Treadmilling Is Better Than Tanking

[floppymoose]

If you are going to treadmill you need an FO bad enough to think that Corey Maggette is going to help you, and you need the TWolves to draft two PGs ahead of Steph Curry.

So in other words, you gotta be damned lucky if you go that way, and then you have to take full advantage of that luck and not screw it up. Having the ownership change while Curry was still young was the a huge stroke of good fortune. GS was never going anywhere with Chris Cohan in change.

[Threezus]

you can rebuild without tanking.

That depends if you want to stay treadmilling and what team you are. For teams that are known not to be big free agent attractions and don't have atleast 1 top tier star already. Then thats almost impossible to do as very few if any stars were going to come to atlanta. Even on our 60 win team where we had 4 to 5 all stars everyone still considered us a joke that would get steamrolled by a team like the lebron cavs. Which after 2 sweeps back to back seasons they were proven right. You can't rebuild and get championship level contending players with 20 to 30 range picks and a team top tier free agents wouldn't come to. For teams like that tanking and trying to rebuild with young elite potential level players is the way to go and then you atleast have 1 to 5 range picks to trade for stars of teams that are needing to get rid of them for some reason or another.

you dont need to sign stars... let your veterans expire and take what picks organically come to you while focusing on development and culture instead of purposely losing.

See i don't consider tanking purposely losing i think what the Hawks are doing now is the correct way to tank. You get much younger and let them play and develop them. If they win games then they win games and get better because of it. You don't hamper them and try to lose on purpose because they will more than likely lose more often than not giving you a better pick anyways. But because you are letting them play as much as they can and as good as they can you won't hamper their growth as they are learning how to win. While doing this you are also saving alot of cap space and attaining a ton of picks with that extra cap space until you build a team good enough with young talent to go spin big time in FA to add to all that young talent. It is still a tank for the most part but it is a competitive tank with a legit direction on how to improve it. Now teams who literally try to lose games on purpose can have a negative affect and i fully agree that is a terrible way to tank and run a team.

[Dez]

If you are going to treadmill you need an FO bad enough to think that Corey Maggette is going to help you, and you need the TWolves to draft two PGs ahead of Steph Curry.

So in other words, you gotta be damned lucky if you go that way, and then you have to take full advantage of that luck and not screw it up. Having the ownership change while Curry was still young was the a huge stroke of good fortune. GS was never going anywhere with Chris Cohan in change.

Curry's ankle issues were also a blessing in disguise really, it's not really a stretch to say that had he not had those ankle issues that first extension may have been quite a bit bigger.

Gave them a bit more flexibility once he got healthy and it was discovered he was on a bargain contract.

[DutchManDanFan]

It's interesting there are so little examples of succesful teams after tanking. But the same can be said about treadmill teams.
If you want to compete for a championship you need stars. Best chance to get one is with high picks, either in draft or via trade.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

There's no perfect formula, no guarantee to success.
It's all about maximizing the odds.
Tanking can work great if you have many average/mediocre teams in win now mode willing to throw their picks to you, ala Vlade or King. Tanking is not working if too many teams try do do it at the same times, competing for the top picks, offering their decent players for picks or using their cap to facilitate other trades in exchange of swaps.

[Prokorov]

It's interesting there are so little examples of succesful teams after tanking. But the same can be said about treadmill teams.
If you want to compete for a championship you need stars. Best chance to get one is with high picks, either in draft or via trade.

but there is on evidence you are more likely to draft a star by trading... and the damage done by tanking for top picks and not hitting on stars is enormous

[everdiso]

the bottom line is that most teams at the bottom of the standings are there due to bad management.

and bad management won't win no matter how many top picks they get.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

You’re overlooking a major component, ticket sales. Championships are great and all, but an empty arena season after season will sting.

Never forget, these franchises are all businesses with a bottom line to be aware of.

Depends on how you market it. Even when losing, you can get the fans involved as long as you put on the floor a teams that plays hard and with passion.
You're not going to get the attendance of the Warriors, but not even the costs the Warriors have.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

but there is on evidence you are more likely to draft a star by trading... and the damage done by tanking for top picks and not hitting on stars is enormous

unless you are in LA or NT or Miami. In that case getting a star in FA is much more common.

[kg01]

the bottom line is that most teams at the bottom of the standings are there due to bad management.

and bad management won't win no matter how many top picks they get.

This is true.

I've never been pro-tank but I get why it's done. Basically to give a team more bites at the proverbial apple (elite talent acquisition).

However, as you suggest, there are reasons certain teams are at the bottom in the first place and they generally center around poor management. So, even given great pick assets, they typically screw it up anyway.

As a Hawks fan, my hope is that we at least have good management in place to take advantage of the assets we're acquiring. I'm honestly not sure what direction we'll take considering we apparently have a sneaky meddlesome owner situation brewing. They're a step up from our prior regime but .... there are questions still.

[CoachD]

Over 5 years ago, The Raptors were heading into December as one of the worst teams in the East. They looked awful on both sides of the ball and virtually EVERY FAN was screaming to blow up the team, and tank for home town boy, Andrew Wiggins.

We had a ton of fans saying things like "trade Demar + (insert whatever other starter was being thrown under the bus that day) for the #1 pick".

Well, Masai Ujiri made a move an unloaded Rudy "Stat Sheets Aren't Allowed In the Locker Room Anymore because I don't like being called out for how poorly I'm shooting" Gay to the Kings.

At the time of the trade, everyone saw it as the first domino to drop, and expected Lowry and Demar to be traded next, so that they could go all in for the Canadian saviour, ANDREW WIGGINS.

Well, Lowry was all but dealt to the Knicks when Dolan got cold feet and nixed the deal... and the rest is history.

By trading Gay and bringing in an entirely new bench, and creating a new offensive pecking order, the Raptors surged from the bottom of the standings to Division champions, and since that time are the second winningest regular season team in the NBA.

And Andrew Wiggins .... is no saviour.

I HATE the whole concept of tanking almost as much as I hate the idea of trading established NBA players for lottery picks and hoping that they might turn out to be something.

[MrPerfect1]

You're referencing teams that were never tanking in the first place. Maybe if the Magic committed to the tank instead of randomly going after a win-now piece in Ibaka, they would be in a better position right now.

They drafted a player who was 2nd overall. Kings had a top 5 big man and tanked for years with him and didn't make the playoffs. Pelicans drafted a player who's arguably a top 5 player in Anthony Davis and will likely have to trade him next season. Tanking fails more than 50% of the time.

Only drafting in the teens and being unable to attract stars in FA fails 100% of the time

[SecondTake]

OKC had Russell Westbrook...Why the heck would they be tanking? That's like saying Cleveland did OK not tanking when they had Lebron. Well yeah, they had Lebron.

[12footrim]

Not a single Eastern Conference that's going to make the playoffs this season has tanked except for the 76ers who had tremendous luck. Western Conference? OKC and they had to make a trade to get their best offensive player. It should be obvious by now that tanking gives you a very minimal chance at success. The data is all there. You have a much higher chance of being an elite team if you got a great front office that makes great choices during the Summer than a team that simply hopes to get a #1 pick by tanking. The Hornets and Pistons could've drafted Justise Winslow(who was suppose to go 7th-8th) and drafted worse players in Frank Kaminsky and Stanley Johnson. If tanking worked, teams like the Orlando Magicless and the Kings would've made the conference finals already. This narrative that you should tank over being consistently good never carried weight.

Treadmilling is fine as long as you don't give terrible contracts like the Heat have to Waiters, Johnson, Johnson and Dragic etc to do it IMO. You look at the NBA and about half the top 30 players where drafted after the lottery including some of the very best like Gianis, Kawahi, Jokic, Gobert, Draymond etc. Drafting even the in the top 5 is a crap shoot when you really look at it. I think you end up getting like a 15% chance to draft an all star caliber player or something stupid like that even in the top 5, and even #1 is like 35% I believe.

[MrPerfect1]

Fun stat: One player drafted in the top 3 has won a title without leaving his team, Kyrie. The player before that was Tim Duncan 22 years ago. Am I missing anyone? There is this general vision that the route is -> Get #1 overall pick, wait a few years, win title. It simply doesn't work that way.

With that said, Boston got Pierce at 10. GS got Curry at 7. Miami got Wade at 4. LA traded for Kobe at 13.

I think the value of super tanking is overstated. You can build title teams by just drafting well when you do miss the playoffs and then team building. Just being bad year after year is a treadmill of its own and its actually a more unpleasant treadmill than being 0.500.

Your stat is wrong. Just off the top of my head, Darko won an NBA title with DET and was drafted #2.

The criteria is also somewhat cherry picked.

-A team could tank and end up with the 2nd worst record and receive the 5th pick. The 5th pick would include Wade's 3 titles.

-Lebron left but still returned to win a Title with CLE. So he left but still won a Title for the tesm that drafted him.

-Player's like Deight Howard have gone to the Finals with their original team. Yeah they lost but those Magic team's with #1 pick Superstars (Shaq/Howard) were by far the best teams they ever had and strongly support why teams tank.

[DimesandKnicks]

You're referencing teams that were never tanking in the first place. Maybe if the Magic committed to the tank instead of randomly going after a win-now piece in Ibaka, they would be in a better position right now.

They drafted a player who was 2nd overall. Kings had a top 5 big man and tanked for years with him and didn't make the playoffs. Pelicans drafted a player who's arguably a top 5 player in Anthony Davis and will likely have to trade him next season. Tanking fails more than 50% of the time.

and tread milling fails 99.9% of the time.

[kg01]

I HATE the whole concept of tanking almost as much as I hate the idea of trading established NBA players for lottery picks and hoping that they might turn out to be something.

Heh. This is the best part of tanking.

"Hey, let's trade {insert NBA player} for scraps so we can tank. We might be able to draft a guy who, in 3 years, might be as good as the guy we just traded!"

Empty box syndrome.

As a fan of a team that's currently tanking, it's tough. It's encouraging to see us actually go out and try to win lately. The young guys are actually competing with minimal vet presence. It's best of bad situation mode for us right now. Hopefully the owner doesn't lambaste our coach (again ... "allegedly") for trying to win.

[coldfish]

Fun stat: One player drafted in the top 3 has won a title without leaving his team, Kyrie. The player before that was Tim Duncan 22 years ago. Am I missing anyone? There is this general vision that the route is -> Get #1 overall pick, wait a few years, win title. It simply doesn't work that way.

With that said, Boston got Pierce at 10. GS got Curry at 7. Miami got Wade at 4. LA traded for Kobe at 13.

I think the value of super tanking is overstated. You can build title teams by just drafting well when you do miss the playoffs and then team building. Just being bad year after year is a treadmill of its own and its actually a more unpleasant treadmill than being 0.500.

Your stat is wrong. Just off the top of my head, Darko won an NBA title with DET and was drafted #2.

The criteria is also somewhat cherry picked.

-A team could tank and end up with the 2nd worst record and receive the 5th pick. The 5th pick would include Wade's 3 titles.

-Lebron left but still returned to win a Title with CLE. So he left but still won a Title for the tesm that drafted him.

-Player's like Deight Howard have gone to the Finals with their original team. Yeah they lost but those Magic team's with #1 pick Superstars (Shaq/Howard) were by far the best teams they ever had and strongly support why teams tank.

Forgot about Darko, probably because he had little to do with that title. Anyone else?

If Lebron had been drafted by just about anyone, there was a good chance that he would have gone to his hometown to play at some point.

Regardless, there are a lot of teams that have a history of being bad year after year and none of them have won titles. Tanking isn't the end all / be all for putting together a contender. What you really want is a very good GM who drafts well, trades well and picks up quality supporting players for value contracts.

A good GM doesn't need to be the worst team year after year to build a contender and a bad GM can't put together a contender even with a bunch of lottery picks.

[HotelVitale]

[Of course the 76ers are happy but how many times per every 20 years can a team emulate what the 76ers did? I'd estimate 4 times. That means 26 other teams would have to find another way to construct an elite team within 20 years.

Not a single Eastern Conference that's going to make the playoffs this season has tanked except for the 76ers who had tremendous luck.

Not sure where this idea came that the Sixers had particularly good luck, the Process was based on volume and I think it's a fair argument that they actually had way more bad luck than good during it. They had two big draft successes--Embiid and Simmons--but they drafted a top-3 prospect in the draft class FIVE times to get that, and they had three other top-10 picks. They got absolutely nothing out of Noel, who was widely seen as the best prospect in his draft, and they also drafted two of the worst busts of the past 25 years--Fultz and Okafor, both of whom were universally regarded as among the top prospects in their classes. And they got nothing so far out of two other top-10 picks they got from the Process (Z Smith and the Kings pick traded for Fultz), and their other 1st rounders during that time were also all busts (Luwawu, Pasecniks, and Korkmaz, though Shamet looks solid so far).

Beyond that, they had the insanely bad luck of the Lakers winning the lotto two straight years to jump up and get the #2 pick and keep a top-3 protected pick (which then dropped to #10 this year). And they also lost a top-10 protected Heat pick by one game, literally because of one last-second prayer by the other team in a game the Heat were trying to win (that wa the infamous J Winslow pick that the Sixers could've traded for a bonanza from the Celtics, and the pick dropped down to like #25 the next year).

The Sixers also have had three successes out of the 2nd rounder/undrafted FA guys--Covington, McConnell, and J Grant--but they cycled through literally 30 of those guys to find those 3. I don't know what the odds are for that but it doesn't seem like the Sixers beat them by much if anything--they just kept taking every chance to find a diamond in the rough, and moved on quickly every time those diamonds turned out to pebbles.

[everdiso]

the bottom line is that most teams at the bottom of the standings are there due to bad management.

and bad management won't win no matter how many top picks they get.

This is true.

I've never been pro-tank but I get why it's done. Basically to give a team more bites at the proverbial apple (elite talent acquisition).

However, as you suggest, there are reasons certain teams are at the bottom in the first place and they generally center around poor management. So, even given great pick assets, they typically screw it up anyway.

As a Hawks fan, my hope is that we at least have good management in place to take advantage of the assets we're acquiring. I'm honestly not sure what direction we'll take considering we apparently have a sneaky meddlesome owner situation brewing. They're a step up from our prior regime but .... there are questions still.

remember the biggest reason why teams embrace a "tank", though.....most often, it's usually just a way for incompetent management to sell their fans on HOPE, instead of results.

there aren't many players on a basketball team - it is very, very hard for good management to put a bad basketball team on the court, even for just one year.