Success rate for hitting the Reset button.

[Vampirate]

It is interesting to me that Utah is being considered in the same breath as the tanking Sixers and the Thunder just because of the number of picks they've gathered. The word from the Jazz beat writers is they consider this a one-year rebuild and will attempt to utilize cap space and those picks to be competitive in 2023.

Even this year, they've yet to move on from their veterans and still boast a team that might be fighting for that last play-in spot. (I think they should move them and be bad this year, personally).

But I don't understand where the idea that the Jazz is entering a multiple-year process-like tank. I think they deemed their two corner pieces to be too flawed (overpaid / peaked / too small/likely to leave / etc.) to build around and are moving on. Danny Aigne's MO is to try and build a competitive team while attempting to rebuild and retool, which makes the Markkanen and Sexton parts make more sense, IMO.

You just lost your 2 most impactful players by trade.

Your rookie in 2023 is very unlikely to be a 20 PPG like Mitchell was in his rookie season.

Obviously if the rookie doesn't have a big impact year 1 then that's going to need another year of tanking.

This is going to be a multi year tank simply because unless you can get SGA a player of that caliber and that age, a trade isn't worth it.

The only real way to truly reboot is to nab multiple level All Star talents in the draft like Boston has.

[Pointgod]

How does one consider a successful season? Is it just winning it all, or is it also winning 48+ games for like 4+ years or so?
Not a few are saying Utah was right to just blow it up but how many teams really have risen from the ashes after getting rid of all their assets?
I remember the Bulls deliberately letting MJ, Phil, Pippen go... created cap space and Tim Duncan didn't even bother to visit them.
Sixers with what 5 straight lottery picks?
OKC? Clippers with the Lob City? I can think of just Boston who went to the recent finals, then....?
Then I think of the Spurs, Mavs, Heat, even the Lakers holding on to Kobe...
Was Golden State consider a rebuild? from Ellis? seriously? Is there Karma involved when you cheat and abuse the system?
Building teams naturally like the Bucks, Toronto then the mentioned teams who let their aging stars retire. Of course there is only one team who will win it all every season.

The Warriors definitely rebuilt, but they didn't hit the reset button. They tried to stay competitive and even signed David Lee and Iggy.

I can't think of any instance in the recent past where a team dismantled everything, shipped out all their good players, started over, and had it lead to a championship. More often than not, it seems to turn into a repeated cycle of sucking, resetting, and rebuilding.

Because it doesn’t exist. It’s a myth that fans of poorly managed teams tell themselves and an excuse GMs use to keep their job. Everyone’s favourite example of tanking, the Process Sixers spent 5 years putting out the most garbage roster and not bothering to be competitive and they haven’t made it past the second round. Do you know what round they lost in before they blew up the team? I thought they were a first round knockout, but the team with Jrue Holiday, Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner had lost in the second round. 10 years later, after all that tanking, they haven’t moved the needle from a playoff perspective.

[dc]

Because it doesn’t exist. It’s a myth that fans of poorly managed teams tell themselves and an excuse GMs use to keep their job. Everyone’s favourite example of tanking, the Process Sixers spent 5 years putting out the most garbage roster and not bothering to be competitive and they haven’t made it past the second round. Do you know what round they lost in before they blew up the team? I thought they were a first round knockout, but the team with Jrue Holiday, Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner had lost in the second round. 10 years later, after all that tanking, they haven’t moved the needle from a playoff perspective.

Realize they won that 1st round series because that's the one where Derrick Rose tore his ACL at the end of Game 1. They were an 8th seed and weren't going to advance otherwise.

Also realize: In the 12 seasons between reaching the Finals in 2001 and 2013 (right before Hinkie started the tank), the 76ers only ever managed to win two 1st round series (including the one mentioned with the Rose injury). And in those years, they've never won more than 48 games.

The current Embiid-led 76ers have 4 1st round wins, have won 50+ games 3 times (would've been 4 if not for the shortened 72 game season) and have bettered the regular season win total from the above discussed time period 4 times.

To be clear, they've had disappointing finishes to their playoff seasons, but they're now a contending team with an MVP candidate. They were basically non-contenders going nowhere with no real prospects of improving in the previous 12 years.

[LakersLegacy]

How do we define success.

Is it a championship where 96.7% of teams fail to do so each year.

Is it getting back to where they were. Similar to the Pelicans becoming a play-off team with Ingram and Zion instead of with Davis and before that with Chris Paul

Is it with letting go of one all-star to eventually get another

Or is it selling tickets and staying popular and relevant in the NBA, based on money

[vxmike]

Success means different things to different fanbases and NBA ownerships.

But for teams that have a goal for competing for a championship, tearing it all down and starting over is often the only option.

Teams like the Miami Heat that rebuilt without ever being completely terrible are outliers. It's unrealistic to expect every franchise to be able to do that, and in fact it's impossible for more than one or two teams to rebuild that way because there are a limited amount of stars even available to sign or trade for.

I pretty much agree here that if you're going for a title you can't win without tearing it down. You have to draft a superstar and develop a team around him to contend for a title. The more 1sts you have the better honestly.

Seems like basically every title team had a drafted super star on their roster, with a few exceptions obviously.

Notable exceptions were: 19 Raptors, 20 Lakers going back to the 80s.

Bottom line is, find a way to get a superstar on your team. The raps/lakers acquired superstars but not via draft. Most teams however are not able to acquire superstars by trade or FA which is why tanking, although not always a popular option, is a viable strategy to build a contender. Not saying it always works out, but the logic behind it is sound. Acquire assets by trading current players and tanking. Build a young core with blue chip talent. Let them build continuity. Use assets and cap space to round out the team. Heck, a team could also potentially pull a 08 danny ainge and use tanking assets to trade for all stars.

Great post. Some teams routinely sign star FAs or have players force trades to them like LAL.

Other team can only acquire stars via the draft so they must swing as many times as possible to hit a home run.

There are two different classes of teams in the NBA and they require different strategies.

[dc]

There are two different classes of teams in the NBA and they require different strategies.

The 2 classes of teams in the NBA are the Lakers and everybody else.

Lakers are the only team in the league that could miss the playoffs 5 years in a row, have a core of Ingram, Lonzo, Kuzma, Josh Hart and then attract the games best player to sign with them. If the Pacers or Jazz had that same core to go along with the cap space, Lebron wasn't going to those places. I suppose if the Knicks had a better history/pedigree, they would be in the same category, but they obviously don't so they're not.

The Lakers are the only team in the league that can use "wait for the next great player to sign with us or force their way here" as an actual strategy. For everybody else, they need the stars to align and it's not a viable long term strategy.

Now I suppose there are sub-categories within the "everybody else" class of teams, but even teams like the Warriors/Celtics are much closer to the Pacers/Jazz than they are the Lakers.

[kuclas]

Hard to comment on every potential rebuild, but in the case of the Jazz I think it was the right move.

However now comes the hard part - how to actually maximize all that draft capital to build another contender.

The only legit high value draft capital Utah will have is their own tank job The other draft picks really aren’t worth much unless they literally luck out with a mid to lower tier draft pick from the cavaliers.

Sam Presti will go on to year 3 of his tank 2.0 job now. Those clippers picks aren’t worth much or anything. Notice the higher high pick okc for was their own.

So really a team doesn’t need to trade their star players (Mitchell) to tank. They should have just let Mitchell sit out an entire year with some mysterious illness and tank Get their own high pick and reload quickly.

[BK_2020]

There are two different classes of teams in the NBA and they require different strategies.

The 2 classes of teams in the NBA are the Lakers and everybody else.

Lakers are the only team in the league that could miss the playoffs 5 years in a row, have a core of Ingram, Lonzo, Kuzma, Josh Hart and then attract the games best player to sign with them. If the Pacers or Jazz had that same core to go along with the cap space, Lebron wasn't going to those places. I suppose if the Knicks had a better history/pedigree, they would be in the same category, but they obviously don't so they're not.

The Lakers are the only team in the league that can use "wait for the next great player to sign with us or force their way here" as an actual strategy. For everybody else, they need the stars to align and it's not a viable long term strategy.

Now I suppose there are sub-categories within the "everybody else" class of teams, but even teams like the Warriors/Celtics are much closer to the Pacers/Jazz than they are the Lakers.

Lebron signed with the Cavs in FA.

[dc]

There are two different classes of teams in the NBA and they require different strategies.

The 2 classes of teams in the NBA are the Lakers and everybody else.

Lakers are the only team in the league that could miss the playoffs 5 years in a row, have a core of Ingram, Lonzo, Kuzma, Josh Hart and then attract the games best player to sign with them. If the Pacers or Jazz had that same core to go along with the cap space, Lebron wasn't going to those places. I suppose if the Knicks had a better history/pedigree, they would be in the same category, but they obviously don't so they're not.

The Lakers are the only team in the league that can use "wait for the next great player to sign with us or force their way here" as an actual strategy. For everybody else, they need the stars to align and it's not a viable long term strategy.

Now I suppose there are sub-categories within the "everybody else" class of teams, but even teams like the Warriors/Celtics are much closer to the Pacers/Jazz than they are the Lakers.

Lebron signed with the Cavs in FA.

The Cavs tanked for the 4 years Lebron was gone and it produced Kyrie, Love (or at the time, the assets necessary to acquire Love) and Tristan Thompson. That's 2 all-stars and a high level role player. That was enough to lure Lebron back. Had they not gotten the quality of players they did during that time, he wouldn't have come back.

The Lakers had a much less impressive core of Ingram, Lonzo, Kuzma and Josh Hart. If that's what the Cavs had in 2014, Lebron probably wouldn't have gone back to Cleveland. The point is, Lebron still went to the Lakers despite them having a pretty crappy core to build around.

[zimpy27]

How does one consider a successful season? Is it just winning it all, or is it also winning 48+ games for like 4+ years or so?
Not a few are saying Utah was right to just blow it up but how many teams really have risen from the ashes after getting rid of all their assets?
I remember the Bulls deliberately letting MJ, Phil, Pippen go... created cap space and Tim Duncan didn't even bother to visit them.
Sixers with what 5 straight lottery picks?
OKC? Clippers with the Lob City? I can think of just Boston who went to the recent finals, then....?
Then I think of the Spurs, Mavs, Heat, even the Lakers holding on to Kobe...
Was Golden State consider a rebuild? from Ellis? seriously? Is there Karma involved when you cheat and abuse the system?
Building teams naturally like the Bucks, Toronto then the mentioned teams who let their aging stars retire. Of course there is only one team who will win it all every season.

The successful blue print seems to be:
- tank for good draft picks in 2-3 seasons
- hit on a high pick that end up being an elite player
- let your young team improve on their own while you pick up high picks
- 5 seasons in and you're in the playoffs while continue to bring in high picks from opponents to feed in good rookie guys as you're paying max contracts to your initial high draft picks 4-5 years prior. Or use those opponent picks to get a better player (as your picks have much less value in short term if you bring in good player).

How do you do that last step? Well prior to the first step you want to sell your good players for unprotected FRPs and swaps that are 5, 6 and 7 years ahead.

[NZB2323]

Utah made the right move. Mitchell and Gobert didn’t like each other. Outside of lobs, Gobert is not a threat offensively and in the playoffs can be pulled out to the 3 point line where he can’t protect protect the paint anymore. He’s also 30.

Mitchell is a volume scorer who doesn’t do anything else well and plays terrible defense. He also was going to leave the Jazz in free agency. I don’t even know who the 3rd best player on the Jazz is, but he’s worse than the 3rd best player on most playoff teams.

When you lose to the Clippers in the playoffs when they’re missing their best player so the Clippers make it to the Conference Finals for the first time in history with 2 flawed stars who don’t like each other, it’s time to blow it up.

Look at Danny Ainge getting Tatum and Brown for KG and Pierce. Now he’s doing the same thing.

[HotelVitale]

How does one consider a successful season? Is it just winning it all, or is it also winning 48+ games for like 4+ years or so?
Not a few are saying Utah was right to just blow it up but how many teams really have risen from the ashes after getting rid of all their assets?
I remember the Bulls deliberately letting MJ, Phil, Pippen go... created cap space and Tim Duncan didn't even bother to visit them.
Sixers with what 5 straight lottery picks?
OKC? Clippers with the Lob City? I can think of just Boston who went to the recent finals, then....?
Then I think of the Spurs, Mavs, Heat, even the Lakers holding on to Kobe...
Was Golden State consider a rebuild? from Ellis? seriously? Is there Karma involved when you cheat and abuse the system?
Building teams naturally like the Bucks, Toronto then the mentioned teams who let their aging stars retire. Of course there is only one team who will win it all every season.

The Warriors definitely rebuilt, but they didn't hit the reset button. They tried to stay competitive and even signed David Lee and Iggy.

I can't think of any instance in the recent past where a team dismantled everything, shipped out all their good players, started over, and had it lead to a championship. More often than not, it seems to turn into a repeated cycle of sucking, resetting, and rebuilding.

Because it doesn’t exist. It’s a myth that fans of poorly managed teams tell themselves and an excuse GMs use to keep their job. Everyone’s favourite example of tanking, the Process Sixers spent 5 years putting out the most garbage roster and not bothering to be competitive and they haven’t made it past the second round. Do you know what round they lost in before they blew up the team? I thought they were a first round knockout, but the team with Jrue Holiday, Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner had lost in the second round. 10 years later, after all that tanking, they haven’t moved the needle from a playoff perspective.

You have to know that the reality is more subtle here. Teams rebuild and strip down because the odds that they'll get anywhere by continuing to try to win now are generally worse than those for rebuilding. Obviously, obviously, because we're not 6 years old and we've all followed this game for years, we all know that any team-building strategy isn't a guaranteed path to getting a great team. Obviously. You need great luck, chemistry, team-building and culture-building skill, etc for that, and teams without any strengths to play on tend to rebuild to improve their luck and give themselves the best chance to find a new culture etc. Yes, it doesn't always work--that's the nature of 30 teams trying like crazy to compete for the top spot--and yes a poorly managed team can still screw things up. And yes some teams manage to avoid rebuilding (or for very long) and put together multiple contenders. But it's just a weird, ahistorical, intentionally over-simplified stance to take that rebuilding is always a ticket to permanent losing and crappy teams.

There's so many examples for that, but just look at how you have to twist things to make your idea work for the Sixers. First the Sixers were bad for exactly 4 years and they won 52 games the 5th year, along with having a huge stockpile of picks and young guys to continue building around their two super young all-NBA guys. And yes technically they went to the 2nd rd 2 years before the rebuild--but they also had had exactly one season over .500 in 8 years before the rebuild, and they also traded their star from that core (Iggy) plus picks in a risky move for Andrew Bynum that flopped horribly. Skipping a lot of details, the Process took them from a hopeless team who happened to luck into the 2nd rd once to a team that's been a massive disappointment for ONLY making the 2nd rd almost every year, and that has failed to break past that because of a long chain bad luck, bad trades, weird personalities (Ben Simmons), etc. Yes some of that was bad management--but they've also had numerous GMs and even an ownership switch, so unless your point is that the Sixers are just inherently cursed or fated to be screw-ups becuase of the Process (not matter who's on the team or running it) I don't see how you could claim the Process didn't massively improve their chances and give them a very good chance at being a contender. A chance that they so far haven't capitalized on, but blame the many things that actually caused that and not the rebuild itself.

[Bel]

There's an economics side to this too, supply and demand. If everyone is trying to win and feels tanking will be dishonorable, tanking becomes more lucrative since you'll have less competition for top pick odds and teams will be willing to bid more for your existing players. That's how things were for a long time. The Celtics were the worst team in the league in 1979 with a 29-53 record, admittedly in a smaller league. Last season was more competitive and they'd still have been the 7th worst team, or tied for 9th worst in 2018. In some seasons in the 2010s you have 3 teams with sub-20 wins racing to the bottom. So when the Rockets blatantly tanked in 1982-3 to get Sampson and Hakeem, they had little competition, and they were able to get another top 3 pick alongside it.

Tanking gives you decent odds of getting good assets. That's not the only option to improve your assets. If you can take advantage of unusual opportunities you can get better returns for worse assets too. The Rockets got Harden for his entire prime simply by being ready to take advantage of a rare moment that is totally unpredictable but pops up every few years. Same with the Raptors, although theirs was a little messier. The threepeat Lakers formed their team because the Magic, who had a team as stacked as the Warriors, tried to underpay Shaq, and (according to Shaq) Jerry West tempted him to a capable but clearly worse LA team with his vision. Jerry West then traded Vlade Divac for the Kobe pick. Vlade was a quality starter who was only 28, and they could've easily traded him for another good win-now player to complement Shaq or kept him as a twin towers option. Imagine how few GMs, if any, would be that farsighted nowadays. The Lakers had a worse contending team for Shaq's first 4 years than they could have, and paid for it with embarrassing losses, but then they threepeated.

There's so much pressure now to go to one extreme, tank and go allin on stockpiling assets or win now and give up the mid-term future for a couple years to contend. Of course when almost half the league is doing one of those extremes, it doesn't look nearly so attractive. Market prices in some of these recent years have been astronomical compared to the past when the league was less extreme and tanking competition is intense, leading to the league instituting worse odds. In such environments doing a more hybrid strategy can easily be more lucrative. You'll have fewer assets and you'll have to endure painful treadmill seasons, but you'll also have real shots if you allow young talents to grow alongside a strong veteran core. Or just look at the Warriors, who had some ludicrously good luck even after that initial Curry contract (KD) and also some bad injury luck. But they kept their patience either way and stayed the course.

People always praise Jerry Krause for his drafting and trading, which is kind of odd since he bombed so many times and was at best average. But his choice to blow up the Bulls roster in 86 was pivotal, alongside his coaching selections. Think about it, you have Jordan on your team, he gets injured his 2nd year and the team unwillingly tanks, there's immense pressure to start winning and take advantage of the opportunity of having Jordan, and your response is to blow up the team next year instead of hoping your talented but addled coke-head players can get it together again. Jordan on a league-worst team is still going to put you at 40 wins and prevent you from willingly tanking, but you can rebuild with all the assets gathered from trading the old team. The Bulls got the Pippen pick not because they sucked but from trading their remaining starters for assets. Then when Jordan retired, they still didn't tank but kept the culture and slowly shuffled a new roster alongside it. So it's nice and easy to slot Jordan back in when he gets bored and returns. You'd think Jordan would learn from that, but then he trades young Rip Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse...

Imagine if the Spurs had ever went for a win-now option after they lost one of their close seasons like 2004. Then they lose out on all that longevity and their success in even 2007 and from 2013-2017. The Spurs got Kawhi by trading George Hill, who was a quality starting PG, and then suffering for it while the raw Kawhi developed. But as it was they never had to blow it up, that kept Duncan loyal, and with him there they kept the culture. Meanwhile 50+ win teams every season and 5 titles. The Warriors are copying them, but who else is? Riley has his vision and that's worked out well, but it's a short list.

And then since someone brought it up, look at the 1st Cavs stint for Lebron. He comes into a terrible team with another promising 6th pick and a lower end all star in his prime, young Boozer, and garbage. The young talent (Dajuan Wagner) gets sidelined due to wanting to share the ball and had a career ending injury, management screws up with Boozer, and the team goes nowhere for a couple years while Bron develops. They sign Larry Hughes off of a good year, whereupon he coasts having gotten his contract and seems to quit caring. The Celtics had that problem and Larry Bird had to tell Cedric Maxwell he'd break Maxwell's leg if he coasted, but the Cavs didn't have a remedy and had to trade him at a low value. Instead of preparing for the future with Lebron and getting good returns on assets at strategic times, the Cavs from 2005-2010 essentially try to play win-now every year. Lebron won't commit and wants to win-now, meanwhile management has no backbone. They won't stand up to him for their own vision and instead play musical chairs with half the roster every other season. Honestly its kind of a miracle that the 2009 Cavs were still Lebron's best RS team given all this. Look at their trades, it's hilarious. In 2005(!) when Lebron is 20/21 they trade a first round pick for a win now nobody (Jiri Welsch). Meanwhile the Celtics turn that pick into Rajon Rondo. He might've helped the Cavs a bit.

In short, patience and waiting for good opportunities is rewarded, and short-term result chasing seems pretty low odds.

[vxmike]

Hard to comment on every potential rebuild, but in the case of the Jazz I think it was the right move.

However now comes the hard part - how to actually maximize all that draft capital to build another contender.

The only legit high value draft capital Utah will have is their own tank job The other draft picks really aren’t worth much unless they literally luck out with a mid to lower tier draft pick from the cavaliers.

Sam Presti will go on to year 3 of his tank 2.0 job now. Those clippers picks aren’t worth much or anything. Notice the higher high pick okc for was their own.

So really a team doesn’t need to trade their star players (Mitchell) to tank. They should have just let Mitchell sit out an entire year with some mysterious illness and tank Get their own high pick and reload quickly.

The key is getting unprotected picks even better if a few years out. You never know who is going to end up much worse than expected due to bad trades or a serious injury to a star.

[Tukkerwolf]

The Cavs tanked for the 4 years Lebron was gone and it produced Kyrie, Love (or at the time, the assets necessary to acquire Love) and Tristan Thompson.

Did they? Being very bad =/= tanking. Except for tanking due to a couple of mystery injuries at the end of the season a lot of bad teams start with the intention of improving their record and don't actively tank like the 67-ers did or what the Jazz seem to be planning on doing.

[dautjazz]

Utah made the right move, we traded them while they had 3-4 years on their contract and had very high trade value. Their supporting cast was on the decline, and rumor is that they (Rudy/Don) wanted to split up.

[Hoppy1]

The reset button is such a horrible approach to the game but I get it. I would love to see the game built up enough and follow the European system where the worst teams drop down in competition and the better teams from a second tier move up.
Get the number to 32 teams. Then build a secondary group of 16 in different markets. Let the bottom 8 (of the higher) and top 8 (of the lower) switch each year.

Tanking gets reduced, owners will play to win.

[dc]

The reset button is such a horrible approach to the game but I get it. I would love to see the game built up enough and follow the European system where the worst teams drop down in competition and the better teams from a second tier move up.
Get the number to 32 teams. Then build a secondary group of 16 in different markets. Let the bottom 8 (of the higher) and top 8 (of the lower) switch each year.

Tanking gets reduced, owners will play to win.

I've mentioned it before: relegation only works in Europe because soccer/football is the only game anyone cares about. (Everything else is basically bowling in comparision; even basketball is a niche sport in comparison). If it's only one sport everyone cares about, you can have a 2nd/3rd division and people will still follow. And many teams can rely on generations of fans from the same family becoming the new fans decade after decade, even for a small team that never competes for a title. There's a loyalty factor there.

The top teams in Euro soccer are (unless they become a mismanaged wreck) never in danger of becoming relegated. It's the "poorer" teams that will never have any chance of competing for a league title that will fight each other in relegation battles. Fans of these teams that have no hope of ever winning a title will basically see the relegation battles as their championship. Winning a promotion or knocking a rival team into relegation essentially becomes "their championship". So it's something to watch.

Such things would never work in US sports. Nobody cares about 2nd/3rd divisions. How many people in the US watch minor league basketball or G-League basketball? They would just watch a different sport before watching a lower division league. There are too many things competing for peoples' attention in the US.

The T-Wolves got absolutely mocked for celebrating a play in win. You think anybody would think of a team winning a relegation battle in the US as something special?

The idea of relegation in US sports is something "hardcore" enthusiasts of the sport would like to give a shot, but casuals here will have nothing of it and it would be a huge money loser for the league.

The NBA has tankers, sure. And Euro Soccer/football have leagues where literally only 2-3 teams matter and the rest are bottom dwelling teams that literally have no chance in their lifetimes of ever competing for a title.

[Asianiac_24]

For teams like Miami and LA it’s not really worth it. Due to the city they are in, they can just clear out cap space and they have a solid chance to sign a LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, etc. With one of these guys it’s much easier to get the second star (PG, AD, etc).

For teams like Cleveland and Utah, no top 5 player is signing there unless they are drafted and groomed by the team. The only chance they have to a top 5 player is through the draft, and it’s very hard to draft one of those without a top 3 pick.

[ShootersShoot]

How does one consider a successful season? Is it just winning it all, or is it also winning 48+ games for like 4+ years or so?
Not a few are saying Utah was right to just blow it up but how many teams really have risen from the ashes after getting rid of all their assets?
I remember the Bulls deliberately letting MJ, Phil, Pippen go... created cap space and Tim Duncan didn't even bother to visit them.
Sixers with what 5 straight lottery picks?
OKC? Clippers with the Lob City? I can think of just Boston who went to the recent finals, then....?
Then I think of the Spurs, Mavs, Heat, even the Lakers holding on to Kobe...
Was Golden State consider a rebuild? from Ellis? seriously? Is there Karma involved when you cheat and abuse the system?
Building teams naturally like the Bucks, Toronto then the mentioned teams who let their aging stars retire. Of course there is only one team who will win it all every season.

The Warriors definitely rebuilt, but they didn't hit the reset button. They tried to stay competitive and even signed David Lee and Iggy.

I can't think of any instance in the recent past where a team dismantled everything, shipped out all their good players, started over, and had it lead to a championship. More often than not, it seems to turn into a repeated cycle of sucking, resetting, and rebuilding.

Because it doesn’t exist. It’s a myth that fans of poorly managed teams tell themselves and an excuse GMs use to keep their job. Everyone’s favourite example of tanking, the Process Sixers spent 5 years putting out the most garbage roster and not bothering to be competitive and they haven’t made it past the second round. Do you know what round they lost in before they blew up the team? I thought they were a first round knockout, but the team with Jrue Holiday, Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner had lost in the second round. 10 years later, after all that tanking, they haven’t moved the needle from a playoff perspective.

Your take is extremely biased and is a very casual take on the subject and you know it.

The iguodala led sixers went to the playoffs 4 seasons, and the most wins they had in those seasons was 41. They did have a shortened season where they were 4 games above .500.. The joel embiid sixer playoff teams lowest win total was 49. The one year they won less was due to shortened season where they were 13 games above .500

The iguodala sixers had zero mvp candidates, and no second all star. Iguodala sixers had no one as good offensively as even maxey. Big difference between the two teams and their respective ceilings.
The needle between the quality of team composition between the iggy sixers and embiids is vast. You are comparing one team whose absolute ceiling was a 6th-8th seed versus one with title aspirations.

Also it took 4 years to make the playoffs as a high seed..not an unreasonable amount of time for a rebuild.