tsherkin wrote:I think we'll have to see what happens with the draft and BI's first season before we can really evaluate what's going on. Toronto was not likely to ever commit to a protracted, multi-year tank. And frankly, we haven't seen a ton of that strategy working out super well.
The Knicks were in the lottery for most of 20 years (17 years in 20 under 40 wins) and that didn't pan out for them. Washington hasn't won more than 35 games since 2018. Atlanta was under 30 wins for 3 years from 18-20. Going back to 05, Charlotte has 17 seasons under 40 wins and hasn't won 50 games since 1998. They have a 7-win season in there. Chicago's working on its 6th season under 40 wins in the last 8. Detroit's FINALLY looking at a season of 27+ wins, after 20, 20, 23, 17 and 14. And they got Cade out of all that. Orlando has mostly been pretty bad since 2013, with 7 seasons under 30 wins and another 3 under 40. They have Wagner and Paolo, so we'll see what happens with them. Portland's won 27, 33 and 21 games in the three previous seasons, and they're sub-.500 again.
The Spurs made it happen, they got Wemby. Utah's been bad for a couple years now and they're REALLY bad this year, but the draft hasn't come yet, so we'll see.
Generally speaking, though, you can see the trend that multi-year tanking hasn't really been the thing. So that in mind, it's hard to envision that Masai was going to commit to just obliterating the team for a multi-year tank. We're in position for probably a top-6 pick, which isn't awful. It would be MORE ideal if we were jockeying for a higher pick, but the worst 3 teams in the league are just out of reach terrible, so there's no real reason to trash potential assets to make an effort in a race we were never going to win.
We'll see how it goes, I guess.
I agree that tanking is a gamble but it's also the moves he has been making with assets like Van Fleet, Siakam, etc for the past 2-3 years makes no sense and he's handing out big contracts to mid players and the roster construction makes no sense.