Race to the bottom: Who's our biggest competition?

[DBC10]

I swear if the Pistons win some nonsense games these last couple of months and end up pick at #7 again I am going to lose my mind.

We're in a decent pace to finish bottom 3 so we should be good to go. We still haven't really embraced fully blatantly tanking a game with nonsense lineups or play calling yet so we still have that ace up our sleeve in case games start getting too close against a fellow losing team

That and the play in tourny will make sure some of these treadmill teams will try harder instead of the usual 10 game lackadaisical effort thing that teams do once they are basically eliminated from playoff berths

[Kilo]

Gordon to Denver for Harris, Hampton and 2021 FRP

[Kilo]

Detroit really needs to trade Plumlee for the tank now. Hopefully the plan is CoJo doesn't even report.

[MotownMadness]

Read on Twitter

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[Snakebites]

Looks like the Heat pulled off an 11th hour deal for Dipo.

[MotownMadness]

Raptors should of just moved Lowry for something, even a young guy like Maxey. Got too greedy and will now lose him for nothing in FA

[tmorgan]

Woof. Orlando didn’t just go all in, they threw all their cards on the floor and took a big isht on them. I applaud the guts, but I don’t like it for our tank.

[kpt]

The three Washington games a big. We need to get swept there and it will be a great positive. We still play Orl, Cle, Tor, Minn each once too. 29 games left. Hopefully we see a lot of The French connection and give grant a few nights off preferably on the about games. Although we tend to beat good teams not bad teams ugh

[Snakebites]

The three Washington games a big. We need to get swept there and it will be a great positive. We still play Orl, Cle, Tor, Minn each once too. 29 games left. Hopefully we see a lot of The French connection and give grant a few nights off preferably on the about games. Although we tend to beat good teams not bad teams ugh

The fact that we play those teams more than each of them collectively play each other is going to be a problem.

No sense pretending it won’t be.

[DetroitSho]

The three Washington games a big. We need to get swept there and it will be a great positive. We still play Orl, Cle, Tor, Minn each once too. 29 games left. Hopefully we see a lot of The French connection and give grant a few nights off preferably on the about games. Although we tend to beat good teams not bad teams ugh

The fact that we play those teams more than each of them collectively play each other is going to be a problem.

No sense pretending it won’t be.

How so? You can't one team lose to another. But you can sure af lose to them yourself.

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[440BB]

At this point I'm just hoping we stay in the bottom five. I think it's likely we will, just not bottom three.

Minnesota has motivation with that bottom three protection, Orlando just blew it out and Houston's a mess. It will be hard to keep up (down?) with those three.

[The Moose]

Tank in potential jeopardy at this point. Last year we finished 5 in the lottery standings, we might finish the same this year.

If we finish anywhere in the bottom 3 its a win

[Snakebites]

Tank in potential jeopardy at this point. Last year we finished 5 in the lottery standings, we might finish the same this year.

If we finish anywhere in the bottom 3 its a win

5 wouldn't be THAT bad.

Obviously it didn't work out for us last year, that roughly 1 in 3 chance of dropping to 7 or worse came through, but we had better odds than that of moving into the top 4. It just unfortunately didn't happen.

This has got to be like my 20th post in this thread talking about the odds, but part of that is because I really do think people aren't looking at them the right way.

Everyone points out that we ended up at 7 last year, nobody brings up that this was because the 7th AND 8th position teams jumped into the top 4- something far more likely for the teams in the early/mid lottery than it was before. The odds have changed. That's bad for us if we actually end up in the bottom 4, but it BENEFITS us if we end up pretty much anywhere else. Yes, it's hard to feel that way given what happened last year, but believe me- being in the 5 spot had way better odds than the 5 spot used to have in terms of odds of striking it rich. The tradeoff, and this is true at pretty much every spot- is that the odds of moving down have also gone up. This on balance is a GOOD tradeoff.

It's clear from the moves and conduct that we're seeing that the change in the lotto system was NOT enough to discourage tanking. It does make things significantly less hopeless for those who fall outside of the bottom 3 teams though.

[El Chivo]

Last 4 is still ok.

[edmunder_prc]

Tank in potential jeopardy at this point. Last year we finished 5 in the lottery standings, we might finish the same this year.

If we finish anywhere in the bottom 3 its a win

5 wouldn't be THAT bad.

I dont care if it wouldnt be THAT bad.

This team is 12-31. Casey absolutely tried to win every game.

The "talent" on the team had zero trade offers or they would have been moved - which makes sense because the team and the players that make up the team are basically replacement level guys - other than Grant.

In this situation, the team 100% should tank.

But we are all so traumatized by 10 years of bad Pistons management that we are readying ourselves for winning pointless games against other teams that are willing to do whatever it takes to get the top pick.

Pistons will come out guns blazing and sweep all these games against other tankers. Hurrah! Gird your loins.

[Manocad]

Tank in potential jeopardy at this point. Last year we finished 5 in the lottery standings, we might finish the same this year.

If we finish anywhere in the bottom 3 its a win

5 wouldn't be THAT bad.

I dont care if it wouldnt be THAT bad.

This team is 12-31. Casey absolutely tried to win every game.

The "talent" on the team had zero trade offers or they would have been moved - which makes sense because the team and the players that make up the team are basically replacement level guys - other than Grant.

In this situation, the team 100% should tank.

But we are all so traumatized by 10 years of bad Pistons management that we are readying ourselves for winning pointless games against other teams that are willing to do whatever it takes to get the top pick.

Pistons will come out guns blazing and sweep all these games against other tankers. Hurrah! Gird your loins.

If Casey trying to win every game has lead to 12 wins and the team just lost a player who certainly contributed to those wins, then I hope Casey continues to try to win every game. That likely cements a #3 draft spot.

[Snakebites]

Tank in potential jeopardy at this point. Last year we finished 5 in the lottery standings, we might finish the same this year.

If we finish anywhere in the bottom 3 its a win

5 wouldn't be THAT bad.

I dont care if it wouldnt be THAT bad.

This team is 12-31. Casey absolutely tried to win every game.

The "talent" on the team had zero trade offers or they would have been moved - which makes sense because the team and the players that make up the team are basically replacement level guys - other than Grant.

In this situation, the team 100% should tank.

But we are all so traumatized by 10 years of bad Pistons management that we are readying ourselves for winning pointless games against other teams that are willing to do whatever it takes to get the top pick.

Pistons will come out guns blazing and sweep all these games against other tankers. Hurrah! Gird your loins.

I was not arguing that we shouldn’t be looking to improve our position.

I was merely trying to put this all in the correct context, a context that I feel is sorely needed.

Unfortunately you dismiss that context as unimportant. The numbers matter and I’m tired of people acting like they don’t.

This constant complaining about the direction of the team is therapeutic, but I also think it’s worthwhile to properly contextualize what is at stake.

[MotownMadness]

We got the Nets tonight and our fellow tankers will be playing each other (Hou-Min). Honestly just rooting for Rocket wins at this point over the Wolves

[7r5ur]

Not only the strength of schedule, you also have to look at point differential for the season thus far, which I think gives a pretty good indication that this team is not as bad as the record says. Point diff actually puts this team at 8th worst in the league. Not sure if Casey will be able to eek out losses as consistently as they have so far.

Hopefully Weaver gets guys like Grant and Wayne taking games off down the stretch. Plenty of minutes for Killian and Sekou to... uuhhh... "develop" for 40 minutes per night.

[NYPiston]

I dont care if it wouldnt be THAT bad.

This team is 12-31. Casey absolutely tried to win every game.

The "talent" on the team had zero trade offers or they would have been moved - which makes sense because the team and the players that make up the team are basically replacement level guys - other than Grant.

In this situation, the team 100% should tank.

But we are all so traumatized by 10 years of bad Pistons management that we are readying ourselves for winning pointless games against other teams that are willing to do whatever it takes to get the top pick.

Pistons will come out guns blazing and sweep all these games against other tankers. Hurrah! Gird your loins.

Do you think they're trying to win?

They rid of Griffin and Rose and traded Wright who wasn't even an expiring to make room for the young guys, not to mention trading one of their few shooters for a guy who is injured. Also, Casey has played the young guys more and more as the season is wearing on.
It seems to me they're on the tank train. They just didn't have the assets that their fellow tankers had to sell off.