The Value of Tanking

[ATLTimekeeper]

There have been a lot of posts poking holes in the "high draft pick to win" theory, however there has been absolutely no viable alternative presented to building a contender.

Just look through history. That's all anyone has to go by. You can be the Lakers, Celtics, draft Duncan or Jordan, and for everyone else it's the standard way of building teams: drafting, free agency, trades, coaching.

Right but you're just listing the tools, not the plan.

Plans for a bad team:

Plan 1 = Have patience to suck, collect high draft picks. Use cap space to facilitate other teams trades or take on garbage to acquire more draft picks.

Plan 2 = Quick fix moves, guarantee mediocrity.

Plan 3 = ?

I don't really need to indicate a plan, because as I said, history provides the information. There are contending teams that benefited from landing top 3 picks: Spurs, Magic, Cavs, Nets, Celtics (arguably), Bucks, hell, I'll even throw the Heat in there. And then there are teams that were built without them: Jazz, Pistons, Suns, Pacers, Mavs, Kings, Lakers, Blazers.

Then there are teams that really didn't get much out of tanking: Raptors, Grizzlies, Hornets, Bobcats, Warriors, Bulls, Wolves, Rockets, Clippers, Hawks, Nuggets, Wizards.

From where I stand, it looks like you're rolling dice either way. Now, is it worth it to tank just in the hopes that you land a special player? Probably, as it has been said, if you're going to be bad anyway, might as well have the selection slot with the least margin for error. But I would argue that everything after that is just as crucial as landing that special player. Would the Spurs be a dynasty without stumbling upon Manu?

[Double Y]

Read up to page 8, but I really don't have the time to go over all 17 pages, so I'll put this out there assuming no one else has pointed this out.

Based on what I've read thus far, I think most people miss the point of the data (i.e. you're all really horrible analysts). The data in no way demonstrates that tanking will lead to a championship team, or even the semblence of one. By looking at win shares, all the data suggests is that by drafting in a more favourable position, you'll likely win more games (i.e. the impact of a top pick to a team winning more games is significant, especially with the top 3 and drops off after the top five). In addition, the effects of a top pick is probably magnified and skewed by a few "great" players who impact their teams much moreso than any players drafted afterwards, for example, Lebron James and his single-hand 60 wins on a crappy Cavs team.

What this is saying is that you increase your odds of becoming better quicker the higher your draft position (which is intuitive) and stats back up that claim. At the same time, it also shows the difference isn't always as pronounced as everyone thinks it is. In fact, depending on your perspective, it shows the draft is still a crapshoot, because the greatest impact to a team, even with the number 1 pick overall, is a "meagre" 28.7 (or 27.7 weighted).

I'm not suggesting one way or the other that building a championship team requires tanking, but Schad's analysis simply doesn't offer that rationale. Thus, it's not fair to be looking at Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, etc. using this data. What I can say, however, is that if the Raps want to improve, and improve quickly, the best odds for them to do so is to draft in a top slot, preferably top 3, and at least top 5. After that, you're hoping for the 9th pick....

Hmmmm...wasn't DeRozen taken 9th overall?

[Alfred]

What I can say, however, is that if the Raps want to improve, and improve quickly, the best odds for them to do so is to draft in a top slot, preferably top 3, and at least top 5.

So you finish off your argument against tanking because it doesn't lead to championships, but you mention that a top three pick will improve your team.

Do you not understand the inherent connection between having good players, improving your team and winning a championship?

[Double Y]

What I can say, however, is that if the Raps want to improve, and improve quickly, the best odds for them to do so is to draft in a top slot, preferably top 3, and at least top 5.

So you finish off your argument against tanking because it doesn't lead to championships, but you mention that a top three pick will improve your team.

Do you not understand the inherent connection between having good players, improving your team and winning a championship?

Actually, I don't think you quite get it. Never in my entire tirade did I mention anything against tanking. In fact, I'm all for it. All I said was that Schad's analysis isn't meant to show tanking in any way guarantees a championship so that arugment against tanking is not valid. All it shows is you improve through tanking, but to build a champ, you need a lot more than that. Most of the other people in this thread arguing against tanking seem to miss that point. They say tank doesn't lead to 'ships, thus no tank.

Having good players, improving your team doesn't lead to a championship; but winning a championship inevitably requires having good players and improving your team. In fact, if anything, almost all championship teams inevitably has a top 5 pick as the anchor on that team. You might make an argument regarding the Lakers and Kobe, although they do have Gasol. And Kobe without a top 5 pick was never able to win it all. Only other team that comes to mind? Detroit.

[Harry Palmer]

I'll never understand how 'doesn't guarantee a championship' has become a reasonably accepted rebuttal to the concept of building though the draft.

I mean, no...it doesn't. Anti-biotics don't guarantee you immunity to infections either, but that doesn't really mean that they aren't a better idea than hitting yourself in the head with a rock.


Doesn't guarantee =/= not the best idea open to us.

[Double Y]

I'll never understand how 'doesn't guarantee a championship' has become a reasonably accepted rebuttal to the concept of building though the draft.

I mean, no...it doesn't. Anti-biotics don't guarantee you immunity to infections either, but that doesn't really mean that they aren't a better idea than hitting yourself in the head with a rock.

Doesn't guarantee =/= not the best idea open to us.

Exactly. Yet thus far, all arguments against tanking in this thread have been akin to hitting yourself in the head with a rock in order to avoid infection.

Hey, I'm all for skipping the draft when we're offered Dwight for Andrea, Amare for Reggie, LeBron for Amir, Kobe for Demar, and Chris for Jarrett. Until then, I'd rather stick to something more realistic (and achievable)...like tanking.

[ranger001]

The best argument against tanking(or reason that it can't happen) has always been that MLSE will not stand by and allow the team to tank and suffer the loss of season ticket sales, advertising, corporate box, concessions, etc. MLSE is in the NBA to make money and a middling team is fine by them.

This argument is always ignored by those calling for BC to be fired. BC is just there to make money, winning is secondary and is only a goal because it helps to make money.

[Ponchos]

The best argument against tanking(or reason that it can't happen) has always been that MLSE will not stand by and allow the team to tank and suffer the loss of season ticket sales, advertising, corporate box, concessions, etc. MLSE is in the NBA to make money and a middling team is fine by them.

This argument is always ignored by those calling for BC to be fired. BC is just there to make money, winning is secondary and is only a goal because it helps to make money.

I think everyone who wants to tank is very very aware of the possibility of BC making "win-now" moves. Why are you making things up?

[roundhead0]

The best argument against tanking(or reason that it can't happen) has always been that MLSE will not stand by and allow the team to tank and suffer the loss of season ticket sales, advertising, corporate box, concessions, etc. MLSE is in the NBA to make money and a middling team is fine by them.

This argument is always ignored by those calling for BC to be fired. BC is just there to make money, winning is secondary and is only a goal because it helps to make money.

Then again, winning a championship would be huuuuge money for this franchise and it's owners. Playoff games are pretty much pure profit ($1-$2M/game) and the concession sales and advertising dollars are sky high. It also makes it very easy to sell tickets and find sponsors for upcoming seasons.

But even in down years there's an issue: you still need to market your team, and it's hard to market without a star player. The fact that the Raps didn't try to splurge in the FA market to bring another player here suggests to me that the tank job may be corporate-approved so that the team can find it's next Vince Carter or Chris Bosh.

[Reignman]

The best argument against tanking(or reason that it can't happen) has always been that MLSE will not stand by and allow the team to tank and suffer the loss of season ticket sales, advertising, corporate box, concessions, etc. MLSE is in the NBA to make money and a middling team is fine by them.

This argument is always ignored by those calling for BC to be fired. BC is just there to make money, winning is secondary and is only a goal because it helps to make money.

yeah, but we're looking at this from a fan perspective. What do we want? We want a good team that can compete and hopefully challenge for the crown one day right?

So yeah, MLSE probably won't allow multiple years of tanking because they don't want to lose gate receipts but for this one year they should allow it. After all, the 3 or 4 really good players that they got (the ones that filled the stands and their pockets) all came through high picks in the draft.

I'm sure they realize that Bargs and Demar don't have the drawing power of a VC or Bosh. So from a $$$ perspective they should be banking on us getting a big name through the draft. Ideally, they'd let us do it for a couple of years to really build a base but that seems unlikely with the way the team operates so our only other hope is to pray that a full season's lockout does what MLSE probably doesn't want to do.

[OlFlashy]

two years of tanking will make BC a genius ......make my words

[lobosloboslobos]

As someone who has argued emphatically against tanking and also argued that the draft is in many respects a crapshoot I now accept that:

a) given that we have no hope in hell of making the playoffs this year we may as well hope to finish last, even though I hate the idea of trying to lose for all kinds of reasons

b) the draft is a crapshoot but it still has decent odds of yielding success

As an aside, I was reading today about how the Montreal Canadiens have desperately been looking for a french-canadian scorer for years and yet passed on budding superstar Claude Giroux (picked 22nd) in favour of picking an English guy who never even ended up playing a game in the NHL. The draft is a great place for teams to show their stupidity and it happens all the time. Am I worried that we will tank and screw up the draft? Believe it.

[ranger001]

The best argument against tanking(or reason that it can't happen) has always been that MLSE will not stand by and allow the team to tank and suffer the loss of season ticket sales, advertising, corporate box, concessions, etc. MLSE is in the NBA to make money and a middling team is fine by them.

This argument is always ignored by those calling for BC to be fired. BC is just there to make money, winning is secondary and is only a goal because it helps to make money.

Then again, winning a championship would be huuuuge money for this franchise and it's owners. Playoff games are pretty much pure profit ($1-$2M/game) and the concession sales and advertising dollars are sky high. It also makes it very easy to sell tickets and find sponsors for upcoming seasons.

But even in down years there's an issue: you still need to market your team, and it's hard to market without a star player. The fact that the Raps didn't try to splurge in the FA market to bring another player here suggests to me that the tank job may be corporate-approved so that the team can find it's next Vince Carter or Chris Bosh.

They'll tank for 1 year maybe 2 but they wont go for years of tanking hoping in the fool's gold of a championship at the end. It isn't worth it from a dollars sense.

[mini]

I don't think you need to tank for more than 2 years in the NBA. If it takes more than 2 solid draft positions, you are doing things wrong. 2 years of tanking should (in theory) give you 2 all-stars (at least 1 and 1 near allstar... in a 'worse-case' scenario... again, provided you aren't incompetent). Add to this the cap-space that a garbage team should have and you're off and running. This appears to be a perfect time to tank as well. Possible lock-out next year, another high pick, new CBA which might allow us to buy-out a contract, already have young assets in DD and Davis (maybe Bargs).

Again, nothing is guaranteed, but tanking in the NBA is so much more efficient than tanking in other sports where it is much more of a crap-shoot (NHL/MLB draft kids that typically take 2-4 years to even get a sniff the bigs and even then you have huge rosters to fill).

Hop on the tank!

[TMMC]

One thing about tanking and building through the draft in Toronto that we have to consider is the fact that if we land a star player with a top three pick odds are he won't stay here for the rest of his career....

Unfortunely that has been the case from the beginning and I don't see that changing anytime soon.. We get to see a player blossom into a good player and then bolt, then repeat all over again... I don't think you can build a team in Toronto the conventional way, you have to use all available tools at your disposal to hopefully one day get respect for this city and franchise before your able to hold onto young star players...

[mini]

One thing about tanking and building through the draft in Toronto that we have to consider is the fact that if we land a star player with a top three pick odds are he won't stay here for the rest of his career....

Unfortunely that has been the case from the beginning and I don't see that changing anytime soon.. We get to see a player blossom into a good player and then bolt, then repeat all over again... I don't think you can build a team in Toronto the conventional way, you have to use all available tools at your disposal to hopefully one day get respect for this city and franchise before your able to hold onto young star players...

So what you're saying is that star players don't want to stay in Toronto. Which I guess means no big Free Agent signings. So... drafting stars is no good because they'll leave, signing stars is not going to happen. Lets just fold the franchise.

The real fact is, winning keeps players/stars and attracts other ones. Drafting is our best bet at getting the first star and turning this ship around.

We (Toronto fans) are starting to believe the hype coming from the media that we lose all of our stars. We kept Vince and Bosh. The real problem is that once we get a star he always seems to leave right when that secondary star is about to develop (T-Mac with Vince, Vince with Bosh, Bosh with ... yet to be determined DD maybe).

[Reignman]

One thing about tanking and building through the draft in Toronto that we have to consider is the fact that if we land a star player with a top three pick odds are he won't stay here for the rest of his career....

Unfortunely that has been the case from the beginning and I don't see that changing anytime soon.. We get to see a player blossom into a good player and then bolt, then repeat all over again... I don't think you can build a team in Toronto the conventional way, you have to use all available tools at your disposal to hopefully one day get respect for this city and franchise before your able to hold onto young star players...

We've never built the conventional way. As soon as we thought we had a star on our hands (VC/Bosh) we started trading our picks and blowing our capspace on win-now moves that ultimately held us back.

What we need to do is get that star and build a complimentary team around him so that they can grow together.

That's why I like the make up of our current team, we have a young athletic supporting cast somewhat in place and now we need to add a couple of stars. If we get Barnes/Irving in the next draft and then Rivers/Gilchrist/Drummond in 2012, we'll have the necessary pieces in place to move forward.

The short term moves we made with VC/Bosh is what killed this franchise from building a perennial winner. All those moves were made with the intention of getting to the playoffs and not really doing much when we got there.

If you build a perennial winner then you'll attract free agents making this a desirable destination.

[jigga_man]

One thing about tanking and building through the draft in Toronto that we have to consider is the fact that if we land a star player with a top three pick odds are he won't stay here for the rest of his career....

Unfortunely that has been the case from the beginning and I don't see that changing anytime soon.. We get to see a player blossom into a good player and then bolt, then repeat all over again... I don't think you can build a team in Toronto the conventional way, you have to use all available tools at your disposal to hopefully one day get respect for this city and franchise before your able to hold onto young star players...

We've never built the conventional way. As soon as we thought we had a star on our hands (VC/Bosh) we started trading our picks and blowing our capspace on win-now moves that ultimately held us back.

What we need to do is get that star and build a complimentary team around him so that they can grow together.

That's why I like the make up of our current team, we have a young athletic supporting cast somewhat in place and now we need to add a couple of stars. If we get Barnes/Irving in the next draft and then Rivers/Gilchrist/Drummond in 2012, we'll have the necessary pieces in place to move forward.

The short term moves we made with VC/Bosh is what killed this franchise from building a perennial winner. All those moves were made with the intention of getting to the playoffs and not really doing much when we got there.

If you build a perennial winner then you'll attract free agents making this a desirable destination.

Unfortunately, if we do get a top 3 pick this year, there's no way BC will tank another year. It'll be like 06 all over again. he'll make a bunch of win now moves, and we'll be back to mediocrity. I bet BC feels that Andrea= Rivers/Gilchrist/Drummond.

[Fairview4Life]

Unfortunately, if we do get a top 3 pick this year, there's no way BC will tank another year. It'll be like 06 all over again. he'll make a bunch of win now moves, and we'll be back to mediocrity. I bet BC feels that Andrea= Rivers/Gilchrist/Drummond.

The lockout will save us. Malkin and Crosby, here we come.

[TMMC]

One thing about tanking and building through the draft in Toronto that we have to consider is the fact that if we land a star player with a top three pick odds are he won't stay here for the rest of his career....

Unfortunely that has been the case from the beginning and I don't see that changing anytime soon.. We get to see a player blossom into a good player and then bolt, then repeat all over again... I don't think you can build a team in Toronto the conventional way, you have to use all available tools at your disposal to hopefully one day get respect for this city and franchise before your able to hold onto young star players...

So what you're saying is that star players don't want to stay in Toronto. Which I guess means no big Free Agent signings. So... drafting stars is no good because they'll leave, signing stars is not going to happen. Lets just fold the franchise.

The real fact is, winning keeps players/stars and attracts other ones. Drafting is our best bet at getting the first star and turning this ship around.

We (Toronto fans) are starting to believe the hype coming from the media that we lose all of our stars. We kept Vince and Bosh. The real problem is that once we get a star he always seems to leave right when that secondary star is about to develop (T-Mac with Vince, Vince with Bosh, Bosh with ... yet to be determined DD maybe).

Well I hope that wouldn't be the case, moving the team but if this continues for another 15 years it will happen..

In Toronto more than anywhere else we have to win fast when we land a star player in the draft and that takes away from what teams like to do. Which is drafting well for a few years landing a couple quality star young players... If we draft a star player in Toronto we don't have four years to tank and draft more quality players.. If we do the player we drafted wants no part of being in Toronto not only because he is in a different country but because we are losing as well... This is what usually ends up being our downfall, we draft a young star, the young star puts pressure on us to win now or he will leave and we end up ditchin the rebuild by giving out poor contracts for avg players in attempt to win.... So what do we do in our situation, its the million dollar question we have yet to anwser but one thing is for sure, building a winner here under these circumstances is not an easy thing to do...

We have to find a middle ground here, we have to continue to educate NBA players and media on what we have to offer here in Toronto, we have to continue to use all means possible to build a winner... We can't simply rely on the draft in Toronto, we have to trade for and sign young players as well, not avg known role players to poor contracts but rather developing young talent to decent contracts and hope it all comes together in time... Another option would be to draft a star player in the next draft and then package a bunch of our other assets for a star player who is already locked up long term... We have to continue to use the draft, free agency and the trade market only we have to be smarter in our choices and smarter in handing out large contracts....

Any way you slice it we are in a tough position to build a winner here, thats reality... As much as I like others would love to tank for three years and do nothing but draft top three talent until we have 2-3 stars on this team I don't think the players coming here have that patience and I don't think this city or MLSE has the patience in sitting back, losing and watchin a young sour star asking to be shipped out...

Maybe one fine day the stars will align and god himself will deliver a top three pick who wants nothing more than to play for Toronto his entire career but thats wishful thinking and unlikely to happen anytime soon...