Shams: Raps acquire Ingram for Brown + Olynyk + IND 1st

[JB7]

You do realize they were purposely tanking last year, right? That is 30 wins in spite of trying to lose games.

Going from tanking to then suddenly being good enough to utilize big money on BI - without even having realized the benefit of tanking - is poor strategy.

There is long term tanking - see Utah, Sixers long ago, Wizards, etc.

There is also short term strategic tanking - see Raps (Barnes draft year, last year and the year before), Spurs (when they drafted Duncan), Celtics (maybe this year?).

Tanking does not result in the desired outcome though all the time. There is risk involved. Stripping your team of all its assets to lose for a long time and acquire younger assets can also leave you with younger assets not any better than the assets you had before stripping the team down, and possibly a half a decade of losing to show for it.

Smarter management teams seem to rely on the short term strategic tanking. If the opportunity presents itself, they tank hard for half a season to try to acquire a higher pick in a strong draft.

There are multiple ways to produce a winning team, and tanking isn't the only solution.

[causal_fan]

You do realize they were purposely tanking last year, right? That is 30 wins in spite of trying to lose games.

True, but to be fair many of their "wins" in the 2nd half when they lost valuable tanking position was against teams also trying to lose games, unfortunately the Raptors allowed teams to out-tank them , I'm especially irritated the the Sixes out-tanked the Raptors and ended up with the 4th pick.

[Duffman100]

You do realize they were purposely tanking last year, right? That is 30 wins in spite of trying to lose games.

True, but to be fair many of their "wins" in the 2nd half when they lost valuable tanking position was against teams also trying to lose games, unfortunately the Raptors allowed teams to out-tank them , I'm especially irritated the the Sixes out-tanked the Raptors and ended up with the 4th pick.

And the Raptors outtanked the Mavericks and the Spurs and they ended up with the 1st and 2nd pick. The whole thing is a god damn crapshoot now.

[causal_fan]

True, but to be fair many of their "wins" in the 2nd half when they lost valuable tanking position was against teams also trying to lose games, unfortunately the Raptors allowed teams to out-tank them , I'm especially irritated the the Sixes out-tanked the Raptors and ended up with the 4th pick.

And the Raptors outtanked the Mavericks and the Spurs and they ended up with the 1st and 2nd pick. The whole thing is a god damn crapshoot now.

You are absolutely correct but what a team can control is giving itself the best odds possible in the lottery and the Raptors allowed too many teams to fall below them after they had established top 3 position.

[Duffman100]

True, but to be fair many of their "wins" in the 2nd half when they lost valuable tanking position was against teams also trying to lose games, unfortunately the Raptors allowed teams to out-tank them , I'm especially irritated the the Sixes out-tanked the Raptors and ended up with the 4th pick.

And the Raptors outtanked the Mavericks and the Spurs and they ended up with the 1st and 2nd pick. The whole thing is a god damn crapshoot now.

You are absolutely correct but what a team can control is giving itself the best odds possible in the lottery and the Raptors allowed too many teams to fall below them after they had established top 3 position.

As it has been pointed out countless times, the Raptors didn't gut their rosters like Washington, Utah, Charlotte etc. There was no way, outside of sitting all of their main players for an entire season - which is insane to do.

The teams that had the 'top 3 locked up' didn't even make it in the top 3!

[Los_29]

And the Raptors outtanked the Mavericks and the Spurs and they ended up with the 1st and 2nd pick. The whole thing is a god damn crapshoot now.

You are absolutely correct but what a team can control is giving itself the best odds possible in the lottery and the Raptors allowed too many teams to fall below them after they had established top 3 position.

As it has been pointed out countless times, the Raptors didn't gut their rosters like Washington, Utah, Charlotte etc. There was no way, outside of sitting all of their main players for an entire season - which is insane to do.

The teams that had the 'top 3 locked up' didn't even make it in the top 3!

And our ridiculously tough schedule at the beginning of the year gave people the wrong idea. We were always going to win quite a few games at the end of the year. If we would’ve won just a bit more we would’ve got the 2nd pick.

[ciueli]

Just want to remind people that Steph Curry had bad injury luck for the first part of his career before he got stronger and luck turned in his favour later in his career.

Not saying Brandon Ingram is the same level of talent - he’s probably not going to be a top 20 player of all time. However, he’s definitely more talented than he’s shown and the bet is a change of scenery + physical and mental maturity will coalesce into a leap in performance for him, as well as a huge payoff for the raps. The odds are very good for a positive ROI.

Steph Curry missed a significant number of games in just one season in the first 8 seasons of his career, he was actually the picture of health outside of that regularly playing 70+ games per season, he even has two seasons where he played 80 games. There is no comparison between him and Brandon Ingram who has never been healthy in a season outside his rookie season where he played limited minutes in a bench role, he has literally never had a healthy season as a full time starter in his entire career, he's actually never even played enough games to qualify for postseason awards outside his rookie season.

Now I'm not saying Ingram staying healthy and playing a 70+ game season is something that can't happen, but I am saying that it seems very unlikely at this point in his career. I'll even go one step further and say we should probably be limiting his minutes and even load managing him the way we did in 2018-19 with Kawhai (no back-to-backs), that's the only chance I see for him to be healthy and ready to go come playoff time.

[OhCanada]

True, but to be fair many of their "wins" in the 2nd half when they lost valuable tanking position was against teams also trying to lose games, unfortunately the Raptors allowed teams to out-tank them , I'm especially irritated the the Sixes out-tanked the Raptors and ended up with the 4th pick.

And the Raptors outtanked the Mavericks and the Spurs and they ended up with the 1st and 2nd pick. The whole thing is a god damn crapshoot now.

You are absolutely correct but what a team can control is giving itself the best odds possible in the lottery and the Raptors allowed too many teams to fall below them after they had established top 3 position.

There are no odds. They chose Dallas because they gave Luka to LA. They gave Spurs #2 as a reward for not tanking this year and to put talent around their new cash cow Wemby. And t6hey had to give Philly a top 4 pick or else that pick would go to OKC and they really dont want another Dynasty because they are trying to sell the whole parody thing to owners. Tanking isnt an option for Toronto.

[Los_29]

And the Raptors outtanked the Mavericks and the Spurs and they ended up with the 1st and 2nd pick. The whole thing is a god damn crapshoot now.

You are absolutely correct but what a team can control is giving itself the best odds possible in the lottery and the Raptors allowed too many teams to fall below them after they had established top 3 position.

There are no odds. They chose Dallas because they gave Luka to LA. They gave Spurs #2 as a reward for not tanking this year and to put talent around their new cash cow Wemby. And t6hey had to give Philly a top 4 pick or else that pick would go to OKC and they really dont want another Dynasty because they are trying to sell the whole parody thing to owners. Tanking isnt an option for Toronto.

The problem is we can do this about every team, every year. The reality is the NBA gets nothing from giving Zion to the Pelicans and Morant to the Grizzlies. It would’ve been huge had Zion gone to NYK. Edwards to Minnesota, Ball to Charlotte? Yeah not great there. Clippers, Knicks and Lakers in the lottery and none of them break into the top 4 to get Luka?

Lottery isn’t rigged. If it was they are doing a terrible job. lol.

[OhCanada]

You are absolutely correct but what a team can control is giving itself the best odds possible in the lottery and the Raptors allowed too many teams to fall below them after they had established top 3 position.

There are no odds. They chose Dallas because they gave Luka to LA. They gave Spurs #2 as a reward for not tanking this year and to put talent around their new cash cow Wemby. And t6hey had to give Philly a top 4 pick or else that pick would go to OKC and they really dont want another Dynasty because they are trying to sell the whole parody thing to owners. Tanking isnt an option for Toronto.

The problem is we can do this about every team, every year. The reality is the NBA gets nothing from giving Zion to the Pelicans and Morant to the Grizzlies. It would’ve been huge had Zion gone to NYK. Edwards to Minnesota, Ball to Charlotte? Yeah not great there. Clippers, Knicks and Lakers in the lottery and none of them break into the top 4 to get Luka?

Lottery isn’t rigged. If it was they are doing a terrible job. lol.

Pelicans traded Anthony Davis to LA Lakers the year they drafted Zion. Gasol got traded to Toronto who won the Championship the year Memphis drafted Morant. Wiggins got traded to GSW the year they drafted Edwards. Its rigged and I honestly question anybody's perception if they cannot see it.

[Los_29]

There are no odds. They chose Dallas because they gave Luka to LA. They gave Spurs #2 as a reward for not tanking this year and to put talent around their new cash cow Wemby. And t6hey had to give Philly a top 4 pick or else that pick would go to OKC and they really dont want another Dynasty because they are trying to sell the whole parody thing to owners. Tanking isnt an option for Toronto.

The problem is we can do this about every team, every year. The reality is the NBA gets nothing from giving Zion to the Pelicans and Morant to the Grizzlies. It would’ve been huge had Zion gone to NYK. Edwards to Minnesota, Ball to Charlotte? Yeah not great there. Clippers, Knicks and Lakers in the lottery and none of them break into the top 4 to get Luka?

Lottery isn’t rigged. If it was they are doing a terrible job. lol.

Pelicans traded Anthony Davis to LA Lakers the year they drafted Zion. Gasol got traded to Toronto who won the Championship the year Memphis drafted Morant. Wiggins got traded to GSW the year they drafted Edwards. Its rigged and I honestly question anybody's perception if they cannot see it.

You’re just proving my point. We can do this about every team. Stop believing in conspiracy theories. Read up on how the lottery actually works. It’s not rigged. lol.

Didn’t the AD trade happen after Zion got drafted? Marc Gasol, you mean 35 year old Gasol that was nearing the end of his career? Andrew Wiggins? Really? What’s your point here? Explain your thinking.

Why didn’t the NBA reward Cleveland the year they lost Lebron. They had the worst record in the league but dropped to 5th in the lottery. Portland hasn’t been rewarded and they traded Dame. Utah has had terrible luck in the lottery. Same with Detroit. Does the NBA not care about those small markets?

[Jerry Lucas]

The problem is we can do this about every team, every year. The reality is the NBA gets nothing from giving Zion to the Pelicans and Morant to the Grizzlies. It would’ve been huge had Zion gone to NYK. Edwards to Minnesota, Ball to Charlotte? Yeah not great there. Clippers, Knicks and Lakers in the lottery and none of them break into the top 4 to get Luka?

Lottery isn’t rigged. If it was they are doing a terrible job. lol.

Pelicans traded Anthony Davis to LA Lakers the year they drafted Zion. Gasol got traded to Toronto who won the Championship the year Memphis drafted Morant. Wiggins got traded to GSW the year they drafted Edwards. Its rigged and I honestly question anybody's perception if they cannot see it.

You’re just proving my point. We can do this about every team. Stop believing in conspiracy theories. Read up on how the lottery actually works. It’s not rigged. lol.

Didn’t the AD trade happen after Zion got drafted? Marc Gasol, you mean 35 year old Gasol that was nearing the end of his career? Andrew Wiggins? Really? What’s your point here? Explain your thinking.

Why didn’t the NBA reward Cleveland the year they lost Lebron. They had the worst record in the league but dropped to 5th in the lottery. Portland hasn’t been rewarded and they traded Dame. Utah has had terrible luck in the lottery. Same with Detroit. Does the NBA not care about those small markets?

Just for the sake of accuracy, because there are multiple inaccuracies in your post Los, the Cavs did win the draft lottery when they lost LeBron in the 2010-11 offseason, selecting Kyrie 1st overall in 2011.

Also, you are technically correct that AD had not been traded yet when the Pelicans won the 2019 draft lottery, but AD had requested a trade and made it clear to the Pels he wouldn't be extending with them in January 2019, which was before they won the 2019 draft lottery. The Pels "coincidentally" also won the AD draft lottery itself in 2012, after trading CP3 earlier in the 2011-12 season.

[MEDIC]

You are absolutely correct but what a team can control is giving itself the best odds possible in the lottery and the Raptors allowed too many teams to fall below them after they had established top 3 position.

As it has been pointed out countless times, the Raptors didn't gut their rosters like Washington, Utah, Charlotte etc. There was no way, outside of sitting all of their main players for an entire season - which is insane to do.

The teams that had the 'top 3 locked up' didn't even make it in the top 3!

And our ridiculously tough schedule at the beginning of the year gave people the wrong idea. We were always going to win quite a few games at the end of the year. If we would’ve won just a bit more we would’ve got the 2nd pick.

If the Raptors were relatively healthy all season & Darko was coaching to win, I think that team would have won 40+

[CPT]

There are no odds. They chose Dallas because they gave Luka to LA. They gave Spurs #2 as a reward for not tanking this year and to put talent around their new cash cow Wemby. And t6hey had to give Philly a top 4 pick or else that pick would go to OKC and they really dont want another Dynasty because they are trying to sell the whole parody thing to owners. Tanking isnt an option for Toronto.

The problem is we can do this about every team, every year. The reality is the NBA gets nothing from giving Zion to the Pelicans and Morant to the Grizzlies. It would’ve been huge had Zion gone to NYK. Edwards to Minnesota, Ball to Charlotte? Yeah not great there. Clippers, Knicks and Lakers in the lottery and none of them break into the top 4 to get Luka?

Lottery isn’t rigged. If it was they are doing a terrible job. lol.

Pelicans traded Anthony Davis to LA Lakers the year they drafted Zion. Gasol got traded to Toronto who won the Championship the year Memphis drafted Morant. Wiggins got traded to GSW the year they drafted Edwards. Its rigged and I honestly question anybody's perception if they cannot see it.

This is all complete nonsense, but what the actual **** is this even supposed to mean?

[anj]

Pelicans traded Anthony Davis to LA Lakers the year they drafted Zion. Gasol got traded to Toronto who won the Championship the year Memphis drafted Morant. Wiggins got traded to GSW the year they drafted Edwards. Its rigged and I honestly question anybody's perception if they cannot see it.

This doesn't prove that the draft is rigged. It proves that the human mind attempts to apply logic to random processes. If the draft was rigged, owners and GMs would be crying bloody murder every single year. But they're not. Because representatives from each team, league officials, 14 media members, and a third-party auditor are in the room when the random draw is made.

If the draft was rigged, there would be investigations, and email, phone and text trails. There would be a smoking gun. Yet there never has been. There are only arbitrary claims based on nothing. The only theory that even attempts to offer an explanation of how the NBA allegedly fixed a draft is the outlandish 1985 frozen envelope theory. And that one's reserved for mentally infirm Knicks fans. They don't even use envelopes anymore. The fact that this kind of theorizing is limited to message board chatter should really tell you something. It is not the doubters' perception you should be questioning, it is your own.

[Pointgod]

Pelicans traded Anthony Davis to LA Lakers the year they drafted Zion. Gasol got traded to Toronto who won the Championship the year Memphis drafted Morant. Wiggins got traded to GSW the year they drafted Edwards. Its rigged and I honestly question anybody's perception if they cannot see it.

You’re just proving my point. We can do this about every team. Stop believing in conspiracy theories. Read up on how the lottery actually works. It’s not rigged. lol.

Didn’t the AD trade happen after Zion got drafted? Marc Gasol, you mean 35 year old Gasol that was nearing the end of his career? Andrew Wiggins? Really? What’s your point here? Explain your thinking.

Why didn’t the NBA reward Cleveland the year they lost Lebron. They had the worst record in the league but dropped to 5th in the lottery. Portland hasn’t been rewarded and they traded Dame. Utah has had terrible luck in the lottery. Same with Detroit. Does the NBA not care about those small markets?

Just for the sake of accuracy, because there are multiple inaccuracies in your post Los, the Cavs did win the draft lottery when they lost LeBron in the 2010-11 offseason, selecting Kyrie 1st overall in 2011.

Also, you are technically correct that AD had not been traded yet when the Pelicans won the 2019 draft lottery, but AD had requested a trade and made it clear to the Pels he wouldn't be extending with them in January 2019, which was before they won the 2019 draft lottery. The Pels "coincidentally" also won the AD draft lottery itself in 2012, after trading CP3 earlier in the 2011-12 season.

The Cavs got the Kyrie pick from the Clippers. It had 2.9% odds of landing the top pick. If you were to rig the draft for the Cavs why wouldn’t you rig it with the Cavs actual pick which had the second best odds of the top pick? You know there’s multiple people in the room when the lottery goes on, it’s video taped and audited by an independent firm which would lose all credibility and would be sued into oblivion by NBA teams if they were found to rig the draft.

Also the 2012 draft the Pelicans tied for the 3rd best odds for the top pick. Where is the conspiracy in that?

[Los_29]

Pelicans traded Anthony Davis to LA Lakers the year they drafted Zion. Gasol got traded to Toronto who won the Championship the year Memphis drafted Morant. Wiggins got traded to GSW the year they drafted Edwards. Its rigged and I honestly question anybody's perception if they cannot see it.

You’re just proving my point. We can do this about every team. Stop believing in conspiracy theories. Read up on how the lottery actually works. It’s not rigged. lol.

Didn’t the AD trade happen after Zion got drafted? Marc Gasol, you mean 35 year old Gasol that was nearing the end of his career? Andrew Wiggins? Really? What’s your point here? Explain your thinking.

Why didn’t the NBA reward Cleveland the year they lost Lebron. They had the worst record in the league but dropped to 5th in the lottery. Portland hasn’t been rewarded and they traded Dame. Utah has had terrible luck in the lottery. Same with Detroit. Does the NBA not care about those small markets?

Just for the sake of accuracy, because there are multiple inaccuracies in your post Los, the Cavs did win the draft lottery when they lost LeBron in the 2010-11 offseason, selecting Kyrie 1st overall in 2011.

Also, you are technically correct that AD had not been traded yet when the Pelicans won the 2019 draft lottery, but AD had requested a trade and made it clear to the Pels he wouldn't be extending with them in January 2019, which was before they won the 2019 draft lottery. The Pels "coincidentally" also won the AD draft lottery itself in 2012, after trading CP3 earlier in the 2011-12 season.

I’m talking about when LeBron went to LA.

But he hadn’t been dealt to LA yet. And Pelicans got a huge haul for AD. There’s no reason for the NBA to keep “helping” New Orleans while never helping out all of the other small markets. And if the NBA cared so much about New Orleans they wouldn’t be letting their owners trade unprotected FRPs for Derik Queen. lol.

[Tacoma]

True, but to be fair many of their "wins" in the 2nd half when they lost valuable tanking position was against teams also trying to lose games, unfortunately the Raptors allowed teams to out-tank them , I'm especially irritated the the Sixes out-tanked the Raptors and ended up with the 4th pick.

And the Raptors outtanked the Mavericks and the Spurs and they ended up with the 1st and 2nd pick. The whole thing is a god damn crapshoot now.

It is crapshoot... one that is governed by the laws of probability. And that law says the bottom 3 teams have 14% chance of getting the #1 pick, and then the odds decrease from there for 4th worst team and so on. You get better odds the lower you are so teams tank but because you're talking probability, it guarantees nothing. Outliers happen, so because Dallas had 1.8% chance and not 0%, they hit the jackpot and got #1.

Tanking is trying to put the odds as favorable as you can, so it's not only now that it's a god damn crapshoot but it always has been and always will be but teams do it for better odds of "winning." Unless you believe in conspiracies in which case all bets are off. Sorry for clearly stating the obvious.

[Los_29]

True, but to be fair many of their "wins" in the 2nd half when they lost valuable tanking position was against teams also trying to lose games, unfortunately the Raptors allowed teams to out-tank them , I'm especially irritated the the Sixes out-tanked the Raptors and ended up with the 4th pick.

And the Raptors outtanked the Mavericks and the Spurs and they ended up with the 1st and 2nd pick. The whole thing is a god damn crapshoot now.

It is crapshoot... one that is governed by the laws of probability. And that law says the bottom 3 teams have 14% chance of getting the #1 pick, and then the odds decrease from there for 4th worst team and so on. You get better odds the lower you are so teams tank but because you're talking probability, it guarantees nothing. Outliers happen, so because Dallas had 1.8% chance and not 0%, they hit the jackpot and got #1.

Tanking is trying to put the odds as favorable as you can, so it's not only now that it's a god damn crapshoot but it always has been and always will be but teams do it for better odds of "winning." Unless you believe in conspiracies in which case all bets are off. Sorry for clearly stating the obvious.

You wrote a lot just to say that the lottery is a crapshoot.

[mtcan]

You’re just proving my point. We can do this about every team. Stop believing in conspiracy theories. Read up on how the lottery actually works. It’s not rigged. lol.

Didn’t the AD trade happen after Zion got drafted? Marc Gasol, you mean 35 year old Gasol that was nearing the end of his career? Andrew Wiggins? Really? What’s your point here? Explain your thinking.

Why didn’t the NBA reward Cleveland the year they lost Lebron. They had the worst record in the league but dropped to 5th in the lottery. Portland hasn’t been rewarded and they traded Dame. Utah has had terrible luck in the lottery. Same with Detroit. Does the NBA not care about those small markets?

Just for the sake of accuracy, because there are multiple inaccuracies in your post Los, the Cavs did win the draft lottery when they lost LeBron in the 2010-11 offseason, selecting Kyrie 1st overall in 2011.

Also, you are technically correct that AD had not been traded yet when the Pelicans won the 2019 draft lottery, but AD had requested a trade and made it clear to the Pels he wouldn't be extending with them in January 2019, which was before they won the 2019 draft lottery. The Pels "coincidentally" also won the AD draft lottery itself in 2012, after trading CP3 earlier in the 2011-12 season.

I’m talking about when LeBron went to LA.

But he hadn’t been dealt to LA yet. And Pelicans got a huge haul for AD. There’s no reason for the NBA to keep “helping” New Orleans while never helping out all of the other small markets. And if the NBA cared so much about New Orleans they wouldn’t be letting their owners trade unprotected FRPs for Derik Queen. lol.

And don't forget when Chris Paul was a New Orleans Hornet and the league operated the Hornets because they didn't have an owner. Of course he gets traded to the Clippers that season...but then the Hornets end up being sold to the Benson family in 2012 with a promise of an all-star game and miraculously...get the #1 pick in the next draft who became AD. The timing of all this is too obvious.