Success rate for hitting the Reset button.

[tamaraw08]

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.

[RoyceDa59]

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.

[Harry Garris]

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.

[MrGoat]

We'd have been fighting for the ninth seed last year in no man's land if we hadn't tanked enough to get in the Doncic conversation. It can be worth it if you get the right pick. The Spurs tanking for Duncan is another obvious one. Utah clearly had some locker room issues and a clear ceiling, it was time for a reset, they need to nail some of the picks though

[Flash Falcon X]

https://grantland.com/features/how-annoy-fan-base-60-easy-steps/

Warriors had 30 straight years of making horrible decisions, yet when they finally get lucky with Steph it's called "cheating and abusing" the system...

And before you talk about luck... every single successful team, coach, player, etc. has had to have some luck on their side to gain some success. Happens outside of sports, too. You have to work hard and it is necessary to have the work ethic, but you need some luck on your side as well (e.g. Spurs getting Duncan, Phil Jackson getting to coach MJ, Shaq, Kobe, etc.)

[og15]

There’s a lot going on in this first post.

What do you consider to be “cheating the system”, tanking?

[ShootersShoot]

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.

You mean the fun part!

[Colbinii]

The Warriors never cheated or abused the system--they simply got incredibly lucky on multiple occasions.

1) Curry is injured and signs a below-market contract due to injury concerns.

2) Steve Kerr instills a beautiful motion offense which maximizes Curry/Klay/Green/Iguodala.

3) The NBA Cap spikes and instead of smoothing the NBA [for whatever reason] simply let's all the teams spend it in one off-season, giving the Warriors the ability to sign Kevin Durant.

[Roger Murdock]

The only team to abuse tanking and win a title was the Cleveland Cavaliers

Second closest is OKC

Philly Process is probably third most successful but they have failed

OKC is most organic success as Cleveland got there through FA and mostly not the draft, and OkC still came up short



People like to say the Spurs tanked but they just got hit with a million injuries while trying to compete for a title and bottomed out a little harder than necessary when an ATG talent was in the draft. If Giannis tore his ACL and Jrue and Middleton but got nagging injuries and were shut down would you consider the 2023 Bucks a tanking team or a team? Hell no they are built to win and just made the most out of a crap hand.

The 97 spurs had an aggressive offseason trying to improve and win a title prior to a run of injuries that ruined their season. They lost a battle to win a war.

Tanking to me is a long term strategic move

[ShootersShoot]

Do the grizz and cavs count? They are young and upcoming teams trying to knock on the door to contention. Built on the backs of lotto picks and young players. Maybe they wont win a championship, but they have quality cores and youth. If I was a fan of theirs, I would be excited to watch them every night and sometimes thats all you can ask for as a fan.

[jasonxxx102]

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.

[BK_2020]

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.

Actually teams that rebuilt through deliberate tanking are outliers. Maybe the Sixers and Memphis?
You can no doubt improve your chances by tanking, but it doesn't appear that tanking changes the calculus significantly. You got to get lucky in the draft or have Lebron or Kawhi sign with you.

[jasonxxx102]

The only team to abuse tanking and win a title was the Cleveland Cavaliers

What does this mean?

[ShootersShoot]

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.

[Vampirate]

You need a gargantuan amount of luck to hit on a generational talent in the draft and you need to be bad enough to improve your odds on getting the chance to draft that talent.

The odds are very very low, however if you don't hit the reset button, the average franchise has no chance instead of a very small one.

[Courtside]

Technically, the Kawhi trade to Toronto was made because the team was basically facing a reset button themselves. They fired the COY that offseason after repeated failures, and had DD on the market quietly for 2 seasons as well, knowing that a ceiling had been hit. So yeah, it was organic to that point, and all homegrown players were used in both trades that season (Kawhi and Gasol), but it was a matter of patience and good timing.

There is no one correct way to do this. A lot of it is market driven, since your options for signing players changes drastically from team to team, so each team has to figure out the approach that works best for them. GSW and Toronto are a lot alike in that way, in that they had sputtered along for some time as an "also ran" team, then had a period of modest success, then broke through with some luck and good timing. It's obviously gone a whole lot better for the Dubs in terms of longevity of their peak, but both teams regard their building plans as accumulating assets and then make opportunistic moves. In middle-appeal markets that traditionally don't get big name FAs, you have to be opportunists. In low appeal markets, you really have to work the draft and accumulate that way (this applies to the very successful Spurs just as well as it does to the Pels or Thunder or Jazz).

If you want to talk about cheating and abusing the system, you can look at what Lebron arranged in MIA, or the way the Lakers persistently have not only a market and financial advantage in LA, but whose best player is knee deep in a dominant agency and they're able to pull strings and tamper to get players to force their way there, or twist the arms of other GMs with threat of Klutch blackballing and the like.

Imagine a Lakers fan starting a thread about abusing the system - talk about a lack of self awareness.

[Catchall]

Jazz didn't have a true franchise player. They had a #2 guy in Mitchell (functionally similar to Kyrie) and a #3 guy in Gobert. The rest of the team was an assortment of 30+ year-old vets and role players. They were built as a Spurs-like system that had become a little out of date in today's league.

As for hitting the reset button, it depends on who the front office is and what type of team they want to put together. In any case, a contender needs to have three All Star-level players, plus a couple good role players, all entering their prime together.

For a small-market team like the Jazz, those pieces have to be acquired via the draft and via trades. That's why the Jazz are loading up on picks to draft with or to trade.

[ishoy123]

You need a gargantuan amount of luck to hit on a generational talent in the draft and you need to be bad enough to improve your odds on getting the chance to draft that talent.

The odds are very very low, however if you don't hit the reset button, the average franchise has no chance instead of a very small one.

I think drafting generational talent is the easy part and can be done by anyone. The significantly harder part is proper player development and creating the right team/environment to develop said generational talent. Call me cynical, but there's a good chance Siakam is out of the league if he was drafted by the Kings instead of the Raptors.

[BK_2020]

I think drafting generational talent is the easy part and can be done by anyone.

There's like one first overall pick in the current NBA top 10.

[SK21209]

Off the top of my head I can't think of an example of a team trading its stars for draft picks and those draft picks leading directly to their acquiring the start that wins them the championship.