Tank World Order V (Rise of the Phoenix)

[SFour]

Sure, let's make a play for Wemby too. Anything can happen right?

The Warriors are in the final stretches of the Steph timeline, they can ill afford to not make a move or risk being mediocre with Steph until he retires. (Steph makes them good, but he isn't 14/15 Steph anymore, still a Superstar though).

The Dubs need to make a move for contention, simple as that.

The Spurs have all the time in the world, the Warriors don't.

And hanging onto players too long until you have no choice but to trade them will bite you in the ass, we saw this with Masai.

Something over there has to give.

lol so they don't pay up for Lauri who fits that team perfectly but they're going to break the bank for Jak who might not even be a good fit for them, makes sense.

Kuminga isn't a bank breaker....Ochai is a better prospect at this point

[PushDaRock]

The Warriors are in the final stretches of the Steph timeline, they can ill afford to not make a move or risk being mediocre with Steph until he retires. (Steph makes them good, but he isn't 14/15 Steph anymore, still a Superstar though).

The Dubs need to make a move for contention, simple as that.

The Spurs have all the time in the world, the Warriors don't.

And hanging onto players too long until you have no choice but to trade them will bite you in the ass, we saw this with Masai.

Something over there has to give.

lol so they don't pay up for Lauri who fits that team perfectly but they're going to break the bank for Jak who might not even be a good fit for them, makes sense.

When you're dealing with Ainge you are in rip off city.

However I really don't think they can wait on Kuminga much longer, whose value is truly in the gutter. if Steph was even 25-27, sure, but Steph is 35....

Those players that they wouldn't trade?

Kuminga currently has a 51.2% TS

Podz has a 44% TS.

It's not as rosy as you think.

Also, the Warriors should have made a real move for Lauri, Siakam, OG but their stubbornness is going to bite them.

Eventually Masai needed to trade Siakam and OG, eventually the Warriors will need to make a move as well, if not with us, with someone else. Just a matter of time.

Their team is #4 in offensive rebounding, #3 in defensive rebounding and #2 in overall rebounding. They also have the 4th best defense in the league. They have Draymond, Jackson-Davis and Looney who can all play the 5. Why would they pay up for Jak?

[PushDaRock]

The Warriors are in the final stretches of the Steph timeline, they can ill afford to not make a move or risk being mediocre with Steph until he retires. (Steph makes them good, but he isn't 14/15 Steph anymore, still a Superstar though).

The Dubs need to make a move for contention, simple as that.

The Spurs have all the time in the world, the Warriors don't.

And hanging onto players too long until you have no choice but to trade them will bite you in the ass, we saw this with Masai.

Something over there has to give.

lol so they don't pay up for Lauri who fits that team perfectly but they're going to break the bank for Jak who might not even be a good fit for them, makes sense.

Kuminga isn't a bank breaker....Ochai is a better prospect at this point

You think Mike Dunleavy believes this?

[S.W.A.N]

You're giving our team much too much credit.

No. I don't think so.

Our team is very unlikely to sell off major assets. Which means we're going to rack up some wins late in the season and against fellow bottom feeders and injury prone teams.

As bad as we've been, there isn't much unexpected to it. We have a very tough first 40 and were going to lose a lot. The injuries have added a few more losses that could be expected, but have also shown us we have some decent players and our team plays hard every game.

We're still going to be a 30+ win team this year which means we're far more likely to have to worry about the Spurs than the Jazz.

Lol you still think this team is winning 30+ games?

Yup. I'd be shocked if they didn't (minus major trades or a Yak injury)

[Scase]

Scottie was an All-Star last year, are we not considering him a "top" player if Trae Young counts?

So, you think Masai should be smart enough to knowingly break the rules and get away with it. Interesting premise I guess.

The same Trae who is a 3x all star and a x1 All NBA, who is well known around the league, and so on? The whole reason this stuff was put into place was due to people paying to see games and the marquee players are being sat out for rest. People will raise hell if they pay a bunch of money to see lebron or jokic etc and they are sitting, this is not the same case for Scottie, please tell me you understand the difference here.

And yes, I absolutely think that Masai and any other FO exec in the league would circumvent rules and use any loopholes they can, that's kinda why they have their jobs. Breaking rules, and blatantly breaking rules are 2 different things, the NBA is not going to open up an investigation cause a guy with a minor injury misses a game or two, they will do it if a marquee player does something stupid like Embiid did, publicly stating he won't be playing in any b2b's.

There are levels to this, but if you think not a single exec ever bends rules, I've got a bridge to sell you lol

Are people paying a ton of money to watch Trae Young play as well?

If it's just stars they care about, then why did the Nets also get fined 100k for sitting out 4 rotation players last season? Last I checked, Dinwiddie, Finney-Smith, Cam Johnson and Claxton are nowhere close to stars.

The Play-In, flat lottery odds were all put in place to discourage blatant tanking. So, yes I do think the league cares about teams trying to lose games on purpose when it's egregious.

Now, let's assume they rotate rest for each starter instead to "circumvent" the rules. You don't think other bad teams would do the same thing? Last I checked, sitting out players for rest isn't new. If every bad team is doing it, what advantage is gained from that over the other bad teams? Are you just assuming we are the only team that would sit out our best players?

I feel like you are intentionally ignoring things I am saying and making up some boogeyman.

The nets got fined, cause they sat 3 of their 5 starters, and their 6th man all at once. And I specifically said :

not to mention I'm not suggesting we just sit the entire SL all at once, a couple games here and there rotating 1-2 of them at a time is plenty to lower our chances of winning.

And you can say the lotto odds discourage tanking, only if you ignore how many teams are basically tanking right now. The odds are flatter, not flat. The worst team in the NBA still has a significantly better chance of a top 5 pick (100%) than the teams below them, and the bottom 3 have better chances at a top 4 pick overall.

And if other teams do it? Well let's look at the other teams with records as bad as ours :
WAS doesn't matter, they are bad regardless.
PHI they aren't tanking they have injuries, and they have also already suffered fines/suspension, not to mention their pick is only top 6 protected.
NOLA have actual injuries and are comparable to us, not much room to get worse
UTA Lauri went down with an injury already, and fully healthy they were as bad as we were, so no change as they can't get much worse.

Teams in the next tier up :
CHA, Lamelo is the only thing keeping the team above us, he goes down they aren't far off from us
POR already had Ayton and Sharpe missing 7 and 8 games each, still ahead of us. Best they do is sit Grant/Simons then they are down to our level.
ATL/CHI/DET/SAC/MIA/IND none of them are trying to tank, they are outright trying to win. So if they start sitting players it's not likely until the new year which would be too late for them to drop far enough. Plus, IND has absolutely zero incentive to sit players for multiple reasons.
BKN, they are the only legitimate threat to do this. Either they wont because of the previous fines, or they will be more coy about it and won't have as much of an impact.


So all in all, the worst case scenario is a couple teams do it, and they all happen to be ahead of us in the standings. So at best they maintain the same W/L record as us, except we already have more losses. But hey, you also said the lotto odds are flat right? So who cares if they do, it's all the same isn't it?

The only risk that exists is if other teams strategically sit players, and we don't. Which I assumed was pretty obvious, but I guess not.

[YogurtProducer]

No. I don't think so.

Our team is very unlikely to sell off major assets. Which means we're going to rack up some wins late in the season and against fellow bottom feeders and injury prone teams.

As bad as we've been, there isn't much unexpected to it. We have a very tough first 40 and were going to lose a lot. The injuries have added a few more losses that could be expected, but have also shown us we have some decent players and our team plays hard every game.

We're still going to be a 30+ win team this year which means we're far more likely to have to worry about the Spurs than the Jazz.

Lol you still think this team is winning 30+ games?

Yup. I'd be shocked if they didn't (minus major trades or a Yak injury)

These guys have their heads stuck in the sand hoping if they repeat how bad we are over and over, it would magically come true.

I agree we don't win 30 games if we continue to have the injurie woes we have had, but when Barnes alone has played we are 3-5, and in reality would be 4-4 because we win vs Denver if he does not leave with a few minutes left. That is .500 basketball against decent competition (DEN, MIN x2, CLE x2, PHI, DET, NOP) and with IQ/BB/KO playing a collective 68 minutes.

There is more and more evidence piling up this team is no where near as bad as its record.

And again FWIW before Danger or Clutch jump down my throat, I am not saying us winning 40 games is the best thing for this team but the reality is if we get healthy that is where we potentially heading.

[Scase]

No. I don't think so.

Our team is very unlikely to sell off major assets. Which means we're going to rack up some wins late in the season and against fellow bottom feeders and injury prone teams.

As bad as we've been, there isn't much unexpected to it. We have a very tough first 40 and were going to lose a lot. The injuries have added a few more losses that could be expected, but have also shown us we have some decent players and our team plays hard every game.

We're still going to be a 30+ win team this year which means we're far more likely to have to worry about the Spurs than the Jazz.

Lol you still think this team is winning 30+ games?

Yup. I'd be shocked if they didn't (minus major trades or a Yak injury)

So we've gone 5-14 to start the year, and you expect us to play at minimum 26-36, which is a .426 win rate. We barely managed that win rate over a full season with a very healthy lineup of FVV/OG/Scottie/Siakam, but you think this lineup can manage it?

I applaud the optimism, but you might want to take a gander at the schedule for rest of the year.

[Vampirate]

NOLA have actual injuries and are comparable to us, not much room to get worse

Zion feels like a lost cause, I have more faith in Kawhi's health moving forwards than Zion's.

Ingram hopefully gets back and leads N.O. to a winning streak.

[Scase]

NOLA have actual injuries and are comparable to us, not much room to get worse

Zion feels like a lost cause, I have more faith in Kawhi's health moving forwards than Zion's.

Ingram hopefully gets back and leads N.O. to a winning streak.

Agreed, Zion has completely sandbagged that team, they no doubt are trying to build up BIs value some more this season to trade him then likely tank, but I don't see how they can do that with him constantly being injured. They are definitely tanking competition, but they are also missing like 8 rotation players. If even half of them come back healthy, they are a better team than us.

[Vampirate]

Lol you still think this team is winning 30+ games?

Yup. I'd be shocked if they didn't (minus major trades or a Yak injury)

So we've gone 5-14 to start the year, and you expect us to play at minimum 26-36, which is a .426 win rate. We barely managed that win rate over a full season with a very healthy lineup of FVV/OG/Scottie/Siakam, but you think this lineup can manage it?

I applaud the optimism, but you might want to take a gander at the schedule for rest of the year.

To be fair this is with 2nd year Barnes here, but on the other hand does 3rd year Barnes happen with Nurse? I kind of doubt that.

As for our record, I sadly can see that. That FVV, OG, Barnes, Siakam core was with the worst (or top 5 worst benches in the league) we actually have a decent one this year.

Mogbo, Battle, (Gradey/Ochai/Walter)>>>>>Flynn, McDaniels etc

[PushDaRock]

The same Trae who is a 3x all star and a x1 All NBA, who is well known around the league, and so on? The whole reason this stuff was put into place was due to people paying to see games and the marquee players are being sat out for rest. People will raise hell if they pay a bunch of money to see lebron or jokic etc and they are sitting, this is not the same case for Scottie, please tell me you understand the difference here.

And yes, I absolutely think that Masai and any other FO exec in the league would circumvent rules and use any loopholes they can, that's kinda why they have their jobs. Breaking rules, and blatantly breaking rules are 2 different things, the NBA is not going to open up an investigation cause a guy with a minor injury misses a game or two, they will do it if a marquee player does something stupid like Embiid did, publicly stating he won't be playing in any b2b's.

There are levels to this, but if you think not a single exec ever bends rules, I've got a bridge to sell you lol

Are people paying a ton of money to watch Trae Young play as well?

If it's just stars they care about, then why did the Nets also get fined 100k for sitting out 4 rotation players last season? Last I checked, Dinwiddie, Finney-Smith, Cam Johnson and Claxton are nowhere close to stars.

The Play-In, flat lottery odds were all put in place to discourage blatant tanking. So, yes I do think the league cares about teams trying to lose games on purpose when it's egregious.

Now, let's assume they rotate rest for each starter instead to "circumvent" the rules. You don't think other bad teams would do the same thing? Last I checked, sitting out players for rest isn't new. If every bad team is doing it, what advantage is gained from that over the other bad teams? Are you just assuming we are the only team that would sit out our best players?

I feel like you are intentionally ignoring things I am saying and making up some boogeyman.

The nets got fined, cause they sat 3 of their 5 starters, and their 6th man all at once. And I specifically said :

not to mention I'm not suggesting we just sit the entire SL all at once, a couple games here and there rotating 1-2 of them at a time is plenty to lower our chances of winning.

And you can say the lotto odds discourage tanking, only if you ignore how many teams are basically tanking right now. The odds are flatter, not flat. The worst team in the NBA still has a significantly better chance of a top 5 pick (100%) than the teams below them, and the bottom 3 have better chances at a top 4 pick overall.

And if other teams do it? Well let's look at the other teams with records as bad as ours :
WAS doesn't matter, they are bad regardless.
PHI they aren't tanking they have injuries, and they have also already suffered fines/suspension, not to mention their pick is only top 6 protected.
NOLA have actual injuries and are comparable to us, not much room to get worse
UTA Lauri went down with an injury already, and fully healthy they were as bad as we were, so no change as they can't get much worse.

Teams in the next tier up :
CHA, Lamelo is the only thing keeping the team above us, he goes down they aren't far off from us
POR already had Ayton and Sharpe missing 7 and 8 games each, still ahead of us. Best they do is sit Grant/Simons then they are down to our level.
ATL/CHI/DET/SAC/MIA/IND none of them are trying to tank, they are outright trying to win. So if they start sitting players it's not likely until the new year which would be too late for them to drop far enough. Plus, IND has absolutely zero incentive to sit players for multiple reasons.
BKN, they are the only legitimate threat to do this. Either they wont because of the previous fines, or they will be more coy about it and won't have as much of an impact.


So all in all, the worst case scenario is a couple teams do it, and they all happen to be ahead of us in the standings. So at best they maintain the same W/L record as us, except we already have more losses. But hey, you also said the lotto odds are flat right? So who cares if they do, it's all the same isn't it?

The only risk that exists is if other teams strategically sit players, and we don't. Which I assumed was pretty obvious, but I guess not.

You were saying they don't care about non stars sitting out, the Nets example is that they do in fact care when it's egregious enough.

I said the rules were put in to discourage "blatant" tanking. Blatant is the key word there. You seem to think all our starters missing a few games they could have played in moves the needle a lot as far as making us significantly worse, I disagree with that notion. Do you think getting the worst record in the league is realistic with this roster? If you only look at the record, sure maybe you can talk yourself into that possibility but NRTG would indicate otherwise especially when combined with our schedule so far, injuries sustained and the fact we have been in almost every game. If you assume a young roster should improve as the season goes on (seems logical), then this team should win more games not less as they improve and the schedule gets easier.

[Scase]

Yup. I'd be shocked if they didn't (minus major trades or a Yak injury)

So we've gone 5-14 to start the year, and you expect us to play at minimum 26-36, which is a .426 win rate. We barely managed that win rate over a full season with a very healthy lineup of FVV/OG/Scottie/Siakam, but you think this lineup can manage it?

I applaud the optimism, but you might want to take a gander at the schedule for rest of the year.

To be fair this is with 2nd year Barnes here, but on the other hand does 3rd year Barnes happen with Nurse? I kind of doubt that.

As for our record, I sadly can see that. That FVV, OG, Barnes, Siakam core was with the worst (or top 5 worst benches in the league) we actually have a decent one this year.

Mogbo, Battle, (Gradey/Ochai/Walter)>>>>>Flynn, McDaniels etc

I absolutely think that Barnes develops well under Nurse, ffs the guy oversaw the development of FVV/OG/Siakam and Scotties ROTY campaign. It's not his fault the FO gave him a horrific roster AND told him he has to win, he absolutely knows how to develop players. But if you put a coach in a position where you give him a bad roster, and you havent expressed extending his contract, then yeah he's going to push for wins, same way we saw FVV going for personal statistics instead of team ball. Humans are incentive based creatures, and that next contract is a massive incentive.

Are people paying a ton of money to watch Trae Young play as well?

If it's just stars they care about, then why did the Nets also get fined 100k for sitting out 4 rotation players last season? Last I checked, Dinwiddie, Finney-Smith, Cam Johnson and Claxton are nowhere close to stars.

The Play-In, flat lottery odds were all put in place to discourage blatant tanking. So, yes I do think the league cares about teams trying to lose games on purpose when it's egregious.

Now, let's assume they rotate rest for each starter instead to "circumvent" the rules. You don't think other bad teams would do the same thing? Last I checked, sitting out players for rest isn't new. If every bad team is doing it, what advantage is gained from that over the other bad teams? Are you just assuming we are the only team that would sit out our best players?

I feel like you are intentionally ignoring things I am saying and making up some boogeyman.

The nets got fined, cause they sat 3 of their 5 starters, and their 6th man all at once. And I specifically said :

not to mention I'm not suggesting we just sit the entire SL all at once, a couple games here and there rotating 1-2 of them at a time is plenty to lower our chances of winning.

And you can say the lotto odds discourage tanking, only if you ignore how many teams are basically tanking right now. The odds are flatter, not flat. The worst team in the NBA still has a significantly better chance of a top 5 pick (100%) than the teams below them, and the bottom 3 have better chances at a top 4 pick overall.

And if other teams do it? Well let's look at the other teams with records as bad as ours :
WAS doesn't matter, they are bad regardless.
PHI they aren't tanking they have injuries, and they have also already suffered fines/suspension, not to mention their pick is only top 6 protected.
NOLA have actual injuries and are comparable to us, not much room to get worse
UTA Lauri went down with an injury already, and fully healthy they were as bad as we were, so no change as they can't get much worse.

Teams in the next tier up :
CHA, Lamelo is the only thing keeping the team above us, he goes down they aren't far off from us
POR already had Ayton and Sharpe missing 7 and 8 games each, still ahead of us. Best they do is sit Grant/Simons then they are down to our level.
ATL/CHI/DET/SAC/MIA/IND none of them are trying to tank, they are outright trying to win. So if they start sitting players it's not likely until the new year which would be too late for them to drop far enough. Plus, IND has absolutely zero incentive to sit players for multiple reasons.
BKN, they are the only legitimate threat to do this. Either they wont because of the previous fines, or they will be more coy about it and won't have as much of an impact.


So all in all, the worst case scenario is a couple teams do it, and they all happen to be ahead of us in the standings. So at best they maintain the same W/L record as us, except we already have more losses. But hey, you also said the lotto odds are flat right? So who cares if they do, it's all the same isn't it?

The only risk that exists is if other teams strategically sit players, and we don't. Which I assumed was pretty obvious, but I guess not.

You were saying they don't care about non stars sitting out, the Nets example is that they do in fact care when it's egregious enough.

I said the rules were put in to discourage "blatant" tanking. Blatant is the key word there. You seem to think all our starters missing a few games they could have played in moves the needle a lot as far as making us significantly worse, I disagree with that notion. Do you think getting the worst record in the league is realistic with this roster? If you only look at the record, sure maybe you can talk yourself into that possibility but NRTG would indicate otherwise especially when combined with our schedule so far, injuries sustained and the fact we have been in almost every game. If you assume a young roster should improve as the season goes on (seems logical), then this team should win more games not less as they improve and the schedule gets easier.

Sorry, I didn't know that I had to explicitly state every single potential tanking strategy known to man. Just because I said they care about stars when it comes to these fines/punishments, doesn't mean I assumed you'd jump right into "YEAH WELL YOU DIDN'T SAY THIS EXACT OTHER INSTANCE!". Especially when I literally said we shouldn't do that exact instance of sitting out most/all of a starting line up.

Again you're just making up boogeymen that don't exist. You said rules were put in to discourage blatant tanking, cool, I never suggested we blatantly tank. You made that connection, not me.

Missing a couple starters doesn't move the needle? Funny, we are only missing 2 of RJ/IQ/Scottie at any given time, and we're 5-14. Scottie has played 8 games, and we've won 5 games total. He was also in 3 of those 5 wins. We've had 2/5 of those wins in the last 4 games where we've had both RJ and Scottie.

So we go 15 games with 3 wins, then 4 games with 2 wins and 2 of the core back, and yet that won't make a difference? Most every one on this board understands and have stated, that a fully healthy lineup we are unlikely a sub 30 win team, and here we are with an unhealthy lineup rocking a projected 22 win season. You think having all our starters doesnt cause us to win more games, like what ass backwards argument are you trying to make?

You think if we ran 10 games this season with Fernando playing 30+ mpg in place of Jak, that we end up winning more than 3 of those? How good do you think this team is

Less good players = more losses. This isn't a difficult concept. This team absolutely could be in the running for worst record with injuries, will they end up there, I can't say, I'm not clairvoyant. But to act like it's an impossibility is just absurd.

[PushDaRock]

So we've gone 5-14 to start the year, and you expect us to play at minimum 26-36, which is a .426 win rate. We barely managed that win rate over a full season with a very healthy lineup of FVV/OG/Scottie/Siakam, but you think this lineup can manage it?

I applaud the optimism, but you might want to take a gander at the schedule for rest of the year.

To be fair this is with 2nd year Barnes here, but on the other hand does 3rd year Barnes happen with Nurse? I kind of doubt that.

As for our record, I sadly can see that. That FVV, OG, Barnes, Siakam core was with the worst (or top 5 worst benches in the league) we actually have a decent one this year.

Mogbo, Battle, (Gradey/Ochai/Walter)>>>>>Flynn, McDaniels etc

I absolutely think that Barnes develops well under Nurse, ffs the guy oversaw the development of FVV/OG/Siakam and Scotties ROTY campaign. It's not his fault the FO gave him a horrific roster AND told him he has to win, he absolutely knows how to develop players. But if you put a coach in a position where you give him a bad roster, and you havent expressed extending his contract, then yeah he's going to push for wins, same way we saw FVV going for personal statistics instead of team ball. Humans are incentive based creatures, and that next contract is a massive incentive.

I feel like you are intentionally ignoring things I am saying and making up some boogeyman.

The nets got fined, cause they sat 3 of their 5 starters, and their 6th man all at once. And I specifically said :



And you can say the lotto odds discourage tanking, only if you ignore how many teams are basically tanking right now. The odds are flatter, not flat. The worst team in the NBA still has a significantly better chance of a top 5 pick (100%) than the teams below them, and the bottom 3 have better chances at a top 4 pick overall.

And if other teams do it? Well let's look at the other teams with records as bad as ours :
WAS doesn't matter, they are bad regardless.
PHI they aren't tanking they have injuries, and they have also already suffered fines/suspension, not to mention their pick is only top 6 protected.
NOLA have actual injuries and are comparable to us, not much room to get worse
UTA Lauri went down with an injury already, and fully healthy they were as bad as we were, so no change as they can't get much worse.

Teams in the next tier up :
CHA, Lamelo is the only thing keeping the team above us, he goes down they aren't far off from us
POR already had Ayton and Sharpe missing 7 and 8 games each, still ahead of us. Best they do is sit Grant/Simons then they are down to our level.
ATL/CHI/DET/SAC/MIA/IND none of them are trying to tank, they are outright trying to win. So if they start sitting players it's not likely until the new year which would be too late for them to drop far enough. Plus, IND has absolutely zero incentive to sit players for multiple reasons.
BKN, they are the only legitimate threat to do this. Either they wont because of the previous fines, or they will be more coy about it and won't have as much of an impact.


So all in all, the worst case scenario is a couple teams do it, and they all happen to be ahead of us in the standings. So at best they maintain the same W/L record as us, except we already have more losses. But hey, you also said the lotto odds are flat right? So who cares if they do, it's all the same isn't it?

The only risk that exists is if other teams strategically sit players, and we don't. Which I assumed was pretty obvious, but I guess not.

You were saying they don't care about non stars sitting out, the Nets example is that they do in fact care when it's egregious enough.

I said the rules were put in to discourage "blatant" tanking. Blatant is the key word there. You seem to think all our starters missing a few games they could have played in moves the needle a lot as far as making us significantly worse, I disagree with that notion. Do you think getting the worst record in the league is realistic with this roster? If you only look at the record, sure maybe you can talk yourself into that possibility but NRTG would indicate otherwise especially when combined with our schedule so far, injuries sustained and the fact we have been in almost every game. If you assume a young roster should improve as the season goes on (seems logical), then this team should win more games not less as they improve and the schedule gets easier.

Sorry, I didn't know that I had to explicitly state every single potential tanking strategy known to man. Just because I said they care about stars when it comes to these fines/punishments, doesn't mean I assumed you'd jump right into "YEAH WELL YOU DIDN'T SAY THIS EXACT OTHER INSTANCE!". Especially when I literally said we shouldn't do that exact instance of sitting out most/all of a starting line up.

Again you're just making up boogeymen that don't exist. You said rules were put in to discourage blatant tanking, cool, I never suggested we blatantly tank. You made that connection, not me.

Missing a couple starters doesn't move the needle? Funny, we are only missing 2 of RJ/IQ/Scottie at any given time, and we're 5-14. Scottie has played 8 games, and we've won 5 games total. He was also in 3 of those 5 wins. We've had 2/5 of those wins in the last 4 games where we've had both RJ and Scottie.

So we go 15 games with 3 wins, then 4 games with 2 wins and 2 of the core back, and yet that won't make a difference? Most every one on this board understands and have stated, that a fully healthy lineup we are unlikely a sub 30 win team, and here we are with an unhealthy lineup rocking a projected 22 win season. You think having all our starters doesnt cause us to win more games, like what ass backwards argument are you trying to make?

You think if we ran 10 games this season with Fernando playing 30+ mpg in place of Jak, that we end up winning more than 3 of those? How good do you think this team is

Less good players = more losses. This isn't a difficult concept. This team absolutely could be in the running for worst record with injuries, will they end up there, I can't say, I'm not clairvoyant. But to act like it's an impossibility is just absurd.

You are forgiven, but don't let it happen again.

A -4.1 NRTG says this team is not as bad as 5-14.

I said all of our starters missing a few games for "rest" doesn't move the needle, because it's literally just a few games. Let's say RJ, IQ, Scottie, Jak all miss 3 games each due to "rest". That's 12 games that are potentially impacted, less if multiple guys sit out the same game. Are those 12 games automatically losses because 1 of them doesn't play but the other 3 are healthy? No, that's certainly not the case. Let's assume fully healthy they go 5-7 in those 12 games. Missing one player instead affects the team how much? Maybe they go 4-8 or 3-9 instead? That's literally a 1-2 game difference over the course of an entire year, so again it doesn't move the needle.

Sure, if Scottie, IQ, RJ, Jak all miss the rest of the year, I can see us being the worst team in the league. I didn't say that's impossible, I asked how realistic is it to happen with this roster.

[S.W.A.N]

Lol you still think this team is winning 30+ games?

Yup. I'd be shocked if they didn't (minus major trades or a Yak injury)

So we've gone 5-14 to start the year, and you expect us to play at minimum 26-36, which is a .426 win rate. We barely managed that win rate over a full season with a very healthy lineup of FVV/OG/Scottie/Siakam, but you think this lineup can manage it?

I applaud the optimism, but you might want to take a gander at the schedule for rest of the year.

So I looked at every game remaining to see if I was missing something... Nope. I stand firm that 30 is a very realistic number for this year.

As difficult as the beginning of the season has been, the last two months are soft as butter.
I predict that in March and April we win a bunch of games against 905 level rosters 13-9 to 16-6 being a very reasonable win range
The remainder of this year is tough, 2-10 seems like the low end with 3-9 being a reasonable number
Jan gets a little softer 5-10 at the low end 7-8 being well within reach.
Feb is going to suck. 2-10

That gives me a 27 win season at the low end and a 32 win season being the high-end. This is not factoring in any 'scheduled' wins from back to back travel nights or catching a few teams short handed.

I think over the course of the remainder of the season we'll see that we don't have the talent to compete with the top end teams but have the depth to beat most of the fellow tankers and injured teams with the odd high variance night where a Scottie goes off and gets us a win against a team we shouldn't beat.

Again 30 wins is probably fairly close +- 2 wins. Which will put us in the 5-10 range

Washington
Utah
Portland

are safe bets to out tank us. Washington is opening trying to be bad, and Utah and Portland play in the west which is far harder.

New Orleans and Philly are getting wrecked by injuries and Philly will eventually be motivated to shut it down as their pick is top 6 protected. Pels have equal amounts of reason to shut season down and do a reset. Zion wants out/injured all the time. Brandon Ingram wants more money than they want to pay so they'll probably trade him. Perfect storm for two more teams to join the tank race based on injuries.

Charlotte sucks. They are only 1 win better than us despite how bad and injured we've been. They will likely out tank us.

Detroit, Brooklyn and Atlanta. Our saving grace is that 2 out of 3 of these teams will probably finish ahead of us due to fact they all eastern teams and 2 of them aren't actively tanking and brooklyn has too many good player and will win a bunch of games before they make all their trades.

Which leads me back to my original point. We should be cheering for the Spurs to win teams like the Jazz. Finishing behind Spurs, Hawks etc is going to be the difference between having potential 5th pick and 10th pick (pre lotto)

[Scase]

We'll see at the end of the season, but I guess every analyst out there and all the betting lines are wrong, and you two just have it all figured out

[Naysorn]

Watch on YouTube

[Chandan]

We'll see at the end of the season, but I guess every analyst out there and all the betting lines are wrong, and you two just have it all figured out

You think anyone of these anti tanker would ever admit to mistakes??
We have years of terrible and soul sucking basketball when we watched teams gather assets and pass us by, and still they think they are right. They are just here for the sake of arguing. (I mean why come into a tanking thread in the first place? To spread positivity? Gtfoh )

[ArthurVandelay]

We'll see at the end of the season, but I guess every analyst out there and all the betting lines are wrong, and you two just have it all figured out

You think anyone of these anti tanker would ever admit to mistakes??
We have years of terrible and soul sucking basketball when we watched teams gather assets and pass us by, and still they think they are right. They are just here for the sake of arguing. (I mean why come into a tanking thread in the first place? To spread positivity? Gtfoh )

Honestly I consider myself a big advocate of tanking and I’ve never been more positive about the Raptors since the Gasol trade.

I think the future is very bright with one more Barnes level or better talent added and another trade like the draft trade last year.

[Scase]

We'll see at the end of the season, but I guess every analyst out there and all the betting lines are wrong, and you two just have it all figured out

You think anyone of these anti tanker would ever admit to mistakes??
We have years of terrible and soul sucking basketball when we watched teams gather assets and pass us by, and still they think they are right. They are just here for the sake of arguing. (I mean why come into a tanking thread in the first place? To spread positivity? Gtfoh )

Honestly I consider myself a big advocate of tanking and I’ve never been more positive about the Raptors since the Gasol trade.

I think the future is very bright with one more Barnes level or better talent added and another trade like the draft trade last year.

Most everyone is relatively positive with the caveat that we get another Scottie level talent, hence the push for a bad record for that top 5 pick. The people he's referring to, are the ones that think this current iteration of the team is a 30+ win level roster.

That's the thing, it's logical to be positive based on the pieces so far, while also being realistic and acknowledging that it's still got a glaring hole talentwise, and that this season they are going to be bad. But throwing things around like net rating, and some random hope that they can be 2x better than they have been for no apparent reason makes no sense.

Net rating is important for good teams, it also completely ignores how we are one of the worst teams in the league in net rating in clutch situations. Just because we can keep the games close, doesn't mean that we're going to win them, and these are the arguments being used as to why we aren't as bad as our record.

Which side note, is one of the dumbest arguments ever. If you weren't as good/bad as your record, you wouldn't have that record. They are, who we thought they were.

[ArthurVandelay]

You think anyone of these anti tanker would ever admit to mistakes??
We have years of terrible and soul sucking basketball when we watched teams gather assets and pass us by, and still they think they are right. They are just here for the sake of arguing. (I mean why come into a tanking thread in the first place? To spread positivity? Gtfoh )

Honestly I consider myself a big advocate of tanking and I’ve never been more positive about the Raptors since the Gasol trade.

I think the future is very bright with one more Barnes level or better talent added and another trade like the draft trade last year.

Most everyone is relatively positive with the caveat that we get another Scottie level talent, hence the push for a bad record for that top 5 pick. The people he's referring to, are the ones that think this current iteration of the team is a 30+ win level roster.

That's the thing, it's logical to be positive based on the pieces so far, while also being realistic and acknowledging that it's still got a glaring hole talentwise, and that this season they are going to be bad. But throwing things around like net rating, and some random hope that they can be 2x better than they have been for no apparent reason makes no sense.

Net rating is important for good teams, it also completely ignores how we are one of the worst teams in the league in net rating in clutch situations. Just because we can keep the games close, doesn't mean that we're going to win them, and these are the arguments being used as to why we aren't as bad as our record.

Which side note, is one of the dumbest arguments ever. If you weren't as good/bad as your record, you wouldn't have that record. They are, who we thought they were.

That’s all fair. The larger the sample size the less validity to the claims “they are better than their record” and it also ignores everyone deals with injuries.

I was calling for 27-32 wins in July. Took a lot of heat too. Lol