Paradise wrote:shakendfries wrote:kamaze wrote:These kids you want to draft won't make a good team by themselves they'r maximized by a team that has a strategy and a vision like Brooklyn that plays hard not by a team that tanks. Brooklyn's established an identity of playing hard they're not a team that lets up let alone tanks for 19 year olds.
He’s right to an extent. All teams who aren’t looking like contenders want to tank now. Atlanta, New York have real reasons to shamelessly tank.
The ‘can’t miss talent’ in this draft is RJ Barrett, Zion, Reddish, Langford, Sekou, Nassir Little. It’s a Top heavy draft. That’s it and the 2020 draft is massively weak. Tons of predictions are that these two drafts classes can produce maybe five household names combined.
Everyone else is considered a hit or miss prospect aka G-League bound eventually. I think it’s disingenuous to advocate for the worst record in the league (Who’s out tanking Cleveland & Atlanta?) after begging for internal growth because Zion or Barrett look good in one game. All while compromising LeVert’s MIP breakout season and any other key development that could happen...it’s only 12 games. The tanking stuff 12 games into the season is just knee jerking. I get we own our picks and all but I’m more concerned with building a proper team than finding some generational talent that rarely falls to you even with a #1 pick or #2 pick (How’s Fultz doing?).
Yes, I’ve even talked about the Zion/Allen lob city idea but it seems like LeVert and Allen are significantly developing at a pace where we will naturally win games and lose close ones. Shameless tanking would kill their competitive spirit.
I still am not sold that Zion could be as good as LeBron. All hype and jokes aside. I’d like to see him against NBA athletes. I’d like to see him against bigs with massive wingspan.
There's a reason I mention "this is a must win game" in every game thread this season - that's because if Sean Marks and the Nets are ever going to make it out of the doldrums of the NBA cellar (with Orlando, Phoenix, Sacramento, and the other perpetual lottery teams), the Nets key players in Caris, Dlo, Dinwiddie, and Allen need to learn how and when to "turn it on" in order to win basketball games. More than anything else, this is an important development that the coaching staff will be judged on.
Now, there is a difference between tanking AKA the obvious + deliberate race to the bottom, and strategically giving younger players a longer leash with minutes later on in the season + trading/buying out veterans to allow them to play for competitors.
Remember when Sean Marks was giving minutes to Jahilil Okafor, Nik Stauskas, Shane Larkin, Justin Hamilton, Cody Zeller, etc? This is the MO of any developing team - to give every player the opportunity to shine. This is the strategy that has put Marks in the position to move players who take advantage of the opportunity Thaddeus Young to Indiana for the chance to draft Caris Levert, and move them to a situation to contribute to a team that might be competing for something greater, or might be able to give them more minutes, or the opportunity to start elsewhere.
The Nets have given opportunities for 'end of the rotation' players to perform and that's one thing players seem to appreciate about the Nets.
Now, do you expect this to change for the Nets this season? Do you think if the Nets are around the 8-10 seed range the Nets are going to double down and trade for "win-now" veteran players like Jimmy Butler to make the playoffs? Hell no.
There is no reason for Marks to change course this season. If I'm Marks, I'd like to see Caris continue develop into a 20+pt scorer. I want Allen to average a double double. I want Dlo to consistently put entire games together. I want this core group to be able to close out games, but I would not play Caris, Dlo, and Allen 38 minutes per game to achieve this.
Musa, Kurucs, Faried, & Napier are going to get the opportunity to shine as well. And whatever minutes they need to shine towards the end of the season, when Caris, Dlo, and Allen start to sit out games for rest the same way Brook Lopez sat, is what it's gonna be.
Don't call it a tank - we've been doing it for years.
