The Race To The Bottom - theBigLip Tank Machine

[Kalamazoo317]

Westbrook, Grant, and Kennard are not superstars in the modern NBA. Jordan, of course, played in a completely different era.

[Laimbeer]

Houston has gone beast mode. Lost 11 in a row.

[Mr Peanut]

Yeah no one is out-tanking Houston from here. Charlotte also heavily suck. I think best scenario we finish 3rd worst, but our young guys could also make some strides and piece together a string of wins in the latter part of the season which could bring us up to 4th or 5th.

[buzzkilloton]

Even 538 has us behind the Rockets by multiple games. Their all out for the tank.

Its going to be close between us,Spurs,and Hornets. As long as we move BB I think we should hold top 3.

If we drop down to 4 were actually favored to drop down the draft with the new odds. Pretty annoying.


Rockets 19
Pistons 23
Spurs 24
Hornets 26
Magic 28
Wiz 36

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

[Kalamazoo317]

Third worst record is historically the spot that most frequently gets the #1 pick. Not by a ton and it's completely random, but fun fact.

[Manocad]

Yeah no one is out-tanking Houston from here. Charlotte also heavily suck. I think best scenario we finish 3rd worst, but our young guys could also make some strides and piece together a string of wins in the latter part of the season which could bring us up to 4th or 5th.

Houston, i.e. finishing worst, shouldn't be the focus anyway. Watch that 4th worst team and just stay below them.

[Homelander87]

Thank you Bobcats

[Snakebites]

Even 538 has us behind the Rockets by multiple games. Their all out for the tank.

Its going to be close between us,Spurs,and Hornets. As long as we move BB I think we should hold top 3.

If we drop down to 4 were actually favored to drop down the draft with the new odds. Pretty annoying.


Rockets 19
Pistons 23
Spurs 24
Hornets 26
Magic 28
Wiz 36

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

I'm not sure why they're projecting the Hornets getting so many more wins. They're a safe bet to win fewer than 26. And that's without considering their likely fire sale.

[Homelander87]

Houston has gone beast mode. Lost 11 in a row.

Never gonna catch them unfortunately

[buzzkilloton]

Even 538 has us behind the Rockets by multiple games. Their all out for the tank.

Its going to be close between us,Spurs,and Hornets. As long as we move BB I think we should hold top 3.

If we drop down to 4 were actually favored to drop down the draft with the new odds. Pretty annoying.


Rockets 19
Pistons 23
Spurs 24
Hornets 26
Magic 28
Wiz 36

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

I'm not sure why they're projecting the Hornets getting so many more wins. They're a safe bet to win fewer than 26. And that's without considering their likely fire sale.

Their algorithm has been really high on the Hornets all season. I think the algorithm has been projecting Hayward and Melo to get healthy and make a big diff. I'm pretty certain its not putting into play the fact guys could get traded.

[Cowology]

I know SGA is having a great season, but in my brain the Thunder are still a bottom 5 team. I was kinda surprised to see they have gone 7-3 recently and are approaching .500, but Presit has already shown he's willing to brazenly tank and I still think they'll be in the mix when the time comes. I could see them go winless their last 20 games as they trot out nothing but G-leagers.

Not likely to impact us much (unless they move up in the lottery), but I think they'll be fighting with Orlando & Charlotte for that 4th/5th position around 25-30 wins. VW is too appealing, especially with the injury to Chet. No way they sit this one out unless they are firmly in playoff position.

[buzzkilloton]

I know SGA is having a great season, but in my brain the Thunder are still a bottom 5 team. I was kinda surprised to see they have gone 7-3 recently and are approaching .500, but Presit has already shown he's willing to brazenly tank and I still think they'll be in the mix when the time comes. I could see them go winless their last 20 games as they trot out nothing but G-leagers.

Not likely to impact us much (unless they move up in the lottery), but I think they'll be fighting with Orlando & Charlotte for that 4th/5th position around 25-30 wins. VW is too appealing, especially with the injury to Chet. No way they sit this one out.

Their is no way for them to tank. Its all young players on their team carrying them. Their the youngest team in the league and all of their impact players are recent picks.

Giddey has been awesome playing at all star level recent months. Jalen Williams is one of the best defenders in the draft. Dort is good too.

Giddey is now up to 16 8 6 on the season at 48.5% fg his 3pter has improved to 33% this season. I dont think people have been paying attention to how good hes gotten.

[Cowology]

They will all be injured.

[zeebneeb]

I know SGA is having a great season, but in my brain the Thunder are still a bottom 5 team. I was kinda surprised to see they have gone 7-3 recently and are approaching .500, but Presit has already shown he's willing to brazenly tank and I still think they'll be in the mix when the time comes. I could see them go winless their last 20 games as they trot out nothing but G-leagers.

Not likely to impact us much (unless they move up in the lottery), but I think they'll be fighting with Orlando & Charlotte for that 4th/5th position around 25-30 wins. VW is too appealing, especially with the injury to Chet. No way they sit this one out unless they are firmly in playoff position.

I don't know Cow, I think your off on this one. They are currently 23-24, 11th seed, (every team in that range has the same loss total!)but only one game back of the sixth seed, 2 from 5th!

They are easily going to end up with at least 33 wins. They only have to go 10-25 to achieve that. My guess is closer to 40.

There are only 4 really bad teams this year, with Orlando on the cusp of figuring it out, escaping the true misery Charlotte, San Antonio, Rockets, and Pistons find themselves in.

[buzzkilloton]

Thunder just won another game vs Denver tonight as well. Their actually 11 wins up on us. Crazy thats without Chet too.

This is why I say we can have a huge turnaround next season. We have similar young talent and are adding mr 2023+have tons of cap space.

[The Moose]

Thunder just won another game vs Denver tonight as well. Their actually 11 wins up on us. Crazy thats without Chet too.

This is why I say we can have a huge turnaround next season. We have similar young talent and are adding mr 2023+have tons of cap space.

we don't have an SGA though, and thats what drives the whole ship over there, we saw what happened last season when they sat SGA for the 2nd half of the season

[buzzkilloton]

Thunder just won another game vs Denver tonight as well. Their actually 11 wins up on us. Crazy thats without Chet too.

This is why I say we can have a huge turnaround next season. We have similar young talent and are adding mr 2023+have tons of cap space.

we don't have an SGA though, and thats what drives the whole ship over there, we saw what happened last season when they sat SGA for the 2nd half of the season

Cade has to be that guy for us. Not expecting 30 5 and 5 like SGA but a big jump like Booker or Tatum had in year 3 in numbers and efficiency. Of course the injury might hinder the jump but I imagine hes still working on his game in the gym some and working on the things he can like watching tape and improving his mental game. I know hes gotten way strong in the upper body already,

Also we have one more hope with this surgery. Cades not been 100% since high school. Maybe this surgery gives him some more juice on the athleticism and he comes back better then ever.

If Cade isnt what we hope for and we miss on Scoot and Wemby might as well set up for that 2026 class with Boozer and Flagg to get our MVP candidate.

[bstein14]

Worst part about this rebuild, is up to this point, we haven't found that top end talent. Grizzlies got it in Ja. Pelicans got it in Zion. Mavs got it in Luka. OKC traded for it in SGA. Orlando appears to have landed it in Banchero (verdict still out a bit but he's shown more as a rookie than Cade did). Celtics got it in Tatum, etc... our top 3 pick in Cade I feel is going to be a good player but I still have some real doubts he ever gets to being a top 10-12 player carry a franchise type.

It's hard to get out of the first round in this league without a top talent. Obviously the 04 Pistons did it with 4 starters that were likely in the 15 to 30 range in the league, as well as great depth and great coaching.... but 98% of teams that make it to the conference finals have a top tier talent #1 guy on their team like a Luka, Giannis, Tatum, KD, Curry, Ja, SGA, Zion, Jokic, etc.

[bstein14]

With Orlando continuing to play well, we're pretty much guaranteed to be a bottom 4 team at this point. Even 4th worst has just slightly less odds of getting a top 4 pick than being a bottom 3 team. If you're a bottom 3 team you have a 52% chance of moving up to the top 4 picks, and if you're the 4th worst team you have a 48.1% chance of moving up to a top 4 pick. So far this year we've lost more games than any other team.

Detroit 37 losses
Houston 36 losses
Charlotte 35 losses
San Antonio 33 losses
-----
Orlando 29 losses

We have 33 games left this year, and even if we play much better and go 13-20 over that span there's no chance we're passing Orlando. We're pretty much in a situation where the fanbase should enjoy any wins that come our way and not have to worry about the tank because it doesn't really matter.

[whitehops]

yeah there's a pretty clear "bottom 4" with orlando being closer to the next tier of teams. we're currently on pace to win 20 games this year so we should enjoy every single one of those (roughly) 8 wins to come.

i miss cade.