't select the best player doesn't change the fact that it's the best pick in the draft. The worst record produces the BEST odds at providing the BEST pick. None of it it is 100%, but it's the BEST you can get. Just like anything else you do as a team. No free agent signing is 100% to turn your team around. You just make the BEST signing you feel you can make. Sometimes correct decisions don't yield results, and sometimes incorrect decisions do yield dumb luck results. Don't hang your head at the former and don't be delusional over the latter. You can't get too hung up on results. You always just have to make the highest percentage decision you can make based on the information you have. Over time, unless you're horribly unlucky, that's going to provide the most results for you. Cherry picking examples of later picks becoming superstars or top picks being busts and all those other tired arguments don't actually mean anything. People act like it means something in terms of what your strategy should be, but it doesn't. All it means is that scouting isn't an exact science and some players overachieve while others underachieve. That's it. Past examples of overachievers and underachievers should have no impact on strategy evaluation. All of this is very simple in concept, yet a bizarre amount of people either cannot or will not understand it. It's not even an opinionated thing. Opinions don't enter into it at all. It's just the way that it is.

[Cosmic_Backlash]

I don't think anyone debates the odds and chances. That's just math.

What makes tanking hard is deciding when to do it. You can't just eternally tank. There is always a turning point, and no GM wants to go into the year saying "we're just going to be as bad as possible", except 1 GM ever - Hinkie. Even that had a turning point, but his owners didn't trust Hinkie to know when that turning point was.

How you described some dumb luck working out sometimes. There isn't enough data on is "going for a 25% chance for the top pick vs an 18% chance at the top pick by intentionally being bad for 3+ years" is the best strategy. There is 1 example, and you can't say if it was the best strategy or just dumb luck. I'm not saying Hinkie was dumb - he's smart, had a vision, and executed. However, that is market suicide and his bosses didn't trust him to know how to finish his process.

[drsd]

It's a very simple concept. 25% (and soon, 14%) is far from 100%, but it's the best odds available.

More generally, the worst team basically will always draft in the top-4. The Magic slotting at a probable 4/5 in the lottery is most likely to draft 6.

What we have seen over the last 5 years is a huge drop in talent fro the top-4 to the 5-8 range.


..

[npiper17]

In some ways this is the NBA’s worst nightmare - a team has definitively proven that taking tanking to the extreme can work.

It’s funny to look back at all the reports that came out about how agents were going to refuse to let their players meet with the Sixers in future seasons during the Sixers’ seasons of not meeting the salary floor.

However it’s worth saying that the team with the worst record in the NBA over the past six seasons is your very own Orlando Magic and that tanking hasn’t gotten us too far....yet.

Overall, one guy I’m happy for is Brett Brown. Kept his composure during some very tough times and now he gets to reap the benefits. A further demonstration of how Rob chose the wrong apple from the Spurs’ tree when he hired his first coach.

[drsd]

The most key point is this: this is the last year were tanking has a clear purpose. The league changes the odds from next year. And beyond that, I expect some sort of revolution. Whether it is The Wheel, or whatever, something big to change tanking is probable.

[pepe1991]

Odds of picks becoming allstars from 1980-2015:
1# overall 77% chance
2# overall 34%
3# overall 49%
4# overall 29%
5# overall 31%
6 and 7 -20%
7 - 20%
8- 11%

as you can see first overall pick is almost locked to become allstar at some point,where , if you fall out of top 5 your odds get slim..

Things get even more interesting when you see how talent drops in last 5 years and how in every draft there is one outliner who drops out of top 5.
2009- Griffin, Thabeet,Harden... Evans, Flynn, Rubio,Curry,Derozan
2010- Wall, Turner, Favors..Cousins,Udoh, Monroe, Aminu, Hayward
2011- Irving,Williams, Kanter...TT , Vesely, Jonas, Biyombo, Knight, Walker
2012- Davis, MKG, Beal....Robinson, Lillard, Barnes, Ross, Drummond
2013 - Bennet, Oladipo, Porter ....Zeller, Noel, Mcclemore, Burke. CJ Mccullum[/b
2014 - Wiggins, Parker, [b]Embiid.... Gordon, Exum, Smart , Randle, Vonleh , Payton
2015- Towns, Jah, Russell...Porzingis, Hezonja, WSC, Kaminsky,Mudiay...

Honorable mention 2016- Ben Simmons.

So to sum this up, in 6 out of 8 drafts, first overall pick become a star player, pretty much everybody but Wiggins and Bennett.
For whatever reason second overall picks tend to suck, but things rebound with 3rd overall picks where guys like Harden, Embiid and Beal were picked.

Later you can find allstar almost every year but it's hard to detect that guy. Part of it is that 7-10 picks can be landed by soid teams who had bad luck with injuries or something like that and most of times that teams are not bottom of the nba. Guys like Lillard, McCullum, Hayward landed on solid teams. Matter of fact Hayward landed on 53 wins team with two allstars.
Lillard landed to a team with Aldrige ,Batum and Matthews ,they went from 33 wins in his rookie to 54 in second year.
Derozan is another one who landed on good team. Bosh, Bargnani ( who had good year ), Turkogulu, young Calderon, good enough for 40-42 season.

This is why i'm against BPA logic, BPA in most cases is situational thing and it's different from team to team, in all cases you CAN'T expect that your 19 years old kid will change fortune of your franchize, you need to have situation where your kid will help team reach new level.

[BadMofoPimp]

But, we did tank for 6 straight years and are no better now than when we started tanking.

[Skybox]

I hate tanking. I totally understand why it makes sense to do. It's obvious- nobody needs to explain that having the first pick is more valuable than the 5th. I also don't need to keep pointing out the "misses" and the ping pong pitfalls.

It's bad for the business of the NBA. It's depressing for the fan base and, I'm sure, the young players with upside already on the team, the coaches who will lose their jobs (kudos to PHI/Brown for sticking to and honoring the plan for each other). We can go round and round on this forever...Spurs never tank(Robinson was hurt and SAS got lucky in lottery), Heat never tank, Celtics never tank, Jazz haven't, Toronto fought thru tough times, etc. You can give me examples of how it works, I can counter all day with what the truly GREAT franchises in the league do. Whatever, I'm as bored with the debate as you are.

If I'm the NBA, I've GOT to kill this phenomenon. I go back to something like "there are 14 non-playoff teams in the lottery, the worst 7 get 2 ping pong balls, the best of the worst get 1 ball. Make the lottery great again!". Stop rewarding teams for not competing and making stupid decisions on players. As long as there is an upside to tanking, teams will (and should) do it.

The people on this forum are sophisticated fans. Most people aren't. The seats in the arena are not filled with people like us-maybe one section. I'd guess that most of us here watch the games on our computer, so we can spit venom on this forum real-time. The owners of the team, the arena, and the sponsors have no reason to give a s**t about what you want-you don't spend money. Period. If a team is moderately competitive, even if not contending, the average fan/consumer is involved. Lunatics (like us here) see it differently-all or nothing. 9 out of 10 people on the street don't know who Luka Doncic is. 5 out of 10 people on the street think Shaq shouldn't make 10million/year. Etc...like it or not, those uninformed people buy tickets, shirts, foam fingers for their kids, froth at the mouth trying to get on the Jumbotron for 3 seconds of fame, buy $8 beers, etc...I'm caught in the middle, I spent $28,000 on premium tix this year. I entertain clients, hardly watch the game from the 4th row, invite people who don't know who "the kid with the hair" is. Then, I go home, pore over the stats and highlights, read the forums, review draft profiles of kids from Croatia, etc as a "real fan".

Here's the big picture...when we're tanking the arena is empty and the forums are full. That's bad for the economy and not sustainable in a small market. People want to watch a team that competes, even if it doesn't contend. Even as a "real fan" I want to watch that.

[Driguez]

I thing tanking and being a bad team overall get lumped into the same group. We? We're just bad, sure we rested Vu, but the other injuries are legit. I wish we would have gone full blown tank. Otherwise we will always be one one pick away from a potential franchise changing pick.

[Driguez]

Here's the big picture...when we're tanking the arena is empty and the forums are full. That's bad for the economy and not sustainable in a small market. People want to watch a team that competes, even if it doesn't contend. Even as a "real fan" I want to watch that.

Problem is, nowadays half of the fans that show up at the Amway center are cheering for the opposing team. We need an arena full of Magic supporters cheering for our OWN team.

[Skybox]

Here's the big picture...when we're tanking the arena is empty and the forums are full. That's bad for the economy and not sustainable in a small market. People want to watch a team that competes, even if it doesn't contend. Even as a "real fan" I want to watch that.

Problem is, nowadays half of the fans that show up at the Amway center are cheering for the opposing team. We need an arena full of Magic supporters cheering for our OWN team.

Why would they?

[MagicFan101]

But, we did tank for 6 straight years and are no better now than when we started tanking.

#Henny

[Driguez]

Here's the big picture...when we're tanking the arena is empty and the forums are full. That's bad for the economy and not sustainable in a small market. People want to watch a team that competes, even if it doesn't contend. Even as a "real fan" I want to watch that.

Problem is, nowadays half of the fans that show up at the Amway center are cheering for the opposing team. We need an arena full of Magic supporters cheering for our OWN team.

Why would they?

I can think back to the Dwight days and fans would routinely root for other teams. We have a horrible "fan base" once and if we get back to relevance things should equal out with those who are Magic fans. I agree with you, I just have a bone to pick with people cheering for other teams, maybe slightly OT.

[Javier Acosta]

Problem is, nowadays half of the fans that show up at the Amway center are cheering for the opposing team. We need an arena full of Magic supporters cheering for our OWN team.

Why would they?

I can think back to the Dwight days and fans would routinely root for other teams. We have a horrible "fan base" once and if we get back to relevance things should equal out with those who are Magic fans. I agree with you, I just have a bone to pick with people cheering for other teams, maybe slightly OT.

if Dwight is part of the Spurs he is a changed man and i coudl root for him. If he is traded to San Antonio in his prime i have to pick an another team to root for.

[deggett]

But, we did tank for 6 straight years and are no better now than when we started tanking.

#Henny

More like 2,5 years.

#Martins