2014 should they Tank or go for Playoffs?

Knighthonor · Post #1 » by **Knighthonor** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:40 pm

should the wizards tank in 2014 or make a playoff run?
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1246748

OKC been a spitting image of how to build a team through the draft.
check this out
http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/teams/ ... ft_History

Need to draft players that will be top 10 players, but not at first.
I believe it would be a good idea to tank for Wiggins/Parker.

Hopefully Jan can turn it around the following season or something. Singleton as well. Oh cant forget Booker. If Booker can step up his game or one of the others for 2015 while landing Wiggins or Parker this team could really be a top team and contend.

Trying to make a playoff run will likely put us in a similar situation they have now, in which they are drafting later in the lotto while also not going anywhere near a decent playoff run.

No point trying to make a playoff run until you can stand toe to toe with the Heat/Knicks/Bulls in more than just 1 game. Forget West coast for a moment. These eastern teams are the issue. Rebuilding should continue IMO.

Whats your thoughts?

Post #2 » by **nate33** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:47 pm

Tanking is not an option with John Wall. If Wall plays 65+ games, this team is guaranteed to win at least 33 games or so. That translates into a pick in the 11-14 range.

The window of opportunity to tank has passed. At this point, tanking would be self-defeating. The damage to the character of the team would outweigh the benefits of a slightly higher pick.

The only way tanking becomes a viable option is if (God forbid) Wall sustains a major injury and misses most of the season.

Knighthonor · Post #3 » by **Knighthonor** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:50 pm

Looking over the Draft thread for 2013
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1243234

I have to hope that those white bigs that fans are considering have a late talent burst and dont mess with next year's tank, but turn into a top 10 in the following year.

Also Shabazz, can he play the 3? Also he doesnt blow up if they draft him, until the following year.

So far I am liking Wall, Beal, but need other pieces IMO.
a top 10 SF
a top 10 SF/PF
a top 10 PF/C

cant stress this enough
http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/teams/ ... ft_History

Knighthonor · Post #4 » by **Knighthonor** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 4:53 pm

nate33 wrote:Tanking is not an option with John Wall. If Wall plays 65+ games, this team is guaranteed to win at least 33 games or so. That translates into a pick in the 11-14 range.

The window of opportunity to tank has passed. At this point, tanking would be self-defeating. The damage to the character of the team would outweigh the benefits of a slightly higher pick.

The only way tanking becomes a viable option is if (God forbid) Wall sustains a major injury and misses most of the season.

Cant stress this enough
please look at link
http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/teams/ ... ft_History

Durant drafted in 2007!
Westbrook drafted in 2008!!
Harden Drafted in 2009!!!

Wall alone shouldnt be an excuse. OKC did it with way more talent. So its effective.

cwb3 · Post #5 » by **cwb3** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 5:02 pm

Get healthy, select wisely in the draft, get better.

Neither tank nor playoffs need be the yardsticks for next season, just get healthy and grow as a team.

Post #6 » by **nate33** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 5:07 pm

No. They didn't have way more talent because Westbrook was just a rookie and Durant was just a 2nd year player the year they tanked for Harden. By the time Durant hit his third year, they were too good for tanking and ended up winning 50 games.

I understand that you would like 3 young stars plus another high quality player like Ibaka, but it's just not going to happen. We blew it because we had the misfortune of tanking in a historically bad draft (the 2011 draft) and managed to take perhaps the worst player in the entire first round with the #6 pick. There's no turning back the clock. Wall, with 3 full years under his belt, and is now too good for tanking. Wishing it won't make it so.

FAH1223 · Post #7 » by **FAH1223** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 5:48 pm

Only way Ernie gets fired is for the team to not make the postseason

pancakes3 · Post #8 » by **pancakes3** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 6:50 pm

Knighthonor wrote:Cant stress this enough
please look at link
http://basketball.realgm.com/nba/teams/ ... ft_History

Durant [2nd] drafted in 2007!
Westbrook [4th] drafted in 2008!!
Harden [3rd] Drafted in 2009!!!
Craig Brackins [21st] drafted in 2010!
Reggie Jackson [24th] drafted in 2011!

Wall alone shouldnt be an excuse. OKC did it with way more talent. So its effective.

Added bolded for emphasis.

Wall [1st] drafted in 2010!
Jan Vesely [6th] drafted in 2011!
Beal [3rd] drafted in 2012!
Porter/Len/Zeller/etc [6-9th] drafted in 2013!
Wiggins [1st] drafted in 2014?

We're already have the luxury of 1 more lottery pick than OKC and you're asking for another? Just exactly how many YEARS of tanking should the wizards undergo? That doesn't even begin to consider the feasibility of this plan, as Nate has pointed out. This is stupid.

FAH1223 · Post #9 » by **FAH1223** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 6:51 pm

Do you guys want Ernie Grunfeld here another 5 seasons? Or do you want him gone next year?

pancakes3 · Post #10 » by **pancakes3** » Tue Apr 23, 2013 7:04 pm

I hear Phil Jackson is interested in a front office job.

sfam · Post #11 » by **sfam** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 1:33 pm

By bringing in veterans, the Wizards already have made the decision that the tanking phase is over. And really, Wall would be on his way out if we weren't. For better or worse, we're in the mid-round playoff game right now. This draft is really our last chance to pick an impact player - chances are though we won't be able to. Unless we move up, we'll be stuck with whomever we can get at #8 or #9. I'm still hoping Bennet is there, but more likely we'll have a choice of potentially solid role players. Hopefully EG will choose better than he did with Vesely and Singleton.

More importantly, the franchise has to take a long look in the mirror and figure out how to better develop the talent they bring in. Singleton in particular shouldn't be this bad. Vesely, who shouldn't have been a top 10 pick, still shouldn't be playing like he doesn't belong at the end of round 2. The Wizards have to figure out their complicity in this and then decide whether either are recoverable.

Post #12 » by **nate33** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 1:43 pm

At this point, the Wizards have 3, relatively far-fetched hopes of obtaining that third star-caliber player.

1. Get lucky with their late lotto pick this year.
2. Arrange for max cap room next year and hope a star caliber player opts out of a contract or demands to be traded here.
3. Get even luckier with a later pick sometime in the future.

Chances are, none of these hopes pan out and we're just going to be a middling 48-win team for a while. Maybe if EG gets fired and we can find a GM who can consistently hit doubles and triples in the draft rather than singles, we can build a deep, talented team like Indiana or Chicago and put ourselves in position to compete.

fishercob · Post #13 » by **fishercob** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:02 pm

nate33 wrote:At this point, the Wizards have 3, relatively far-fetched hopes of obtaining that third star-caliber player.

1. Get lucky with their late lotto pick this year.
2. Arrange for max cap room next year and hope a star caliber player opts out of a contract or demands to be traded here.
3. Get even luckier with a later pick sometime in the future.

Chances are, none of these hopes pan out and we're just going to be a middling 48-win team for a while. Maybe if EG gets fired and we can find a GM who can consistently hit doubles and triples in the draft rather than singles, we can build a deep, talented team like Indiana or Chicago and put ourselves in position to compete.

You mean rather than three-pitch strikeouts?

I agree nate. Let' say, hypothetically, that Kevin Love decided he wanted to play here. We'd need the cap room to fit his salary and the assets to trade to Minnesota to make them feel less crappy about dealing him. They would certainly have better offers. We will have or can create the cap room. We're so far off on the assets; that's the true opportunity cost of Ernie's Kids -- not just that the players can't help us on the court, they're completely undesirable to other teams.

So we need to get lucky and/or hit a homerun in the draft. We need the #3 pick to be a star (since we are moving up) or for our first next year to be one.

These circumstances (and seeing Morey;s success) should lead a right-thinking team to take more risks. Punt on this year's draft if you can get a potential lotto pick next year. Trade Nene to free up cap space and add a good pick/asset.

I'm pretty sure our FO doesn't see things that way, and so as nate said, our ceiling lower than it could be.

Post #14 » by **nate33** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:13 pm

fishercob wrote:You mean rather than three-pitch strikeouts?

Vesely was unquestionably a 3-pitch strikeout, but I don't want to overstate EG's suckiness in the draft. Most of his other first round picks have at least been singles. Booker and Seraphin are solid for their draft position, as were Young and McGee.

Unfortunately, we need a couple of doubles and triples. We need guys like Klay Thompson, Kenneth Faried, Ty Lawson, Nikola Vucevic, Larry Sanders, Taj Gibson and Nicolas Batum. I'm not expecting home runs like Roy Hibbert at #18, Paul George at #10 or Chandler Parsons at #38, but we need to find some rock solid starters with picks in the teens. Doubles and triples, not singles.

JAR69 · Post #15 » by **JAR69** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:15 pm

nate33 wrote:At this point, the Wizards have 3, relatively far-fetched hopes of obtaining that third star-caliber player.

1. Get lucky with their late lotto pick this year.
2. Arrange for max cap room next year and hope a star caliber player opts out of a contract or demands to be traded here.
3. Get even luckier with a later pick sometime in the future.

Chances are, none of these hopes pan out and we're just going to be a middling 48-win team for a while. Maybe if EG gets fired and we can find a GM who can consistently hit doubles and triples in the draft rather than singles, we can build a deep, talented team like Indiana or Chicago and put ourselves in position to compete.

Three other possibilities:

1. Use large expiring contracts this season on a S&T or deadline deal for a disgruntled star.
2. Arrange for max cap room in 2015 and hope to get a star then. Yes, it's a long way away, but in 2015 Hibbert, Brook Lopez, and Kevin Love have player options, and who knows who else might be available. It's a long shot, but maybe better than trying for the 2014 free agent class (which I think is overrated and will have too many teams going after too few players).
3. Get very lucky in a trade for a 2014 first round pick.

Dark Faze · Post #16 » by **Dark Faze** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 2:57 pm

We're out of the tanking window.

We already had our chance to pull a string of drafts similar to OKC.

Wall
Faried
Kawhi
Beal

Should have been our haul.

Hopefully we can make up for 2011 with some great decisions this off-season.

AFM · Post #17 » by **AFM** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 3:10 pm

Hate to state the obvious, but if we took Faried or Kawhi, we wouldn't have been in the position to draft Beal. Unless they didn't make our team any better. That's the silver lining to drafting Vesely.

AWIZZINGBULLET · Post #18 » by **AWIZZINGBULLET** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 3:50 pm

Do you really think they would lower their standards of play for a high school or college kid? No, and why should they?

Higga · Post #19 » by **Higga** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 4:16 pm

If Wall/Beal are healthy we will make the playoffs, and be a reasonably high seed on top of that(like 5 or 6).

sfam · Post #20 » by **sfam** » Wed Apr 24, 2013 5:48 pm

Maybe we can develop the late 90s-early 2000s Sacramento vibe where you had one star (Webber) and bunches of other players who really enjoyed the fun atmosphere created. Clearly they have some of that already given that interview. This is sort of what you need to do if you're not a destination. Make it fun to come here. We need to see Wall hangin with Obama at some college BBall event in the near future. Stuff like that. Then people will want to come here.