More ResslerMania

[Lurker]

12 minutes ago, MaceCase said:

As opposed to the alternative of investing in an aging core that had already peaked and was sliding in the standings annually?

 Yea, I guess in 2-3 years when that core is “naturally” in the lottery and looking for an infusion of young talent (that’s if lord forbid they don’t sell off picks to extend their relevance by 2 wins) you’ll pump your chest and say they didn’t “tank” but instead just “sucked”....while facing a far worse than 5 year rebuild because they didn’t receive high enough picks and/or sold them off to extend the relevance of their vets if not get rid of their contracts altogether.

And this is the TL/DR for what I said about Dallas.

Basically, you can count on one hand, maybe one finger, for the smart teams that actually are able to pull off doing things supposedly "the right way". This guy's "the right way" is having smart, veteran talent that play hard and unselfishly end up in the future translating to younger guys that also play hard and unselfishly after they had their ***learning and growing up*** period for 3 to 4 years under these veterans.

The problem is that's not how it works unless your name is the San Antonio Spurs. The teams that DO look to avoid tanking usually A: Don't have good enough prospects to pull this off to keep a steady track without a dip or B: Screw it up and screw the franchise for an even longer period of time. Dallas falls into B. Mark Cuban was strongly against tanking and made moves to try to make a last ditch effort to try to compete with Dirk before Dirk rode off into the sunset and those moves really likely backfired on Dallas in the long haul.

You can't just think short term. You have to think about the next 1-2-3-4 seasons with a pro sports franchise. Even that 14/15 Hawks team, even if things hadn't declined, they really only had one legitimate young prospect, and we're talking about a guy that is polarizing, in that half of the fanbase hates him and thinks he's a nobody. So it eventually would have been the same thing as Dallas if it would have been ridden out, likely even with Danny Ferry. The team would have declined to lottery caliber even with those smart veteran players that play the right way, and would it have been with that young talent underneath them? The answer to this question is an empathetic no. Most likely you see the draft picks traded, maybe even Dennis Schröder gets traded and it's Jeff Teague that's extended.

And does the trading work? Probably not, as you're not getting that much of a talent upgrade with draft picks.

[Lurker]

Even if the Hawks had Paul Millsap this year, it's still a lottery team and a team that "sucks" and is "not trying to win" by this guy's standards. Last year overachieved and really was lucky to not be worse.

Edited November 1, 2017 by Lurker

[MaceCase]

11 minutes ago, KB21 said:

You know what cracks me up?  This idea that you can't find good players later in the draft....that you absolutely have to have high lottery picks to be good.............yet the pro tankers are touting all the draft picks the team has over the next 2-3 years as a reason the tank won't take as long.......a majority of those 1st round picks are later in the draft.  

Had Atlanta resigned Paul Millsap and just stood pat on the Howard contract, by the time those contracts are up, John Collins would be ready to assume the one of those roles on the team.  Taurean Prince and DeAndre Bembry would have 2-3 more years of proper development on their games.  Then you add your pick and the Minnesota pick plus your pick and Cleveland's pick in 2019........now that's a team that would more likely be a playoff team than anything that is going to come out of this tank job.  When you take into account that Atlanta has the best developmental staff in basketball, we could also flip some of these picks for some of these failed lottery picks you all want and actually develop them up at a cheaper price in a winning environment.

 

Yea, you *might* find good players later in the draft but you have a *higher* chance of finding them earlier.  So yea, it's a good idea to mix and match. 

Or

The team could go all in on a barely above .500 team, hope that that's enough to get them back in the playoffs (2 games barely separated them from the 9th seed) and that they didn't see any regression from losing players plus their current players aging....and then hope they can pass the torch on to the later picks whom the development staff supposedly would see better results with than more talented guys drafted earlier.  Sure.

[hazer]

1 hour ago, KB21 said:

You know what cracks me up?  This idea that you can't find good players later in the draft....that you absolutely have to have high lottery picks to be good.............yet the pro tankers are touting all the draft picks the team has over the next 2-3 years as a reason the tank won't take as long.......a majority of those 1st round picks are later in the draft.  

Had Atlanta resigned Paul Millsap and just stood pat on the Howard contract, by the time those contracts are up, John Collins would be ready to assume the one of those roles on the team.  Taurean Prince and DeAndre Bembry would have 2-3 more years of proper development on their games.  Then you add your pick and the Minnesota pick plus your pick and Cleveland's pick in 2019........now that's a team that would more likely be a playoff team than anything that is going to come out of this tank job.  When you take into account that Atlanta has the best developmental staff in basketball, we could also flip some of these picks for some of these failed lottery picks you all want and actually develop them up at a cheaper price in a winning environment.

You know what cracks me up? Someone who doesn't get that finding that diamond in the rough further down the draft board is far more of a crap shoot and luck than landing one in the lottery. FFS...

[KB21]

Kawhi Leonard, Giannis, and Draymond Green have all been drafted 15th or later since 2011, and all are better than any #1 pick that has been taken in the same span of time.

[MaceCase]

I just find that to be a tad arbitrary.  So, those 3 guys are better than every 14 and below pick that came before them?  I mean, Kawhi was traded for by a 60 win team, Draymond is the 3rd/4th best player on his team behind 3 lotto guys, and Giannis has missed the playoffs twice in 4 years and made his first All League selections only last year.  That's a mixed bag considering that the two most successful players (Kawhi and Draymond) play in environments that the Hawks weren't ever close to reaching.  The Hawks however are much closer to Giannis and the Bucks situation though, a fringe ~.500 playoff team.  Not a great endorsement.   Meanwhile Kyrie is currently leading a team full of 19 year old AAU crybabies as a top East team and Anthony Davis has single handedly lead his squad to the playoffs in the West in the past.

[DBac]

Draymond is not better than Anthony Davis, Giannis isn't either yet. 

[MaceCase]

It's sort of the disconnect.  The same analytics say "tanking is bad" but then they also say "you get greater value in earlier picks than later ones".  So what do you do?  Do you go to the extreme on the former and try to nitpick the extreme minority of late picks to establish that as the only solution....or do you reconcile with the latter and recognize that you increase your chances of finding impact players with higher picks? 

If the Hawks were laden with highly coveted talent that they could trade or already had picks/swaps from bad teams that they could use to farm high picks I'd argue too "why tank?"  Sans that though...what are your options?  You can't just commit to an ideal while ignoring key facets.