A super team has developed in our already competitive division, now what?

[Steven1562]

They are not the 2014 Nets. Those guys were way over the hill. Pierce was 36 and KG was 37. Pierce had a little juice left but KG's knees were shot. Harden is still a walking bucket and KD looks to have returned to form. Kyrie is a headcase but still lethal when he plays. They have very little depth though. It's up to Nash to figure this out.

[rapstarter]

What people want here when they say tanking, is to be losers. That doesn't work. When an organization sacrifices winning, and their players who wear their uniform game in game out, early in the season, they will most likely tailspin into becoming perpetual losers. And yes, losing is contagious and let your players take on that role and it will tailspin. Then you ends doing what's done by a lot of teams who aren't outright tanking, just being bottom feeders satisfied with losing, usually, for the sake of not spending any more because the team wasn't winning the year before and hoping they'll end up with a high lotto pick and a special player they can make money off of.

Says who? This whole culture thing is so overrated. It's like the subjective "killer instinct" or "X-factor" that people love to cite when there's no evidence to back it up. Brooklyn have been losers for years, but they will now be contending. Cleveland were losers before LeBron, 2010s Lakers before LeBron, Warriors before Curry, etc. At the end of the day, the most important thing is TALENT which we clearly lack in comparison to other teams in our division, let alone the whole league. Talent leads to culture, rarely the other way around. We have seen that with every superstar move of which there have been many in last 10 years. Hell, we were the laughing stock of the league until Kawhi came.

The reason some of these tanking teams become "perpetual losers" is because they have poor ownership/management - which we thankfully don't have.

The problem isn't with tanking which gives you a higher draft pick - a rare tool that the league hands you so you stop sucking. The problem is with the teams who pick Marvin Bagley when Doncic is available. They are the ones who remain losers.

Look at the Sixers. Is it the "culture" within the dressing room that was wrong or Bryan Colangelo **** up one of the best opportunities of the century? But even now, Sixers are still in a decent shape in spite of years lost thanks to tanking.

Then look at the Magic. They haven't been actively tanking and have been on a treadmill for some time now. So much for that "trying your best" culture huh

[KL78192020]

15th pick in the draft can be pretty good.. that's where Kawhi and Giannis were drafted.

And for every Giannis and Kawhi there are 95% of the NBAs finals MVPs who are lottery picks.

Only 2 teams can be said to have won championships through the Draft after the Jordan Bulls. The spurs, and the Warriors. Both organizations can be said to have done it because of scouting, development and that lucky lotto draft pick. Neither got it done by being a tanking organization, a multi year bottom feeding team. This has been discussed to obscene lengths here. Why do you all have such fish for brains memories. Why do you all keep harping the same nonsense. What you all argue is baseless while talking about how something doesn't make the rule.

How do you think the Raptors got Kawhi/Gasol/Ibaka? Trading away a 5th pick in JV. A 9th pick in Demar and an 8th pick in Ross.

Top 10 picks are more valuable, Giannis and Kawhi are outliers.

[KL78192020]

As a fan I leave all this worry you guys seem to have on your mind lile your job is on the line

What now ? Let our young guys figure out to play against 3 superstars this hopefully will help them develop even further.

Yall stress in a pandemic will lead to unhealthy outcomes

We are fans, sit back, relax and enjoy whatever happens on the court


Why ? WHY stress yourself out for things you cannot control, or trying to convince other fans the right strategy.


Keep talking about tank, how about talk some basketball instead , if the raps lose and end up bottom 5 there is already a thread for top prospects.

All the people that want to tank are relaxed and enjoying the losses, its the others that had higher expectations that aren't happy. Theres other threads to talk ball, let the tankers talk tank.

[planetmars]

And for every Giannis and Kawhi there are 95% of the NBAs finals MVPs who are lottery picks.

Only 2 teams can be said to have won championships through the Draft after the Jordan Bulls. The spurs, and the Warriors. Both organizations can be said to have done it because of scouting, development and that lucky lotto draft pick. Neither got it done by being a tanking organization, a multi year bottom feeding team. This has been discussed to obscene lengths here. Why do you all have such fish for brains memories. Why do you all keep harping the same nonsense. What you all argue is baseless while talking about how something doesn't make the rule.

How do you think the Raptors got Kawhi/Gasol/Ibaka? Trading away a 5th pick in JV. A 9th pick in Demar and an 8th pick in Ross.

Top 10 picks are more valuable, Giannis and Kawhi are outliers.

Every first round pick Tolzman made outside of Bruno was at least the 14th best player in their draft class. You can even add Norm, Fred and Terrence to that list. Flynn is a wait and see obviously.

So if flipping a quality pick is important, we can do that anyway without losing a ton of games.

[Slade3]

Honestly anything other than tanking would be purely a waste of time and poor asset management on our part. I hope Masai doesn’t screw this up and try to make a push for the playoffs

I hope he does. **** the tank!

[original fan]

In my opinion to all people that want to hard tank, my answer is I am totally against it and is not feasible for following reasons:
Even if we trade Lowry and Powell this team is not guaranteed to miss the playoffs,cus we got a solid nucleus of good young players with championship experience, at worst we will be a number 10 seed in the east.If we play up to our potential and are still bottom feeders we got a bigger problem than simply adding a superstar(which is far from a sure thing to get from the draft)The other reason I'm against it ,is that our core moving forward is all young and either already being stars or with good potential to improve.So the whole point of building through the draft is to acquire young pieces with potential which we already have and it would be counter intuitive to trade them, it defeats the purpose and sets us back in time.However,there is a middle ground here I would like Massai to do the following:Trade Klow to the highest bidder for a collection of young players and picks, as well as Powell.Have Spicy P sit out with an ''injury'' for stretches at a time, make full use of covid protocols and play young and inexperienced players extensively,in other words cheat a little and use this time to prop up the young guys a bit.Fall into the range between 5-10 pick.Grab BPA.And call it a very successful retooling season for our team who played away from home.If this happens, with Massai magic you are guaranteed to have the equivalent talent of a top 5 pick.Plus you would have a collection of young assets and cap space to pick up a young vet with potential in a position of need e.i Allen,Turner et..That would give us a very competitive young and exciting team following this year when we play home, plus it can set us up for the future to hang around in the "shadows" that when the opportunity knocks, like in Leonards case we are ready to pounce.We are not beating any top teams in the next couple of years anyways, so imo this is the best realistic chance for our team moving forward, it would be something I would totally get behind as a fan.

[rapstarter]

Only 2 teams can be said to have won championships through the Draft after the Jordan Bulls. The spurs, and the Warriors. Both organizations can be said to have done it because of scouting, development and that lucky lotto draft pick. Neither got it done by being a tanking organization, a multi year bottom feeding team. This has been discussed to obscene lengths here. Why do you all have such fish for brains memories. Why do you all keep harping the same nonsense. What you all argue is baseless while talking about how something doesn't make the rule.

How do you think the Raptors got Kawhi/Gasol/Ibaka? Trading away a 5th pick in JV. A 9th pick in Demar and an 8th pick in Ross.

Top 10 picks are more valuable, Giannis and Kawhi are outliers.

Every first round pick Tolzman made outside of Bruno was at least the 14th best player in their draft class. You can even add Norm, Fred and Terrence to that list. Flynn is a wait and see obviously.

So if flipping a quality pick is important, we can do that anyway without losing a ton of games.

Or you can tank, flip the higher pick for two lower picks and continue to do what they've been doing. All for the small cost of losing a few more fan-less games in a season that's already lost. It doesn't seem that bad when you consider the ceiling for the current team is getting blown out 4 in a row in the first round.

Alternatively, you keep the higher pick and see what Tolzman can do with it.

We have a quickly-depreciating asset in 34 y/o Lowry, and there are teams that will probably pay a good price for him. Our window with Lowry was already pretty much shut, but the gap was cemented yesterday. If Siakam was 20 y/o and a budding superstar, maybe I can go with the whole culture excuse, but this seems like a no brainer to me.

[Morse Code]

As a fan I leave all this worry you guys seem to have on your mind lile your job is on the line

What now ? Let our young guys figure out to play against 3 superstars this hopefully will help them develop even further.

Yall stress in a pandemic will lead to unhealthy outcomes

We are fans, sit back, relax and enjoy whatever happens on the court


Why ? WHY stress yourself out for things you cannot control, or trying to convince other fans the right strategy.


Keep talking about tank, how about talk some basketball instead , if the raps lose and end up bottom 5 there is already a thread for top prospects.

All the people that want to tank are relaxed and enjoying the losses, its the others that had higher expectations that aren't happy. Theres other threads to talk ball, let the tankers talk tank.

Yeah idk what he’s talking about. I’m actually super relieved that the decision to rebuild is as easy as it’s ever been before. It’s comforting knowing we got our chip, and our window closed, and now we can finally clean the slate and start a rebuild the right way with top picks. Tanking sucks but we just won a championship so we should all be happy with that and enjoy what’s next, which is absolutely as necessary as getting Kawhi was to our chip. I’m honestly surprised so many people still don’t see how we have no chance unless we get a star.

[planetmars]

How do you think the Raptors got Kawhi/Gasol/Ibaka? Trading away a 5th pick in JV. A 9th pick in Demar and an 8th pick in Ross.

Top 10 picks are more valuable, Giannis and Kawhi are outliers.

Every first round pick Tolzman made outside of Bruno was at least the 14th best player in their draft class. You can even add Norm, Fred and Terrence to that list. Flynn is a wait and see obviously.

So if flipping a quality pick is important, we can do that anyway without losing a ton of games.

Or you can tank, flip the higher pick for two lower picks and continue to do what they've been doing. All for the small cost of losing a few more fan-less games in a season that's already lost. It doesn't seem that bad when you consider the ceiling for the current team is getting blown out 4 in a row in the first round.

Alternatively, you keep the higher pick and see what Tolzman can do with it.

We have a quickly-depreciating asset in 34 y/o Lowry, and there are teams that will probably pay a good price for him. Our window with Lowry was already pretty much shut, but the gap was cemented yesterday. If Siakam was 20 y/o and a budding superstar, maybe I can go with the whole culture excuse, but this seems like a no brainer to me.

Just so we're on the same page. Tanking means losing on purpose.. meaning fielding a team bad enough that doesn't win on purpose so that you can get a higher pick.

If the plan is to just trade Lowry you are not doing enough of a job to "tank". I'm not against trading Lowry.. but trading Lowry and hoping for a top 5 pick is a fool's errand. Nurse and his team will fight too hard to not lose that bad. I think they miss the playoffs but are closer to the 10th or 11th worse team and than the 5th worst team. That pick will be good with Tolzman for sure because he's rock solid.. but I think he'd be just as good with the 15th or 16th pick over the 10th or 11th pick.

If Pascal or Fred goes down with a season ending injury and we trade Kyle for bad players that don't help you win.. then yes, I'd be totally on the tank train too.

As for your claim of flipping the good pick for two mediocre picks.. yes that's a good strategy but were Norm/Fred/Pascal/Delon, etc good picks because they were on a winning team.. or were they good picks because they were good players? Development matters.. it's tough to develop a good player in a bad team. Minnesota and Sacramento have been trying to do that for years.

I don't have the complete answer but I'm leaning towards development is better/easier on a winning team than a losing team.

I know why people want to tank, and rebuild that way. It's logical because that's how Chicago got MJ and Houston got Hakeem and how San Antonio got Duncan. But I also know that teams have lost super stars that they drafted more often than not since the CBA changed and Lebron made his decision. It's a new era of basketball.

You can become elite without tanking and without being a free agent destination if you have an elite front office. What I do know is losing, and constant losing is not good. It takes years to just come back to mediocrity let alone be a top 3 team in the league.

I'd rather be a treadmill and rely on Tolzman than a mediocre lottery team for the next 2-3-4 years.

Simply put, if we didn't have Tolzman and Masai.. I'd want to tear this entire team to the ground because I'd have no faith in the next guy to be able to draft high quality players with low picks. But we have that advantage. So I'd rather win in the short term because I enjoy winning over losing.

[rapstarter]

Every first round pick Tolzman made outside of Bruno was at least the 14th best player in their draft class. You can even add Norm, Fred and Terrence to that list. Flynn is a wait and see obviously.

So if flipping a quality pick is important, we can do that anyway without losing a ton of games.

Or you can tank, flip the higher pick for two lower picks and continue to do what they've been doing. All for the small cost of losing a few more fan-less games in a season that's already lost. It doesn't seem that bad when you consider the ceiling for the current team is getting blown out 4 in a row in the first round.

Alternatively, you keep the higher pick and see what Tolzman can do with it.

We have a quickly-depreciating asset in 34 y/o Lowry, and there are teams that will probably pay a good price for him. Our window with Lowry was already pretty much shut, but the gap was cemented yesterday. If Siakam was 20 y/o and a budding superstar, maybe I can go with the whole culture excuse, but this seems like a no brainer to me.

Just so we're on the same page. Tanking means losing on purpose.. meaning fielding a team bad enough that doesn't win on purpose so that you can get a higher pick.

If the plan is to just trade Lowry you are not doing enough of a job to "tank". I'm not against trading Lowry.. but trading Lowry and hoping for a top 5 pick is a fool's errand. Nurse and his team will fight too hard to not lose that bad. I think they miss the playoffs but are closer to the 10th or 11th worse team and than the 5th worst team. That pick will be good with Tolzman for sure because he's rock solid.. but I think he'd be just as good with the 15th or 16th pick over the 10th or 11th pick.

If Pascal or Fred goes down with a season ending injury and we trade Kyle for bad players that don't help you win.. then yes, I'd be totally on the tank train too.

As for your claim of flipping the good pick for two mediocre picks.. yes that's a good strategy but were Norm/Fred/Pascal/Delon, etc good picks because they were on a winning team.. or were they good picks because they were good players? Development matters.. it's tough to develop a good player in a bad team. Minnesota and Sacramento have been trying to do that for years.

I don't have the complete answer but I'm leaning towards development is better/easier on a winning team than a losing team.

I know why people want to tank, and rebuild that way. It's logical because that's how Chicago got MJ and Houston got Hakeem and how San Antonio got Duncan. But I also know that teams have lost super stars that they drafted more often than not since the CBA changed and Lebron made his decision. It's a new era of basketball.

You can become elite without tanking and without being a free agent destination if you have an elite front office. What I do know is losing, and constant losing is not good. It takes years to just come back to mediocrity let alone be a top 3 team in the league.

I'd rather be a treadmill and rely on Tolzman than a mediocre lottery team for the next 2-3-4 years.

Simply put, if we didn't have Tolzman and Masai.. I'd want to tear this entire team to the ground because I'd have no faith in the next guy to be able to draft high quality players with low picks. But we have that advantage. So I'd rather win in the short term because I enjoy winning over losing.

I think that's fair, but where we differ is that I actually think with Lowry gone and some clever load management, this team is a lock for a bottom 5 finish.

And while we picked up some decent players, we just don't have that #1 guy. Our best chance of getting someone like that is with a high pick. The fact that we have Tolzman and Masai actually makes me want us to tank more because I can't wait to see what they can do with a valuable asset like a top 5 pick.

[planetmars]

Or you can tank, flip the higher pick for two lower picks and continue to do what they've been doing. All for the small cost of losing a few more fan-less games in a season that's already lost. It doesn't seem that bad when you consider the ceiling for the current team is getting blown out 4 in a row in the first round.

Alternatively, you keep the higher pick and see what Tolzman can do with it.

We have a quickly-depreciating asset in 34 y/o Lowry, and there are teams that will probably pay a good price for him. Our window with Lowry was already pretty much shut, but the gap was cemented yesterday. If Siakam was 20 y/o and a budding superstar, maybe I can go with the whole culture excuse, but this seems like a no brainer to me.

Just so we're on the same page. Tanking means losing on purpose.. meaning fielding a team bad enough that doesn't win on purpose so that you can get a higher pick.

If the plan is to just trade Lowry you are not doing enough of a job to "tank". I'm not against trading Lowry.. but trading Lowry and hoping for a top 5 pick is a fool's errand. Nurse and his team will fight too hard to not lose that bad. I think they miss the playoffs but are closer to the 10th or 11th worse team and than the 5th worst team. That pick will be good with Tolzman for sure because he's rock solid.. but I think he'd be just as good with the 15th or 16th pick over the 10th or 11th pick.

If Pascal or Fred goes down with a season ending injury and we trade Kyle for bad players that don't help you win.. then yes, I'd be totally on the tank train too.

As for your claim of flipping the good pick for two mediocre picks.. yes that's a good strategy but were Norm/Fred/Pascal/Delon, etc good picks because they were on a winning team.. or were they good picks because they were good players? Development matters.. it's tough to develop a good player in a bad team. Minnesota and Sacramento have been trying to do that for years.

I don't have the complete answer but I'm leaning towards development is better/easier on a winning team than a losing team.

I know why people want to tank, and rebuild that way. It's logical because that's how Chicago got MJ and Houston got Hakeem and how San Antonio got Duncan. But I also know that teams have lost super stars that they drafted more often than not since the CBA changed and Lebron made his decision. It's a new era of basketball.

You can become elite without tanking and without being a free agent destination if you have an elite front office. What I do know is losing, and constant losing is not good. It takes years to just come back to mediocrity let alone be a top 3 team in the league.

I'd rather be a treadmill and rely on Tolzman than a mediocre lottery team for the next 2-3-4 years.

Simply put, if we didn't have Tolzman and Masai.. I'd want to tear this entire team to the ground because I'd have no faith in the next guy to be able to draft high quality players with low picks. But we have that advantage. So I'd rather win in the short term because I enjoy winning over losing.

I think that's fair, but where we differ is that I actually think with Lowry gone and some clever load management, this team is a lock for a bottom 5 finish.

And while we picked up some decent players, we just don't have that #1 guy. Our best chance of getting someone like that is with a high pick. The fact that we have Tolzman and Masai actually makes me want us to tank more because I can't wait to see what they can do with a valuable asset like a top 5 pick.

I saw how we played against Sacramento without Kyle and what we did last year. We will win enough games to out pace teams like Detroit, Minnesota, Washington, Sacramento and Memphis. But we'll see. Maybe we never trade Kyle and this is all moot.

But yeah.. let's see what happens.

[MixxSRC]

People bring up tanking and superstars eventually leaving. Correlation vs Causation.

[MixxSRC]

Winning culture is also not overrated. Its the reason Demar's value rose to the point that we could trade him for Kawhi. And we didn't have to develop a team around Kawhi. He literally was "plug and play." Everybody knew their roles and what to do. Can't put Kawhi in Cleveland and expect the same result.

[Steelo Green]

And for every Giannis and Kawhi there are 95% of the NBAs finals MVPs who are lottery picks.

Only 2 teams can be said to have won championships through the Draft after the Jordan Bulls. The spurs, and the Warriors. Both organizations can be said to have done it because of scouting, development and that lucky lotto draft pick. Neither got it done by being a tanking organization, a multi year bottom feeding team. This has been discussed to obscene lengths here. Why do you all have such fish for brains memories. Why do you all keep harping the same nonsense. What you all argue is baseless while talking about how something doesn't make the rule.

How do you think the Raptors got Kawhi/Gasol/Ibaka? Trading away a 5th pick in JV. A 9th pick in Demar and an 8th pick in Ross.

Top 10 picks are more valuable, Giannis and Kawhi are outliers.

What makes me laugh is, okay, Spurs and Warriors equate to 8 out of the last twenty-one NBA titles. This isn't even true, because Kobe was again a Laker draft pick (draft night trades are the same thing), Dirk was again drafted by the Mavs, Wade was drafted by the Heat. So now that is a total of 12 NBA titles in the last twenty one years (include Shaqs 3peat). The same dishonesty when it can literally be looked up.

How did the other 9 do it? Well Lebron is a winning entity in and of himself and has 4 of them, I don't think we can emulate Lebron.

Now that leaves us with 5 NBA titles which are: Shaq's 3 with Kobe, and the Pistons, and us.

So 2 players have won by dictating it in Shaq and Lebron equating to 7 titles, can't really equate to them, we are not LA, one won with the exception of exception in an amalgamation greater than the sum of its parts, okay, we could try that but again, a one off, one traded for a superstar on a one in a million trade, and the home grown talents have won a total of 13 titles.

We cannot emulate Shaq/Lebron, so we are left with hoping to repeat what we did once, the Pistons, or 12 NBA titles.

We should eliminate the Shaq/Lebron ones who dictate their futures, so that would be a total of 12 NBA titles led by their lottery pick to 2-3 (depending on how you view the first Kawhi one, for argument sake, let's give both), but the numbers are in favour of hoping for a Demar trade for Kawhi which now would be Pascal + 7 first rounders

It blows my mind the dishonesty of people. As if we can't look up and see Wade, Kobe, Dirk's titles were all via the draft.

[Raps in 4]

They are not the 2014 Nets. Those guys were way over the hill. Pierce was 36 and KG was 37. Pierce had a little juice left but KG's knees were shot. Harden is still a walking bucket and KD looks to have returned to form. Kyrie is a headcase but still lethal when he plays. They have very little depth though. It's up to Nash to figure this out.

KD and Harden are literally 5 years younger than KG and Pierce were when they joined the Nets. And we're talking 2 former MVPs (versus one on that Nets team). They also have Kyrie with them, who is 29 and a top-20 player. The two situations are not comparable, at all.

This Nets team is incredibly stacked (I'd put them on the same level as the Heatles).

[KL78192020]

They are not the 2014 Nets. Those guys were way over the hill. Pierce was 36 and KG was 37. Pierce had a little juice left but KG's knees were shot. Harden is still a walking bucket and KD looks to have returned to form. Kyrie is a headcase but still lethal when he plays. They have very little depth though. It's up to Nash to figure this out.

KD and Harden are literally 5 years younger than KG and Pierce were when they joined the Nets . And we're talking 2 former MVPs (versus one on that Nets team). They also have Kyrie with them, who is 29 and a top-20 player. The two situations are not comparable, at all.

This Nets team is incredibly stacked (I'd put them on the same level as the Heatles).

Yup, if they all agree to extensions those picks/swaps won't be of much use until maybe 2026/2027. If they get extremely lucky and it blows up and KD/Harden leave in 2022 it could be a steal for Houstan. I don't see them leaving, but who knows in todays NBA.

[KrazyP]

Winning culture is overrated.

If not for Kawhi, 6/7 seasons were basically the Atlanta Hawks from 07-17.

The Raps run was better than the Hawks...its not even a close comparison. You can't simply take seasons away to make your argument sound better.

2019 doesn't happen if it wasn't for the years of building a winning culture right before it. If you don't understand this, there's not much to discuss.

You know how the Raptors got that winning culture prior to Kawhi? Drafted Demar a lottery pick. Traded for Kyle Lowry using a lottery pick. JV was a lottery pick, those were the three key pieces on the team prior to Kawhi.

So how do they get that winning culture without those players using lottery assets? Magic? Those are the facts of how the players were acquired.

People are far too obsessed with who was or wasnt a lottery pick vs who was or isn't an asset.

Was Demar a more valuable asset than Pascal because Demar was picked in the lottery?
Was Terrence Ross a more valuable asset than OG because Ross was picked in the lottery?
Was JV a more valuable asset than VanVleet because JV was picked in the lottery?

The team today asset wise is about the same asset wise as it was back in 2013. The only variable here is young Lowry vs old Lowry. Young Lowry was an asset you could build around. Old Lowry is an asset that should be traded.

The logical move here is to trade Lowry for a young asset and than continue to try and win and continue with the strong team culture thats already been established. The fans here expecting an all out tank like Steelo are living in la la land. Ujiri/Webster/Nurse dont operate that way....only dimwitted GMs do.

[scopy]

Easy, you trade Siakam right now. He is absolutely trash and has to go. Then trade Lowry.

Tank! There is no other choice.

I would not hire you as a my financial advisor.

[dacrusha]

A team with Lowry, FVV, Siakam, OG on the floor coached by Nurse and managed by Bobby and Masai isn’t going to roll over and tank no matter how desperately some of you want to lose.

If you want that, start following the Bulls or the Twolves, two organizations who represent the most likely outcome of tanking.