Illuminaire wrote:prime1time wrote:Now after the fact you're trying to falsely give the impression that this would in any way guarantee a top 3 pick.
You really shouldn't claim someone is lying (falsely giving impressions) while completely miss-stating their argument. Let's compare:
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We were on track for a franchise changing top five pick this year if we traded Beal.VS
I'm sure you can spot the difference.
I'll add in that in late March, the Wizards were 15-28. They had the 5th worst record
in the league that month. Willbecocks advocated for trading Beal, so it's safe to infer that yes, he also wanted the Wiz to tank. (Correct me if I'm wrong there, Will!)
If the Wizards simply held their position, they would have a 44% chance at a top-5 pick. Not great. But with a roster explosion, it's fair to expect them to be worse, not the same or better. If they managed to drop to the third worst team by the end of the season, they would have a 67% chance of a top-5 pick.
You can argue whether those odds are best described by '"on track" or not, but I would say 44-67% odds are more in line with that language, than they are with your claim that "this is a myth."
This post brought to you by the Strawmen Incineration League Office. Thanks for listening to my Ted Talk.
I'm going to respond to you in two posts. Now, the reason I said top 3 pick, is because I don't see Suggs and Barnes as franchise-changing players. Maybe you and the other poster feel like Barnes and Suggs are on that level, so let's assume that they are for the sake of discussion. Also, let's assume that we go through the lottery and we get a top 5 pick so we can draft one of these players. What happens next season? Are we going to compete next season after tanking and having our franchise player in his 1st year? Probably not, so basically we will tank again. This time we don't get as lucky we draft right outside the top 5, let's say #6. We don't manage to draft a franchise-changing player in this draft, but the one from the previous draft is showing promise.
So we will continue to tank. Next season we win the lottery again! Top 5 pick, franchise player! Now we have two franchise players. At the same time our culture is just a disaster. In addition, ownership is grumbling, he's tired of losing. But he's ameliorated by the fact that we have 2 yong franchise players who show promise. The GM tells them, there's light at the end of the tunnel but we need to have just one more bad season. So we have one more bad season and against all the odds, we get a top 5 pick again! Now we are ready to build our championship contender. By all accounts tanking has treated us well. 3 out of 4 years we have gotten coveted top 5 picks! By any definition, this would have to be considered successful tanking.
This was the Wizards from 2010 to 2013. We drafted John Wall (franchise player), Jan Vesely (#6 pick), Bradley Beal (franchise player) and Otto Porter (#3 pick). We never even came close to winning a championship. Even when tanking "works" it's still just hope. Meanwhile, in exchange for that hope you pay dearly. The price of the ticket? A winning culture.
So you get things like this...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-sports-bog/post/remembering-andray-blatche/2012/07/17/gJQAT5JmrW_blog.htmlStarting the first home game of what would be his final season in Washington, Blatche grabbed the mic and said “This is your captain, Andray Blatche.” By the end of the night, he was complaining about his role. “You can’t keep having me pick and pop and shooting jumpshots,” he said then. “Gimme the ball in the paint. That’s where I’m most effective at. I’ve been saying that since training camp.”
Before JaVale McGee’s manic attempt for a triple double, there was Andray Blatche’s manic attempt for a triple double, which included jumping in frustration at a foul call, and throwing up his arms in agony when Cartier Martin rebounded a missed shot he wanted. “The ball’s coming to him; your instinct is to catch it,” Phil Chenier said, as Blatche grimaced. “I like getting stats, but I hate to see players play for stats. He’s just standing there, the ball’s coming right to him. What is he supposed to do, let it go by him?...If Andray’s the leader you want him to be, go over, pat Martin on the back, and say don’t worry about it.” Instead, Blatche attempted to race the length of the floor in 4 seconds to rebound his own missed shot.”
https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=5023170It's the last thing a bad team on a long losing streak needs -- a tantrum and a boycott from a young player who was just starting to put up some good numbers.Andray Blatche was benched after the first 7½ minutes of the Washington Wizards' 95-86 overtime loss to the Charlotte Bobcats on Tuesday night. Coach Flip Saunders said Blatche didn't want to listen when the coach tried to talk to him about playing better defense. "He didn't want to hear it," Saunders said. "I told him, 'If you don't come and talk, if you don't want to be coached, you're not going to play.' We had coaches go up to him three different times, they said he didn't want to play. Fifteen years, never seen anything like it. "He can be [mad] at me, whatever, but you never leave your teammates out to dry like that. Not when you've lost 11 games in a row and you've got a chance to win a game. Uncalled-for. We'll deal with it," Saunders said. Asked if Blatche will play in Wednesday night's game at Indiana, Saunders said: "I would doubt it. I don't know, but I would doubt it."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wizards/wizards-struggle-to-stay-positive-through-disheartening-campaign/2012/01/15/gIQARs2k1P_story.htmlThe Wizards have been unable to hide their disappointment with the difficult start, with slouched shoulders and sullen faces becoming the most common sights on the court. They’ve been booed at home and lost all but one of their road games by at least 14 points. An NBA scout who watched the Wizards’ 31-point loss Friday said the body language was so bad that it looked as if every player wanted to be taken out of the game.
I lived through that, and you want to know what I really think? I think that when a team decides that they have to lose in order to win, up becomes down and down becomes up. You can feel free to disagree with me, but I think the bad habits that Wall picked up early in his career, are what ultimately prevented him from reaching his potential. And this is with everything actually working!
