Cappy_Smurf wrote:Utah has enough picks to trade for 2 star-level players right now. They have the ability to build this team up, whether they tank or not, so I don't see how we can predict their ceiling. If this team is capable of sneaking into the playoffs as is, we are in an infinitely better position than trying to build from the middle without all those picks.
I'm not anti-tanking, and IMO Utah's biggest mistake in my lifetime was their failure to move Millsap and Jefferson at the right time because they wanted to sneak into an 8th seed just to get murdered by the Spurs. Having said that, they are absolutely in a position where they have options as to which direction they take. The percentages just aren't significant enough to demand they tank right out of the gate. I guarantee they are hesitant to do that because bottoming out like that can easily turn into a hole that could take 5-10 years to dig out of, if not longer. The league really did take away a lot of the incentive to tank when they lowered the percentages for the bottom teams.
That's a fair point. I've really enjoyed watching this team so far and when I look at the situation in a glass-half-full way, I say to myself that if this team gets to the playoffs and then bounced in the first round, it pretty much achieved the same results as the previous team, only this team is much younger, will have better cap flexibility going forward, and it has many assets to trade (both players and draft picks), whereas the previous team had none other than Gobert and Mitchell.
But what bothers me is that if there ever was a perfect situation to tank, it was this season. We blew up our core, were expected to be a bottom feeder, the fanbase was finally on board with the tank, and the #1 pick is supposed to be a generational talent while the #2 pick would be the #1 pick in any other year. We couldn't ask for better circumstances. What worries me, other than missing on this opportunity, is that we've already been through "the Jazz have plenty of assets to make a trade" phase with the previous front office, and we all see how it turned out, and Ainge also experienced it with the Celtics, where he found it hard to turn all his assets into stars after a certain point.
To conclude, I'll say that it's all well and good that we have all those draft picks, and Ainge did a great job in that regard, but we are also in a position to take our fate in our own hands and make our own destiny by tanking, instead of hoping the future picks of other teams will turn out well for us. Obviously, there is no guarantee we'd get a top 2 pick, but it's a numbers game. I'll take 14% chance at the #1 pick and a 27% chance at a top 2 pick than zero percent chance at those picks by making the playoffs this season, when it's obvious this team, as much as I like it, is not a contender. It's not that I'd advocate to do this every season, but if there ever was a time to do it, it was this season.
