Tank World Order (7.0)

[DelAbbot]

I protest. TWO cannot rise from the ashes

Because it never died

[tdotrep2]

I'm so torn. The research showed that no team has ever won a championship with a top 5 pick, but then I see Scottie and the boys out there and can they really defy history? We are about to find out!

itd probably be more enjoyable seeing scottie and some prospects gotten back from trades running and gunning out there

[House12]

If and when healthy, this is a Top 6 team in the East. With a better bench, it's a Top 5 team.

Suppose we get the 6th seed, we're still not getting anywhere and we will have no high draft picks. We will need to get really lucky and hit on a mid 20s draft pick.

If 3 years from now, our players develop well (Scottie & Fred are all-stars, Siakam and Trent are high end starters), that's still not good enough to win. We need a bonafide top 10 player. The Suns look amazing now, but they don't have any top 10 players, they will not win the championship.

[Madhouse]

Watched some games today.

AJ Griffin is a beast. If we could steal this at like 13-15 this would be ideal. Doesn't need much usage to be effective just like Kendall Brown.

[Madhouse]

If and when healthy, this is a Top 6 team in the East. With a better bench, it's a Top 5 team.

Suppose we get the 6th seed, we're still not getting anywhere and we will have no high draft picks. We will need to get really lucky and hit on a mid 20s draft pick.

If 3 years from now, our players develop well (Scottie & Fred are all-stars, Siakam and Trent are high end starters), that's still not good enough to win. We need a bonafide top 10 player. The Suns look amazing now, but they don't have any top 10 players, they will not win the championship.

We will have to get lucky anyway. Either a player is becoming much better than expected, the lotto gods bless us or we hit on a massive steal later in the draft.

We will have to get lucky.

[Los_29]

If and when healthy, this is a Top 6 team in the East. With a better bench, it's a Top 5 team.

Suppose we get the 6th seed, we're still not getting anywhere and we will have no high draft picks. We will need to get really lucky and hit on a mid 20s draft pick.

If 3 years from now, our players develop well (Scottie & Fred are all-stars, Siakam and Trent are high end starters), that's still not good enough to win. We need a bonafide top 10 player. The Suns look amazing now, but they don't have any top 10 players, they will not win the championship.

So we need to trade for one then because statistically we aren't finding that piece in the draft.

[JN]

I think the poll options lack an option. It implies that you think the team is either "great" or should be tanking. Sometimes teams have too much talent (even if still limited) to avoid the middle.

In terms of #1, of course it would be great to add another lottery pick. But the team is not very likely to be bad enough to get a high lottery pick without some even bigger lotto luck than last year. It doesn't appear to be a realistic option.

In terms of #2, the poll says "the team is great". Of course it's not a great team. But given that we are in the middle the best thing may be to let the team play the best it can/

That doesn't mean I support the following:
a) Trading for additional help this year
b) Keeping Boucher or other expirings at the deadline


Of course if we hit a bunch of really bad injury luck, then playing ourselves into a tank situation becomes more realistic. But we will need good luck / bad luck based on your perspective. Or perhaps Masai pulls the trigger on mid-season deals which off course changes things.

Interestingly we were 17-17 at the exact same point last year, but to turn that into Scottie Barnes we
1) Needed some scenarios that may not repeat this year that drove us to a 10-28 finish.
2) Needed some lotto luck, but not unreasonable either (30% or so if I remember of getting into top 4)

What made us go 10-28 to finish last year.
- We hit COVID in that period, and we were amongst the worst hit teams to in the league (certainly top quartile). And last year COVID was much worse as some players tended to be hit harder (and recover more slowly) from the virus. Now if anything we have went through our problems before some other teams.
- We downgraded trade wise - (Defacto Lowry trade as we sat him most of the period after the deadline, Powell at that stage of his career was better than Trent)
- Had a number of injuries that will be hard to replicate.
- Had even worse centers then this year
- No Scottie Barnes
- Tampa? Put this lower on the list but it was certainly a factor.

It will just be harder for this team to fall like it did last year. And that does not mean we are particular good or even anywhere above average.

[JN]

Either way, despite what I said above, this thread still has value from discussing prospects as its not limited to players that will only go in the top 10.

Although I am not TwO, I'm not angry anti-TwO either. I prefer not to be argumentative in here, and take the informational value it has on prospects.

[TheRaptor!]

what is the point of discussing possible prospects....when our own Scottie Barnes was not on anyones radar even on draft day?

Raptor fans were crying it wasnt Suggs until after the season started.

[tdotrep2]

what is the point of discussing possible prospects....when our own Scottie Barnes was not on anyones radar even on draft day?

Raptor fans were crying it wasnt Suggs until after the season started.

he was definitely on the radar alot of the guys doing well were on the radar

[720]

what is the point of discussing possible prospects....when our own Scottie Barnes was not on anyones radar even on draft day?

Raptor fans were crying it wasnt Suggs until after the season started.

We still talked about Cade, Mobley, Kuminga, Green, Giddey etc. Sure we didn’t draft any of them but we easily could have had the lottery balls went differently. The same thing might happen again this draft and we might get some guy no one saw coming or we might get a consensus guy. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about our draft position and or prospects.

[Steelo Green]

Wow 7.0 already. Are we outpacing last year's efforts?

Organic growth

[JN]

what is the point of discussing possible prospects....when our own Scottie Barnes was not on anyones radar even on draft day?

Raptor fans were crying it wasnt Suggs until after the season started.

he was definitely on the radar alot of the guys doing well were on the radar

Scottie was certainly on the radar but more for picks around #10 at this point. But is what makes tracking prospects in the 10-15 range right now is because they may rise.

I am sure there are better sites out there, but I pulled an archive.org of nbadraft.net on January 4th last year.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210104105922/https://www.nbadraft.net/

At this exact time last year they had:
1. Suggs
2. Kuminga
3. Mobley
4. Cunningham
5. Green
6. Zhaire Williams
7. Greg Brown
8. Moody
9. Barnes
10. Boston

So they had 7 of the top 10 at the time.
They must have tried to be "different" when they put Cade at #4, because he was consensus #1 pretty much all year.

In terms of who they had in top 10 that did not make they had Moody who went #14, and then missed wildly on Boston and Greg Brown who were second rounders.

In terms of guys who rose into the top 10 in the end:
Giddey who was #34 (seems odd - I thought he was more on the radar by mid-year)
Wagner who was #45 (in their 2022 mock)
Mitchell who was #46

[PhilBlackson]

Watched some games today.

AJ Griffin is a beast. If we could steal this at like 13-15 this would be ideal. Doesn't need much usage to be effective just like Kendall Brown.

Keep saying he's the kid I'm praying falls through the cracks to us. I have my doubts because personally believe in the kid and there's still a good couple of months for him to work himself into the starting role again and work his way up the totem pole. I've already seen him get more minutes with the starters and made an impact.

Only expect that to grow and if he starts to stand out I think he could shoot right back up. Maybe not necessarily to the top 5 as he was projected going in because you got guys like Mathurin, Murray & Davis really showing out and climbing even more so and then other guys like Hardy, PB Jr that I think teams will have a hard time passing on....but again if he starts performing better & better on probably the biggest team in the NCAA like Duke, I could see him getting some more eyes back on him where teams get very tempted to bite on his potential in that 9-14 range. Hoping that's us because to me he feels like that Mitchell (more so Butler like game though) that slides under the radar but not too far ie/outside of the lottery which I'm worried we just fall outside of.

If we do end up in the Playoffs, I don't think AJ will still be on the board when we draft and if we fall out I'd adjust my guess that we'd be looking at Tari Eason, Nikola Jovic or TyTy Washington but personally I'm not as hype on them. However I threw it out as a dark horse pick before again IF we make the Playoffs but I genuinely believe the Raps would consider taking Julian Champaigne. Yes ofc the fam connection is already here but Raps aren't scared to take "older" players and honestly sometimes it's kinda funny to me how much he's slept on. Second year in a row as 20ppg scorer, near 40% 3pt shooter, 6'7 (listed as 6'8) SG that can create his own shot, good rebounder (almost 7rpg) as a team that needs to team rebound, overall smart player...again I could see it happening but we'll see how those other names do as the year progresses too.

[DelAbbot]

If and when healthy, this is a Top 6 team in the East. With a better bench, it's a Top 5 team.

Suppose we get the 6th seed, we're still not getting anywhere and we will have no high draft picks. We will need to get really lucky and hit on a mid 20s draft pick.

If 3 years from now, our players develop well (Scottie & Fred are all-stars, Siakam and Trent are high end starters), that's still not good enough to win. We need a bonafide top 10 player. The Suns look amazing now, but they don't have any top 10 players, they will not win the championship.

Too many people on this board cannot think that far ahead.

They also have memories of goldfish. Cognitive blind spots by choice.

[DelAbbot]

I think the poll options lack an option. It implies that you think the team is either "great" or should be tanking. Sometimes teams have too much talent (even if still limited) to avoid the middle.

In terms of #1, of course it would be great to add another lottery pick. But the team is not very likely to be bad enough to get a high lottery pick without some even bigger lotto luck than last year. It doesn't appear to be a realistic option.

In terms of #2, the poll says "the team is great". Of course it's not a great team. But given that we are in the middle the best thing may be to let the team play the best it can/

That doesn't mean I support the following:
a) Trading for additional help this year
b) Keeping Boucher or other expirings at the deadline


Of course if we hit a bunch of really bad injury luck, then playing ourselves into a tank situation becomes more realistic. But we will need good luck / bad luck based on your perspective. Or perhaps Masai pulls the trigger on mid-season deals which off course changes things.

Interestingly we were 17-17 at the exact same point last year, but to turn that into Scottie Barnes we
1) Needed some scenarios that may not repeat this year that drove us to a 10-28 finish.
2) Needed some lotto luck, but not unreasonable either (30% or so if I remember of getting into top 4)

What made us go 10-28 to finish last year.
- We hit COVID in that period, and we were amongst the worst hit teams to in the league (certainly top quartile). And last year COVID was much worse as some players tended to be hit harder (and recover more slowly) from the virus. Now if anything we have went through our problems before some other teams.
- We downgraded trade wise - (Defacto Lowry trade as we sat him most of the period after the deadline, Powell at that stage of his career was better than Trent)
- Had a number of injuries that will be hard to replicate.
- Had even worse centers then this year
- No Scottie Barnes
- Tampa? Put this lower on the list but it was certainly a factor.

It will just be harder for this team to fall like it did last year. And that does not mean we are particular good or even anywhere above average.

All valid points - the tanking factors are difficult but it doesn't mean Masai won't consider doing them this year. And "injuries that will be hard to replicate" are fake injuries anyway - easy to replicate if needed.

I think you are talking about a transition year in which we should be competing for playoffs but not able to be top 6 seed - I think that should be next year, not this year. This year is our final shot at the lottery to boost the ceiling of our core.

[Bruin]

Damn we’re already on thread 7?

Right on time for the upcoming tough schedule

[Madhouse]

Damn we’re already on thread 7?

Right on time for the upcoming tough schedule

18-20 before the road trip and then who knows. We really can't tank because we aren't trading away a core piece but we can naturally still easily land in the lottery.

19-24 or 20-23 after the road trip changes the mood here quickly though.

[Spida888]

Jam packed schedule up ahead. Will be interesting to see where we are by the end of Jan - just before the trade deadline.

[mdenny]

what is the point of discussing possible prospects....when our own Scottie Barnes was not on anyones radar even on draft day?

Raptor fans were crying it wasnt Suggs until after the season started.

he was definitely on the radar alot of the guys doing well were on the radar

One prominent tanker said "thankfully we won the lottery and moved up to 4 so we don't have to talk about guys like scottie barnes".