The Tank Debate Thread

[Reignman]

You guys are not real fans that's what you have to understand. You're not intelligent enough to see the big picture and instead want to see a .500 team get slaughtered in the playoffs, and even that's not a guarantee (as they will probably not make it).

Hey Rhett, you still think it's me that's calling others fake fans?

This is what I'm talking about. I've said many times I'll jump on the tank bandwagon if Masai goes that route but here we have a nobody telling me I'm not a real fan because I want to see this team succeed.

It's hard for me not to insult losers like this but I'll do my best.

[StMikes31]

You guys are not real fans that's what you have to understand. You're not intelligent enough to see the big picture and instead want to see a .500 team get slaughtered in the playoffs, and even that's not a guarantee (as they will probably not make it).

Hey Rhett, you still think it's me that's calling others fake fans?

This is what I'm talking about. I've said many times I'll jump on the tank bandwagon if Masai goes that route but here we have a nobody telling me I'm not a real fan because I want to see this team succeed.

It's hard for me not to insult losers like this but I'll do my best.

What so you can give it but can't take it? You're the one who always responds to my posts in an ignorant and obnoxious manner. Don't go calling Rhett when you're the instigator.

We all want the team to succeed and the difference is we are looking at the big picture where you guys aren't. That's what you're not getting and I constantly have to keep saying it.

[barrist]

Hell, the ACC gave last season's team a standing ovation in the last game of the season. Think about it, a 34 win team got a standing ovation.

If these guys can build on the post-Rudy .500 record, you guys are going to have to go up against a beast at the ACC. That place is going to be rocking if we're in the playoff hunt.

Good luck!

thanks man, seeing posts like this around here is nice. Nice to know there are some people that don't want to trade all our good players for garbage and lose on purpose!

This argument needs to end. There may be one or two one-off comments by some about getting rid of Gay for expirings (a la Dumars' proposal), but most people who want to rebuild don't want to trade our good players for "garbage".

It's not about getting rid of good players to suck, it's about maximizing flexibility in order to build a championship team. It's allowing our rookie JV, the only player on our team that has significant upside, to make mistakes to develop rather than get benched because we want to make the 8th spot to get blown out in the first round. And yes, this will likely lead to more losses, but as MLSE's new CEO has said, we may need to suck to get better.

Masai may not have blown up the team in Denver, but if you notice his moves, they allowed themselves to get younger and be way more flexible, and grabbed a bunch of draft picks. Not to mention, he seems to favour an analytic and value based approach to players which if im not mistaken frown upon overpaid and overrated players like Gay and Demar.

Gay is not good enough or will not be good enough to justify his contract. I hope that's widely a shared opinion among everyone here, no matter what side they're on. Demar is not good enough now and the jury is out on whether he'll live up to his extension (many don't think he will).

In the end those two players taking up a big chunk of our cap is not going to end up with the Raptors being a perennial playoff team like some hope. That's why trading our "good players" for better prospects and assets (picks) makes sense to me. Otherwise, we can be content with signing players like Buycks, Psycho T and Novak and hope they add another 20 wins to our total.

[Double Helix]

I've decided to bow out of this thing. I haven't really posted much in this thread but I did want to say a few final words for the record.

- Rhett and Schad raised the most compelling arguments primarily because they focused on the value of rookie scale contracts. Had more people on team tank concentrated on that as their central focus from the start I probably wouldn't have even tried to debate back. That's a losing battle once you make it primarily around value and flexibility. It's nearly impossible to argue against the merits of a properly done rebuild. When done correctly it's literally the best case scenario that a team could be in beyond contention.

- My goal was primarily to temper the expectations of the board. I've posted here a long time through some horrible basketball seasons and have supported tank efforts in the past. Hell, I was one of the people arguing for why there should be official tank threads in the first place back when that was controversial. I never believed that this team would tank to start the year. I still don't. And so far it looks like I may be right on that. I did say months ago that this team would probably use the Indiana Pacers as a model and it looks like they will to start the year. I argued for my favorite players on the team because I like them as a grouping but also because I was very sure that they wouldn't be sold off (Least sure on draft day but extremely confident again afterward) before the start of the year and expected that this board would become a miserable place to be if everybody was thinking a tank was in the bag the whole time and didn't get one. So, I presented what I thought would happen and why with a mix of why I could get behind it and faced a ton of criticism for that along with some terrific rebuttals.

- I've been angry at times. I've been a totally smug jerk at times. That's not normally who I am but things were pretty heated in this debate so I guess **** happens.

- I'm a Raptors fan 'till I die. I'll support the team that exists no matter what and always try to find some level of enjoyment in whatever it is they're offering up. That means I support the team when they're unlikely to win the whole thing and I'll have a good time along the way. It also means I'll be trying to figure out who the best prospect is if we are headed toward the lottery. If that makes me the worst kind of fan that you hate then so be it. Let's Go Raptors.

[hillbilly hare]

Listen, as I've said many many times, the team will determine it's own fate. We're not the players, coaches or management, we have NO say in the direction the team will go. As a fan, it's my job to support my favourite team (or else I wouldn't be a fan) while it's the job of the organization to build the team.

I honestly don't feel like I have a "job" as a fan.

I want the team to win in the bigger picture. If that requires losing in the short-term, then I will want the team to lose in the short-term.

I won't tell you how to cheer, of course. But for instance the extra games we won in the season we wound up drafting terrible Terrence Ross, I distinctly remember posters on here (not you) crowing about building a winning culture, tankers being losers, etc. Then of course all of us, including some of those high-on-the-horse anti-tankers, were depressed when we wound up picking 8th and almost all the great prospects were off the board.

(And then BC just gave us a nudge off the cliff by refusing to draft the consensus best prospect left, but I digress).

I won't tell you to root for losses -- like you say, what we want from the team has no effect on the team. But some of these ideas about what makes a good fan/true fan are ridiculous to me.

Everyone here is unusually dedicated, everyone here has invested a lot of time in a **** product and I'd wager everyone has invested some amount of money in this team. We all have exactly zero say in what the team does. But I don't really doubt the fandom of anyone here, honestly.

I don't either and I've never called anyone a fake fan. I keep telling these guys to go to the ACC and boo the team if they choose to do so. They just won't have much support.

Everything I've stated is from my personal perspective. Personally, if it came to the point where I feel like I'd need to boo the team then I'd take a break. I got close to that point during the Jose/Bargs/BC years but never went over the cliff.

And are you sure being a Raps fan isn't like a job? Look how much time we kill because of this team.

Ha ha. Best post of the entire thread.

It really is unfortunate how off-kilter some posters are getting here. Most guys make their points without attacking or insulting. I've been pretty dogged, and often irritatingly long-winded, in making my points but I really really try not to attack or insult, though I admit that in the odd case (i.e. vs. some odd ball) I have lost it and given in to insults. It is hard. In the end, I've had to put a few guys on ignore, but only after they've consistently replied with undeserved insults and aggressiveness and all around stupidity. It's only a friggin b-ball forum!

Hard as it is to say, but the mods might want to rethink the ban policy. Maybe introduce a short-term suspension or something. It'd be too bad, as 99% of the posters here try to make good points and debate intelligently. Bit of a bummer about the 1%.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Rhett = mom.

[pbj]

I honestly feel like a bit of a sap, but I can't wish that much losing on anyone. In every other facet of life, I try to be as cut-throat as possible when it comes to business decisions but I've played, coached and/or watched basketball my whole life and I know how much stress losing puts on everyone involved.

And for what? A small chance to take a risk which more or less has the same chance of success as the options?

I just can't do it. There are alternatives that don't mean watching another embarrassingly futile year of basketball.

There are too many variables involved to definitively say one high-level approach or another is more prone to success than other. Regardless of whether you tank or not, it will always come down to competent management and the chips falling your way.

The difference to me will always be watching a team tear itself apart for 8 months or seeing this city celebrate a mutual passion and being right in the middle of it.. I guess I'm just a sucker for camaraderie.

[theonlyeastcoastrapsfan]

Aren't most teams that we would say are tanking, already suck, or have a core that has past the expiry date anyway.

For all the clear tank strategy, there are a lot of smart people running NBA teams, who's tanking? Like who's actively trying to get worse besides Boston, who blowing up their big 3?

It sounds like a fool proof plan, but where's the success? The teams that I see in the high lottery over the last few years are still there. Is that tanking? Clippers traded the pick that became Anthony Davis just to be rid of Baron Davis, and they've never been better and are poised for more success than ever before and a few years ago, they were free agent repellant? Did drafting Blake change all that? Can Jonas be a player that similarly becomes a guy people in the league would like to play with if we remain flexible enough to take advantage?

I really don't know.

[Scraptor]

If you eat breadcrumbs for a year you have a solid chance at eating steak for 7 years.

Or you can eat fast food for a year, get diabetes, and have to keep taking insulin just to stay alive.

And then you realize that the insulin wants a huge raise. And then the insulin gets fat and lazy and gets diabetes. And then the doctor says you better go on a diet before you die. So you start eating breadcrumbs. And you wish you'd been eating them two years ago, because now you have man-boobs, while your leaner meaner rivals are banging supermodels in front of your house, which they bought out of foreclosure when you suffered a coma for eating a jolly rancher.

I sense some deep seeded issues from this post.

The seeds turn into vegetables which are necessary for good ball movement.

[Rhettmatic]

Rhett = mom.

[OAKLEY_2]

What if this year the raps creep into the playoffs and Wiggins decides to stay at Kansas. The next year in 2015 he declares and we tank hard. All you need is a development coach not named Casey. Now with say the 3rd overall pick you put together a package for the team he states he doesn't want to play for. Would be very interesting to see the league's reaction if he were to position himself to avoid being in one of their flagship TV markets.

[hillbilly hare]

What if this year the raps creep into the playoffs and Wiggins decides to stay at Kansas. The next year in 2015 he declares and we tank hard. All you need is a development coach not named Casey. Now with say the 3rd overall pick you put together a package for the team he states he doesn't want to play for. Would be very interesting to see the league's reaction if he were to position himself to avoid being in one of their flagship TV markets.

Great idea for us, not so much for Wiggins. Passing up $25M guaranteed and risking a career ending injury.

I really don't know if TO and a Canadian kid have the same weight as, say, a young Kobe and the mythical Lakers. Would be interesting to see though.

[whysoserious]

What if this year the raps creep into the playoffs and Wiggins decides to stay at Kansas. The next year in 2015 he declares and we tank hard. All you need is a development coach not named Casey. Now with say the 3rd overall pick you put together a package for the team he states he doesn't want to play for. Would be very interesting to see the league's reaction if he were to position himself to avoid being in one of their flagship TV markets.

Players don't pass up their chance to go to the NBA when they are pretty much guaranteed of being the number 1 pick.

[ScissorMeXerxes]

To me there's a difference between shipping all your talent away and letting the chips fall where they may, as opposed to actively cheering for the team to lose. I can tell you I'm still going to cheer for this team to win even if they trade there entire line-up. I can't imagine seeing Val, Ross, and Acy, out there and cheering for them to lose.

This is what I try to get at with some of my posts, are pro-tankers going to cheer for the team to lose, or simply do they want the management to make the tank moves but still cheer for the team to win.

[tecumseh18]

This is what I try to get at with some of my posts, are pro-tankers going to cheer for the team to lose, or simply do they want the management to make the tank moves but still cheer for the team to win.

I'm a seasons ticket holder. If it's in the best interests of the team to lose, I cheer for the team to lose. Last year I cheered for losses because I wanted Colangelo gone. This year, I want one of those elite prospects to pair with J-Val.

It all comes down to enjoying basketball. It's fun for me to go to games and watch Lebron, or Kobe or whoever. I want one - sorry, two - of those type of stars to cheer for on the Raptors.

[edit] Let me add one more point. This website isn't called RealFan.com. It's RealGM. The assumption being, we're discussing what moves would be in the long-term interests of the team. That's different than being a "fan".

[ScissorMeXerxes]

This is what I try to get at with some of my posts, are pro-tankers going to cheer for the team to lose, or simply do they want the management to make the tank moves but still cheer for the team to win.

I'm a seasons ticket holder. If it's in the best interests of the team to lose, I cheer for the team to lose. Last year I cheered for losses because I wanted Colangelo gone. This year, I want one of those elite prospects to pair with J-Val.

It all comes down to enjoying basketball. It's fun for me to go to games and watch Lebron, or Kobe or whoever. I want one - sorry, two - of those type of stars to cheer for on the Raptors.

I understand what your saying and to each there own, but I just can't bring myself to cheer for my team to lose.
Lol, as Rhett said it's not like our magical cheering power will make any difference at all, I just don't know how a fan would be able to detach themselves emotionally if say JV was beasting and bringing the team back from a deficit but ultimately not wanting him to pull it off.

[Double Helix]

Chrisholm contributed some writing this morning to Raptors Republic. They are the ESPN True Hoop Network affiliate, and the site responsible for last night's Dinner with Leiweke twitter updates.

He seems to believe that the Raptors just aren't setup nicely for a tank based largely on the assets we have, the contracts, and the slow gradual growth up from the bottom that the team has experienced since losing Bosh.

For the Raptors, I’m just not sure that they have the right personnel to successfully pull off a tank job. Firstly, you have Jonas Valanciunas locked-in as the closest thing the club has to a young franchise player, and he’s probably already better than any young assets in Orlando, Charlotte, Phoenix and Milwaukee. Secondly, you have a club that appears motivated to at least start the season with Rudy Gay flanking him, and despite his warts Gay is more talented than anyone on most of the expected tanking candidates. Thirdly, you have a coach on a one-year contract that you would have a very hard time convincing to make tanking-based decisions, especially if 2011-12 is any example. Then if all that wasn’t enough, you have an organization that has been bad for so long they are starting to lose relevancy in their home market, which makes tanking an unappetizing proposition from a managerial position, too.

I’ve used this word a lot since Masai Ujiri took over the club, but I think his philosophy, both generally and with the Raptors specifically, is to be opportunistic. He doesn’t lock himself dogmatically into one way of doing things, he keeps himself in a position to be flexible, to make moves when the right moves make themselves available and waits patiently until those kinds of moves are there. I don’t think that he’ll ever commit whole hog to tanking because it tends to kill flexibility and the odds are too long that you actually get a payout at the end worthy of the sacrifice. He’ll acquire picks when he can because picks have value no matter what a team’s strategy is. He’ll try and avoid large, onerous, multi-year contracts unless the player is both truly worth it and can still be moved later. He’ll make moves that allow him to accomplish his immediate goals while also retaining the flexibility to change course down the road because that affords him the luxury of being able to shift when something isn’t working and going all in when something is.

and

Now let’s look at the Raptors. They’d need to unload Gay and Lowry, for sure, in order to plummet to the depths of some of those aforementioned teams, and they couldn’t take legit talent back because that might help the team win. Since neither Gay nor Lowry guarantees you great draft picks (their respective contract situations make it hard for teams to surrender picks for them), you’d probably lose value in any transaction that respects the hopes of being bad enough next year to ‘compete’ with the league’s worst teams. Losing value in a trade is almost never a good management strategy, and it certainly runs counter to Ujiri’s history as a team GM.

http://www.raptorsrepublic.com/2013/07/ ... r-tanking/

Do you agree with Chrisholm? Was Masai in a tough spot to tank immediately given what he inherited? Is he too opportunistic and shrewd a negotiator to accept a trade to get worse where the exchange rate on what he's sending out is horrible?

[BackseatBoss]

We can all thank BC for crippling us. At least if he hadn't made the Rudy Gay trade, it would've been much easier.

[GamePoint]

We should all the take the wait and see approach Masai has been promoting ever since his press conference. His evaluation of the team will take place up until the nearing of the trade deadline. If this team is in the top 8 before then, we're all in. If not, he'll blow it up, especially with teams that will be eager to take on Lowry or Gay for their own playoff purposes.

[FlutieX]

It's clear at this juncture that we are not tanking this season. I don't like tanking myself, but I can at least admit in the long run it could definitely be beneficial. What I'm truly worried about is the top of the 2014 lottery looking like some variation of Philadelphia, Charlotte, Boston and Orlando. This could mean 1-4 superstar to all-star level players being thrust into the eastern conference for at least the next 4 years. This would be monumentally terrible for the Raptors and guarantee us to be out of the playoffs for quite some time.