The Race To The Bottom - theBigLip Tank Machine

[Manocad]

Just for the sake of entertainment, if those records did actually manifest themselves (8 teams winning a total of 89 games), the remaining 22 teams would average 51.86 wins.

52 wins...AVERAGE. That would be nuts.

[topsearch92]

I'm not really seeing how they can enforce anything, other than fining teams for straight up shutting down healthy players before the season is over.

And Silver's words being empty rhetoric is absolutely a possibility that should be considered.

Yeah, I dunno how you prove intent. And frankly it's perfectly reasonable to sit vets and focus on developing young guys if you know you aren't competitive. And because it's somewhat subjective it'll be difficult to draw the line. How do you decide to fine one team but not another when half the league is tanking?

I remember Spurs being fined because of sitting at least one of TD, TP or Manu in away games. If Shai, Cade or others are sit while healthy, fines can happen, at least on the road.

Unless players complained though, I don’t think it’s very easy to prove a player injury isn’t legit. Think of the Kawhi and Simmons debacles. And if you told a owner, this $10 million dollar fine may lead to better odds to get Vic, who is worth so much money they’d say bring the fines on.

[Cowology]

Yeah, I dunno how you prove intent. And frankly it's perfectly reasonable to sit vets and focus on developing young guys if you know you aren't competitive. And because it's somewhat subjective it'll be difficult to draw the line. How do you decide to fine one team but not another when half the league is tanking?

I remember Spurs being fined because of sitting at least one of TD, TP or Manu in away games. If Shai, Cade or others are sit while healthy, fines can happen, at least on the road.

Unless players complained though, I don’t think it’s very easy to prove a player injury isn’t legit. Think of the Kawhi and Simmons debacles. And if you told a owner, this $10 million dollar fine may lead to better odds to get Vic, who is worth so much money they’d say bring the fines on.

I'd agree fines are probably meaningless, but look at what the league did when they wanted to send a message about the Joe Smith fiasco? Minny forfeited their next 5 First round picks (eventually ended up being 4).

Now that may not deter some franchises, but my point is there are other ways to penalize a franchise beyond simply fining them. It just depends on how serious they wanna be.

You *really* wanna punish somebody for tanking then take away their '23 First. Or get creative and choose your threashold. You could just take them outa the lottery or drop them all the way to 30th if you wanna be slightly less extreme.

[theBigLip]

I did an update. As expected, win totals will start to creep up. Especially for Utah So last year the bottom 5 had between 20-25 wins. Hopefully Utah can get some more wins before Ainge makes more trades. And I put Miami, Brooklyn and Dallas down to "Good" teams only. Thx for the input. We seem to have our tank going quite well, even disappointing. I thought we would start out better.

Team (Predicted W-L) (Remaining W-L)
23. Utah (14-68) (11-67)
24. Charlotte (13-69) (11-68)
24. San Antonio (13-69) (10-68)
26. Houston (12-70) (11-67)
26. Oklahoma City (12-70) (11-67)
28. Orlando (11-71) (11-67)
28. Detroit (11-71) (10-68)
30. Indiana (9-73) (8-70)

[DBC10]

Somehow we're ahead of OKC, Pacers, SAN in the race for Wemby with losing to the...Lakers

It's funny how that turned out. Lakers what is you doin

[theBigLip]

Somehow we're ahead of OKC, Pacers, SAN in the race for Wemby with losing to the...Lakers

It's funny how that turned out. Lakers what is you doin

Crazy. I think the Lakers now should be considered a "Bad" team Didn't see that coming.

Great tank night for us - Kings, Hornets, Pacers, Thunder and Jazz all win!

How much longer until Brooklyn becomes a "Bad" team? they look like a mess right now.

[theBigLip]

New standings, w the Lakers in the Tank, although they don't have their pick so they need to get their act together.

Team (Predicted W-L) (Remaining W-L)
22. Utah (15-67) (10-65)
23. Charlotte (14-68) (11-65)
23. Oklahoma City (14-68) (11-65)
23. San Antonio (14-68) (10-66)
26. Houston (12-70) (11-65)
26. Lakers (12-70) (12-65)
28. Orlando (11-71) (10-66)
28. Detroit (11-71) (10-66)
28. Indiana (11-71) (8-67)

[flow]

New standings, w the Lakers in the Tank, although they don't have their pick so they need to get their act together.

Team (Predicted W-L) (Remaining W-L)
22. Utah (15-67) (10-65)
23. Charlotte (14-68) (11-65)
23. Oklahoma City (14-68) (11-65)
23. San Antonio (14-68) (10-66)
26. Houston (12-70) (11-65)
26. Lakers (12-70) (12-65)
28. Orlando (11-71) (10-66)
28. Detroit (11-71) (10-66)
28. Indiana (11-71) (8-67)

Hard to imagine a team that's won 5 of its first 7 games winning only 10 of its next 75.

.

[Sort]

This whole thread is kind of sad. We're thinking about tanking now? Speaks volumes to the actual Pistons games.

I do think you could see some epic losing streaks the second half of the season - perhaps only interrupted when two teams with epic losing streaks face one another.

At this point, I wouldn't be shocked if Detroit was unintentionally right there with them. If Detroit can't beat the Warriors in what clearly is a scheduled loss for them....

[theBigLip]

This whole thread is kind of sad. We're thinking about tanking now? Speaks volumes to the actual Pistons games.

I do think you could see some epic losing streaks the second half of the season - perhaps only interrupted when two teams with epic losing streaks face one another.

At this point, I wouldn't be shocked if Detroit was unintentionally right there with them. If Detroit can't beat the Warriors in what clearly is a scheduled loss for them....

And right on time, Pistons about to beat the Warriors

[theBigLip]

New standings, w the Lakers in the Tank, although they don't have their pick so they need to get their act together.

Team (Predicted W-L) (Remaining W-L)
22. Utah (15-67) (10-65)
23. Charlotte (14-68) (11-65)
23. Oklahoma City (14-68) (11-65)
23. San Antonio (14-68) (10-66)
26. Houston (12-70) (11-65)
26. Lakers (12-70) (12-65)
28. Orlando (11-71) (10-66)
28. Detroit (11-71) (10-66)
28. Indiana (11-71) (8-67)

Hard to imagine a team that's won 5 of its first 7 games winning only 10 of its next 75.

.

Of course they will win more. And if Ainge is done trading, they probably should be considered a “good” team which takes them out of this model completely. Certainly one of the most surprising teams to start the season.

[theBigLip]

Interesting article in The Ringer. Wins between 10-21 don’t much matter to get the first pick. Makes sense.

The model shows there’s very little difference in no. 1 pick equity below 25 wins:

At 10 wins, a team has a 14.0 percent chance to land no. 1.
At 15 wins, it’s also at 14.0 percent.
At 20 wins, it’s at 13.8 percent.
At 25 wins, it’s at 11.6 percent.
At 30 wins, it’s at 7.7 percent.
At 35 wins, it’s at 2.7 percent.
At 40 wins, it’s at 0.6 percent.
In other words, teams competing for the right to draft Wembanyama should avoid surpassing 25 wins this season, lest they become lottery long shots.

Beyond 25 and especially 30 wins, each additional victory carries a heftier cost. But there’s minimal penalty before teams get to that point. Heck, at 10 wins, a team has a maximum 14 percent chance to win the lottery, and at 21 wins (more than double!), it still has a 14 percent chance after rounding.

[Manocad]

Interesting article in The Ringer. Wins between 10-21 don’t much matter to get the first pick. Makes sense.

The model shows there’s very little difference in no. 1 pick equity below 25 wins:

At 10 wins, a team has a 14.0 percent chance to land no. 1.
At 15 wins, it’s also at 14.0 percent.
At 20 wins, it’s at 13.8 percent.
At 25 wins, it’s at 11.6 percent.
At 30 wins, it’s at 7.7 percent.
At 35 wins, it’s at 2.7 percent.
At 40 wins, it’s at 0.6 percent.
In other words, teams competing for the right to draft Wembanyama should avoid surpassing 25 wins this season, lest they become lottery long shots.

Beyond 25 and especially 30 wins, each additional victory carries a heftier cost. But there’s minimal penalty before teams get to that point. Heck, at 10 wins, a team has a maximum 14 percent chance to win the lottery, and at 21 wins (more than double!), it still has a 14 percent chance after rounding.

Those have to be outcomes, not odds. As we know the bottom three teams all have the same odds of getting the #1 pick (14%) regardless of how many wins each team has. Basically that's saying that every team with 15 wins or fewer has been a bottom 3 team, and most of the 20 wins or less teams have been as well.

[buzzkilloton]

Its going to be Pistons,Rockets, and Magic chasing it down again this season. SGA is too good hes made a huge year 5 jump and is making the Thunder win. Teams like the Spurs and Jazz too well coached. Lakers and Kings will win more as the season goes on.

[Piston Pete]

Pistons won’t tank as hard as the Rockets will.

Magic have a deeper team than us, so they should win more, but who knows

[buzzkilloton]

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2023-nba-predictions/

538 has us finishing 2nd to the Rockets with 22wins to Rockets 18.

Weaver gave Hayes that 7mill for a reason. Hes gonna be the midseason secret weapon. Bump his minutes up and GG.

[theBigLip]

Even if we don't get Victor or Scoot, there are a ton of wings that (according to Tankathon) are slotted just after. This should be a good draft for us no matter what. We are essentially guaranteed to get one of these guys worst case.

3 Nick Smith Jr.
PG/SG | Arkansas
6'5" 185 lbs
Freshman
18.6 yrs

4 Amen Thompson
SG/PG | Overtime Elite
6'7" 199 lbs
Overtime Elite
19.8 yrs

5 Dariq Whitehead
SF | Duke
6'6" 190 lbs
Freshman
18.3 yrs

6 Dillon Mitchell
SF | Texas
6'7" 200 lbs
Freshman
19.1 yrs

7 Cam Whitmore
PF | Villanova
6'7" 225 lbs
Freshman
18.3 yrs

8 Ausar Thompson
SG/SF | Overtime Elite
6'7" 204 lbs
Overtime Elite
19.8 yrs

[Rip32]

As optimistic as I like to be and hope the Pistons make the playoffs, I don't think that's going to happen. So I like looking at what that will look like for us. In past years midway through the season I've usually done a tank thread to see where we will end up in the lottery (or at least how many ping pong balls we will get). With Victor as the prize, I said WTF, and decided I'm going to track things the entire season.

I know there are other trackers such as Tankathon that are pretty good. But it's a black box and we don't know the logic. So I created a model that has played out pretty well, at least in relative terms. So here is my logic:
- teams are either Great, Good, or Bad
- Great teams beat Good and Bad, Good teams beat Bad ones
- If Great teams play each other, the home team wins. Same for Good and Bad teams playing their own.
- I don't do it now, but I'll look into adding some back-to-back logic. Those second games in back-to-backs are a little tougher.

So to make the model work, the teams need to be categorized. There are some questionable ones like Washington and Portland. But if they need to be changed, the good thing the model (and my spreadsheet) update automatically. Let me know what you think, but here is what I have to start:
Atlanta Good
Boston Great
Brooklyn Great
Charlotte Bad
Chicago Good
Cleveland Good
Dallas Great
Denver Great
Detroit Bad
Golden State Great
Houston Bad
Indiana Bad
LA Clippers Great
LA Lakers Good
Memphis Great
Miami Great
Milwaukee Great
Minnesota Good
New Orleans Good
New York Good
Oklahoma City Bad
Orlando Bad
Philadelphia Great
Phoenix Great
Portland Good
Sacramento Good
San Antonio Bad
Toronto Good
Utah Bad
Washington Good

So before we even play a game, it seems some teams have a slightly easier or harder schedule. Here are the predictions:
Team W L
Houston 12 70
Oklahoma City 12 70
San Antonio 11 71
Utah 11 71
Orlando 11 71
Detroit 11 71
Charlotte 11 71
Indiana 10 72

I would think some of these will be going up, but this will be a serious tank race. I'll update weekly. Regardless of where we land, we still need to get lucky in the lottery, but the more ping pong balls the better. Let the race to the bottom begin!

If we are purposely trying to tank, I hope we miss out on Wemby!

[theBigLip]

If we are purposely trying to tank, I hope we miss out on Wemby!

Curious the reason for that? Victor seems to be THE reason to tank.

[Pharaoh]

If we are purposely trying to tank, I hope we miss out on Wemby!

Curious the reason for that? Victor seems to be THE reason to tank.

Because any team that deliberately sets itself up to lose games shouldn't be rewarded.

Fact is we didn't deliberately set ourselves up to tank - unless you believed the rebuild was finished already

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