Blazers vs Thunder game tonight is a disgrace to the league (tanking)

[WestGOAT]

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Matchup between the most blatant tankers in the league. Disgraceful lineups.

OKC is literally starting 2 guys they just signed on 10-day contracts, while sitting Poku who played well last game (for no actual reason)

Portland has like 8 guys "injured" all of them happen to be their best players

Hinkie died for this.

[John Murdoch]

This guy Hoard might get a job

[Los_29]

What has he done wrong? He got insane value on multiple trades. The one potential error was trading the Sengun pick away.

They have been tanking for 2 years now. Thats totally reasonable. They own a stupid amount of future picks, no bad salary once Kemba is off the books.

They are in a tremendous position moving forward. The guy has done nothing but set a small market team up for future success.

He got terrible value in the CP3 trade. He got good value in the Paul George trade even though every pick they received will be a mid-late FRP. The FRP's they own are of little to no value and Presti has done an awful job drafting in that range. In fact, other then Ibaka, who has he drafted in that range that turned out to be a decent player?

I don't think they are in a good position at all. They blew their team up three years ago and only have Shai/Giddey to show for it. Now they are likely going to spend at least another two years fielding pathetic teams and praying for lottery luck. That's not how you build a franchise.

It's embarrassing what they are doing. They probably won't even sniff the playoffs until 2025.

I think your forgetting that CP3 was still on many levels considered an albatross contract prior to his tenure in PHX. That trade was seen as a considerable risk for PHX.

Everyone has differing opinions. I see SGA / Giddey as 2/3rds of a Big 3. If they luck out and get a Top-3 pick and snag Chet/Jabari/Paolo they already have a excellent trio of young talent to build upon, all in 2 years of tanking. Plus a bag of future FRPs.

Not sure that Mann can be consitered a bad pick at 18, even if I wasnt high on him. His shooting has been better than I expected. If he ends up a nice scoring 6th man, that is great value for 18.

Poku was a swing for the fences and he has played very well late in the year. He has miles to go but I still believe in his potential.

I think they are sniffing the play in by next season if they end up picking Top-3.

G - Shai Gilgeous-Alexander / Tre Mann / Theo Maledon
G - Lou Dort / Tre Mann / Aaron Wiggins
F - Josh Giddey / Kenrich Williams / Vit Krejci
F - Jabari Smith JR / Aleksej Pokusevski / Darius Bazely
C - Mark Williams or Walker Kessler / Jeremiah Robinson-Earl / Mike Muscala

I love that squad, think there is wild potential there.

I don't think that core is impressive especially since they are starting late FRP's/early SRP's at center. LOL. The likelihood that those guys have NBA careers is extremely small. Tre Mann has a TS% of 50%. He came in as a guy that can shoot and he hasn't even really done that. A lot of these guys are getting minutes and putting up stats on a terrible team. On 95% of teams in the league they wouldn't sniff any playing time. Look at a guy like Moses Brown last year. Averaged solid numbers with OKC and since then he's been on 3 different teams and has barely played.

CP3 was coming off a year in which he led an OKC team to the playoffs and pushed the Rockets to 7 games. They didn't get anything in return for him.

OKC does have a lot of FRP's but the problem is they aren't worth anything as they are all likely going to be late in the draft. NBA teams don't value picks like that and filling up your roster with late first round picks isn't a great team building strategy. At some point they need to consolidate and surround their young players with players that actually know how to play.

[kuclas]

Why do the sixers get grief for tanking. When okc has now done muti year tanks twice. (2006-2008/9)

And 2020-current. Really they meant to tank 2019-2020 but Chris Paul happened to be healthy that season.

[kuclas]

I think nba should modify draft lottery by giving the winners of the play in games the same odds as the 5th worse records team in draft lottery unless thus make it to the conference finals.

It incentivizes less tanking.

[dlts20]

It's like 4 games left. You are complaining like it's 30 games left

[AbeVigodaLive]

Why do the sixers get grief for tanking. When okc has now done muti year tanks twice. (2006-2008/9)

And 2020-current. Really they meant to tank 2019-2020 but Chris Paul happened to be healthy that season.

Marketing/PR?

Philadelphia was quite open, and almost even smug, about their "genius" tanking idea. OKC has largely kept it quiet other than having to publicly announce the latest "injury" to the league office.

The bonuses for OKC is that they've done well enough on other trades that Presti seems to be a bit untouchable right now... and the fanbase knows winning almost exclusively... so they're probably willing to be more patient with it right now that other fans.

[BNM]

To be clear, I think we need to get rid of the rookie scale and draft.

Great.

So LAL and MIA and get rid of the other teams?

If you keep the Luxury Tax/Soft Cap LA getting every rookie isn't a concern.

And briefly on Miami. My Knicks enjoy a recruiting advantage being in NY as do the Nets. The Lakers and Clippers have one in LA. Miami has no intrinsic advantage over other cities. That they're a top destination for free agents rather than Houston or Atlanta as example is due to superior management.

MIA = sunshine, nightlife and no state income tax.
POR = rain, no nightlife, 9% state income tax.

Advantage = MIA

[JRoy]

Great.

So LAL and MIA and get rid of the other teams?

If you keep the Luxury Tax/Soft Cap LA getting every rookie isn't a concern.

And briefly on Miami. My Knicks enjoy a recruiting advantage being in NY as do the Nets. The Lakers and Clippers have one in LA. Miami has no intrinsic advantage over other cities. That they're a top destination for free agents rather than Houston or Atlanta as example is due to superior management.

MIA = sunshine, nightlife and no state income tax.
POR = rain, no nightlife, 9% state income tax.

Advantage = MIA

I’ve lived in Oregon and FL for 20 years each and this is pretty much right on.

[Dominator83]

I think nba should modify draft lottery by giving the winners of the play in games the same odds as the 5th worse records team in draft lottery unless thus make it to the conference finals.

It incentivizes less tanking.

I like this idea, but winners of the play in games aren't lottery teams. Did you mean play in losers or all 4 play in teams?

[sp6r=underrated]

Why do the sixers get grief for tanking. When okc has now done muti year tanks twice. (2006-2008/9)

And 2020-current. Really they meant to tank 2019-2020 but Chris Paul happened to be healthy that season.

Marketing/PR?

Philadelphia was quite open, and almost even smug, about their "genius" tanking idea. OKC has largely kept it quiet other than having to publicly announce the latest "injury" to the league office.

The bonuses for OKC is that they've done well enough on other trades that Presti seems to be a bit untouchable right now... and the fanbase knows winning almost exclusively... so they're probably willing to be more patient with it right now that other fans.

Yup, Philadelphia (i) didn't offer any plausible deniability; (ii) went beyond normal tanking and had rosters at the beginning of the season that lacked NBA ability; (iii) acted like they were geniuses for trying to lose games; and (iv) seemed open to doing a gutter rebuild for ten years if that is what it took to land a superstar. The union hated it because their members couldn't get jobs because they were too good. The others owners and players hated because the Sixers were gutting their local revenue and just being welfare cheats living on national tv revenue:

According to a recent Inquirer report, the Sixers averaged only 23,000 viewers during their miserable 18-win season in 2014-15. Keep in mind Philadelphia is the nation’s fourth-largest market with roughly 2.96 million homes featuring TV sets.

“Those numbers are embarrassing,” former CBS Sports president turned media consultant Neal Pilson told the Inquirer’s Bob Fernandez, “no question about it.”

. . .

What the Sixers lose in ticket and merchandise sales and local TV ratings — the only avenues fans really have to voice their frustration with the team’s approach — the franchise will attempt to offset with a league-minimum salary and the NBA’s $24 billion national TV broadcast partnership, which begins with the 2016-17 campaign.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/bp/philadelphia-s--embarrassing--tv-viewership-could-barely-fill-76ers--stadium-220939908.html

Simply put this is enormously damaging and unlike anything the NBA had ever seen.

1. Sixers weren't bothering to generate revenue costing the players and other owners money.
2. Sixers actions discouraged support for revenue sharing which divides the owners and makes the CBA unworkable.
3. Players felt like the Sixers were establishing a weird missing middle cass jobs. If you weren't good enough to be a superstar, off a rookie contract but could still help a team win the Sixers were saying you shouldn't be in the NBA.
4. Top draft picks are a zero sum competition. Philly gutting the roster to that extent put pressure on other teams to do the same. The NBA feared a spiral in which it opened the season with 5-6 teams gunning for 75+ losses.

Basketball is naturally a low level parity sport. What the Sixers were saying in essence is don't try to win; don't try to generate revenue; keep losing games until you land a top prospect.

[MoneyTalks41890]

Why do the sixers get grief for tanking. When okc has now done muti year tanks twice. (2006-2008/9)

And 2020-current. Really they meant to tank 2019-2020 but Chris Paul happened to be healthy that season.

This is OKC's second "tanking" year and this will be their second lottery pick. Philly did it for four years, and they announced and embraced they were tanking. Save it.

[JJ_PR]

Every small market team HAS to do this at one point or another. Even the Lakers were in this position before LeBron.

[MoneyTalks41890]

He got terrible value in the CP3 trade. He got good value in the Paul George trade even though every pick they received will be a mid-late FRP. The FRP's they own are of little to no value and Presti has done an awful job drafting in that range. In fact, other then Ibaka, who has he drafted in that range that turned out to be a decent player?

I don't think they are in a good position at all. They blew their team up three years ago and only have Shai/Giddey to show for it. Now they are likely going to spend at least another two years fielding pathetic teams and praying for lottery luck. That's not how you build a franchise.

It's embarrassing what they are doing. They probably won't even sniff the playoffs until 2025.

I think your forgetting that CP3 was still on many levels considered an albatross contract prior to his tenure in PHX. That trade was seen as a considerable risk for PHX.

Everyone has differing opinions. I see SGA / Giddey as 2/3rds of a Big 3. If they luck out and get a Top-3 pick and snag Chet/Jabari/Paolo they already have a excellent trio of young talent to build upon, all in 2 years of tanking. Plus a bag of future FRPs.

Not sure that Mann can be consitered a bad pick at 18, even if I wasnt high on him. His shooting has been better than I expected. If he ends up a nice scoring 6th man, that is great value for 18.

Poku was a swing for the fences and he has played very well late in the year. He has miles to go but I still believe in his potential.

I think they are sniffing the play in by next season if they end up picking Top-3.

G - Shai Gilgeous-Alexander / Tre Mann / Theo Maledon
G - Lou Dort / Tre Mann / Aaron Wiggins
F - Josh Giddey / Kenrich Williams / Vit Krejci
F - Jabari Smith JR / Aleksej Pokusevski / Darius Bazely
C - Mark Williams or Walker Kessler / Jeremiah Robinson-Earl / Mike Muscala

I love that squad, think there is wild potential there.

I don't think that core is impressive especially since they are starting late FRP's/early SRP's at center. LOL. The likelihood that those guys have NBA careers is extremely small. Tre Mann has a TS% of 50%. He came in as a guy that can shoot and he hasn't even really done that. A lot of these guys are getting minutes and putting up stats on a terrible team. On 95% of teams in the league they wouldn't sniff any playing time. Look at a guy like Moses Brown last year. Averaged solid numbers with OKC and since then he's been on 3 different teams and has barely played.

CP3 was coming off a year in which he led an OKC team to the playoffs and pushed the Rockets to 7 games. They didn't get anything in return for him.

OKC does have a lot of FRP's but the problem is they aren't worth anything as they are all likely going to be late in the draft. NBA teams don't value picks like that and filling up your roster with late first round picks isn't a great team building strategy. At some point they need to consolidate and surround their young players with players that actually know how to play.

Some of you all just love to talk with zero knowledge.

Westbrook trade for Paul, 2021 swap (didn't get used due to Rockets lotto luck), 2024 1st, 2025 swap, 2026 1st.

Paul traded for Oubre, Rubio, Jerome, 1st

Oubre traded for picks (JRE, Wiggins).

Rubio used to trade up to get Poku.

Everyone said the Rockets and Clippers picks were worthless. Clippers pick is 15 this year. I'd say OKC has at least 5 lottery picks out of their excess 15 or so. It's all playing the odds. And Tre is a rookie, he's finding his way. He's shown really great ability to create shots for himself. And he was an 18th pick. Presti is still finding gems.

[BNM]

If the Lakers owned their own 1st round pick, would they also be accused of tanking? Since the All Star break, POR has only lost 1 more game than the Lakers (18 losses vs. 17 losses).

With legit injuries to Dame and CJ (and Nance and Little) POR got off to a rocky start, but they didn't begin actively tanking until after the all star break, eventually shutting down Simons and Nurk. They also traded for two injured players (Bledsoe - achilles and Ingles - ACL), which further aided their tanking effort.

Yet, in spite of all that, they have only lost one more game than the Lakers since the all star break.

[Los_29]

I think your forgetting that CP3 was still on many levels considered an albatross contract prior to his tenure in PHX. That trade was seen as a considerable risk for PHX.

Everyone has differing opinions. I see SGA / Giddey as 2/3rds of a Big 3. If they luck out and get a Top-3 pick and snag Chet/Jabari/Paolo they already have a excellent trio of young talent to build upon, all in 2 years of tanking. Plus a bag of future FRPs.

Not sure that Mann can be consitered a bad pick at 18, even if I wasnt high on him. His shooting has been better than I expected. If he ends up a nice scoring 6th man, that is great value for 18.

Poku was a swing for the fences and he has played very well late in the year. He has miles to go but I still believe in his potential.

I think they are sniffing the play in by next season if they end up picking Top-3.

G - Shai Gilgeous-Alexander / Tre Mann / Theo Maledon
G - Lou Dort / Tre Mann / Aaron Wiggins
F - Josh Giddey / Kenrich Williams / Vit Krejci
F - Jabari Smith JR / Aleksej Pokusevski / Darius Bazely
C - Mark Williams or Walker Kessler / Jeremiah Robinson-Earl / Mike Muscala

I love that squad, think there is wild potential there.

I don't think that core is impressive especially since they are starting late FRP's/early SRP's at center. LOL. The likelihood that those guys have NBA careers is extremely small. Tre Mann has a TS% of 50%. He came in as a guy that can shoot and he hasn't even really done that. A lot of these guys are getting minutes and putting up stats on a terrible team. On 95% of teams in the league they wouldn't sniff any playing time. Look at a guy like Moses Brown last year. Averaged solid numbers with OKC and since then he's been on 3 different teams and has barely played.

CP3 was coming off a year in which he led an OKC team to the playoffs and pushed the Rockets to 7 games. They didn't get anything in return for him.

OKC does have a lot of FRP's but the problem is they aren't worth anything as they are all likely going to be late in the draft. NBA teams don't value picks like that and filling up your roster with late first round picks isn't a great team building strategy. At some point they need to consolidate and surround their young players with players that actually know how to play.

Some of you all just love to talk with zero knowledge.

Westbrook trade for Paul, 2021 swap (didn't get used due to Rockets lotto luck), 2024 1st, 2025 swap, 2026 1st.

Paul traded for Oubre, Rubio, Jerome, 1st

Oubre traded for picks (JRE, Wiggins).

Rubio used to trade up to get Poku.

Everyone said the Rockets and Clippers picks were worthless. Clippers pick is 15 this year. I'd say OKC has at least 5 lottery picks out of their excess 15 or so. It's all playing the odds. And Tre is a rookie, he's finding his way. He's shown really great ability to create shots for himself. And he was an 18th pick. Presti is still finding gems.

When did I say the Westbrook trade was bad? I said the CP3 trade to the Suns was bad. It was a terrible haul. Oubre was later dealt for what amounted to as a early SRP and a late SRP. The FRP they got from the Suns will be the last pick of the first round. They literally got ZERO assets for CP3.

Presti hasn't shown he can find any gems. Like I said, the only mid-late FRP that Presti has hit on that I can remember is Ibaka. That was like 14 years ago. People overvalue young, unproven players. You just mentioned all these young players as if Presti did a great job of acquiring them but they haven't proven a single thing in the NBA and chances are none of them pan out.

By 2024, I'd imagine the Rockets will start to surround some of their young talent with some veterans. As a result, that pick will likely be out of the lottery.

[kuclas]

Why do the sixers get grief for tanking. When okc has now done muti year tanks twice. (2006-2008/9)

And 2020-current. Really they meant to tank 2019-2020 but Chris Paul happened to be healthy that season.

This is OKC's second "tanking" year and this will be their second lottery pick. Philly did it for four years, and they announced and embraced they were tanking. Save it.

Sixers real tanking years were only 3. years 2013-2014, 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 seasons.

Embiid got hurt in 2016-2017 season. With embiid sixers. Sixers per 36 with him playing restricted minutes were that of a 50 plus win team. He just happen to get hurt end of jan 2017 and they were actually only a couple of games out of the playoff race before he went down.

If embiid had gotten the second foot
Surgery. The tank would have lasted only 2 seasons.

Let’s see how okc does. If they don’t get a top 3 pick. They may be in for tank season number 3.

[Dick Tate]

Rockets fan (whose team was designed to tank from the get-go) complaining about other teams tanking...

[Richard4444]

Instead teams will have incentives to not spend money on decent players in order to be able to offer more money to the top picks (who, by the way, would be grossly overpaid which is therefore something the NBPA would never agree to). So you'll have a bunch of teams racing to the bottom in their roster construction (either from the start or at the trade deadline) due to trying to have as much cap space as is allowed by the league.

Key difference though, bad teams will be incentivized to save money to sign top rookies but they'll also be incentivized to identify undervalued good players that help teams win to improve their roster attractiveness.

That is very different than current system were teams are intentionally losing games with bad players..

I agree promotion/relegation is the ideal system.

That assumes that Rookies care much about the quality of the roster when they arrive, and not (primarily) about who pays the most. I don't believe top Rookies would be that short-term oriented.

I believe the best way to address tanking – if you're not open to relegation, which owners obviously aren't – is to have wins be worth money (e.g. make the payout from the revenue-sharing agreement dependent on the number of wins) in addition to flattening the odds for the draft as much as necessary to limit incentives for losing.

The relegation talk does not make any sense. To where the bad teams would be relegated for? G League? It would bankrupt them. Or it would incentive the creation of alternative leagues to show the relegated teams.

But you are right about the rookies not caring about the quality of the roster. The rookies should get more minutes in bad rosters. The rookies would prioritize money, location, and the perspective of minutes.

[Richard4444]

He got terrible value in the CP3 trade. He got good value in the Paul George trade even though every pick they received will be a mid-late FRP. The FRP's they own are of little to no value and Presti has done an awful job drafting in that range. In fact, other then Ibaka, who has he drafted in that range that turned out to be a decent player?

I don't think they are in a good position at all. They blew their team up three years ago and only have Shai/Giddey to show for it. Now they are likely going to spend at least another two years fielding pathetic teams and praying for lottery luck. That's not how you build a franchise.

It's embarrassing what they are doing. They probably won't even sniff the playoffs until 2025.

I think your forgetting that CP3 was still on many levels considered an albatross contract prior to his tenure in PHX. That trade was seen as a considerable risk for PHX.

Everyone has differing opinions. I see SGA / Giddey as 2/3rds of a Big 3. If they luck out and get a Top-3 pick and snag Chet/Jabari/Paolo they already have a excellent trio of young talent to build upon, all in 2 years of tanking. Plus a bag of future FRPs.

Not sure that Mann can be consitered a bad pick at 18, even if I wasnt high on him. His shooting has been better than I expected. If he ends up a nice scoring 6th man, that is great value for 18.

Poku was a swing for the fences and he has played very well late in the year. He has miles to go but I still believe in his potential.

I think they are sniffing the play in by next season if they end up picking Top-3.

G - Shai Gilgeous-Alexander / Tre Mann / Theo Maledon
G - Lou Dort / Tre Mann / Aaron Wiggins
F - Josh Giddey / Kenrich Williams / Vit Krejci
F - Jabari Smith JR / Aleksej Pokusevski / Darius Bazely
C - Mark Williams or Walker Kessler / Jeremiah Robinson-Earl / Mike Muscala

I love that squad, think there is wild potential there.

I don't think that core is impressive especially since they are starting late FRP's/early SRP's at center. LOL. The likelihood that those guys have NBA careers is extremely small. Tre Mann has a TS% of 50%. He came in as a guy that can shoot and he hasn't even really done that. A lot of these guys are getting minutes and putting up stats on a terrible team. On 95% of teams in the league they wouldn't sniff any playing time. Look at a guy like Moses Brown last year. Averaged solid numbers with OKC and since then he's been on 3 different teams and has barely played.

CP3 was coming off a year in which he led an OKC team to the playoffs and pushed the Rockets to 7 games. They didn't get anything in return for him.

OKC does have a lot of FRP's but the problem is they aren't worth anything as they are all likely going to be late in the draft. NBA teams don't value picks like that and filling up your roster with late first round picks isn't a great team building strategy. At some point they need to consolidate and surround their young players with players that actually know how to play.

1) I agree it's not really great to have a lot of late picks. The probability to get great players is very not really high and eventually, you will have to pay them to lock them. You can not say OKC will dominate because they have a lot of mid/late picks.

2) But having Shai and Giddey is an excellent core to build around.

3) I disagree about the lack of potential of the rest of the roster. You can not rule out young players in their first seasons. You can not expect late picks to pan out in the first or second year. You have to be patient and develop them. Players like Tre, Poku, Dort, and Bazley have potential. They can be the next D. Murray, M. Gasol, Siakam, Poole, etc.

4) Small market teams do not have great options. Mid/late FRPS players can be solid assets in a rebuilding process by developing raw players or by trading them for established players.

5) To conclude, the OKC is in a good spot. You can not say they will rule the NBA but they have the potential to build a promising young roster.