the ultimates wrote:Am2626 wrote:coldfish wrote:Just to address the OP
This completely ignores the facts that:
- The original tank job functionally failed, despite the fact that they drafted the second best player of all time
- The team only came together and won because the second best player of all time was pissed off at Riley and he is from Cleveland.
This was not a successful tank job.
The Warriors were a slow build. If you read the post game thread, the tankers would have blown up the Warriors when they lost in the first round. They were a mediocre team built on an oft injured, athletically limited combo guard at that time. Tankers would have seen no future and broke the team up in hopes of doing better in the draft . . . than Steph Curry.
Monta Ellis sucked. He was extremely unpopular among the basketball purists and analytics guys.
If anything, the GS route is what I would advocate. Let the team gel and incrementally improve them over time. Don't intentionally set them up to fail.
I think the greatest tank job was what Seattle/ OKC did when they traded away Ray Allen and then drafted Durant, Westbrook, and Harden in consecutive drafts. If they were in a big market the team would have been able to keep all 3 and I think they would have been a dynasty. They got to the finals very quickly with that core. They just didn’t have the money to keep Harden.
Sea/OKC didn't tank for any of those picks though. They had Ray who was still playing at an all-star level but was 31 and coming off of 31 and 35 win seasons when they drafted Durant. Ray had made it known that he wanted to try and compete for a title and didn't want to be a part of a rebuild. So he was dealt to Boston for the 5th pick in the 07-08 draft Jeff Green.
With two top five picks in Durant and Green OKC won 20 and 23 games over the next two years. Those were the drafts they got Westbrook and then Harden.
Trading Allen was all about starting a rebuild. It would be stupid not to get anything back for someone who was a superstar at the time. By trading him they made the decision to rebuild and get worst in the short term while accumulating young Talent (Green). By being worst they were able to be in a position to draft Westbrook and Harden in the next 2 drafts. If anything their rebuild was a major success in part because they were able to draft 3 future Hall of Famers is 3 consecutive drafts. If they kept Ray Allen they would not have been bad enough to draft Westbrook and Harden. Given how great Durant was, a case could be made that OKC could have built a team around Durant and Allen but with Allen declining they made the right decision in trading him. As mentioned if Harden never gets traded that core wins multiple championships.