How is that the best course? How many teams have won a championship in the last 20 years without a Hall of Fame superstar level talent? So you're hoping the Celtics can become the 2004 Pistons?Brickowski said:
Down with tanking, play to win!
- Thread starter dhellers
- Start date
The Dave Berri analysis doesn't really answer the question it purports to answer. It asks, are bad teams more likely to become good in the near future or are mediocre teams more likely to become good? But, he phrases that question as, does a team deliberately becoming bad enhance its long term odds of becoming good? The answer to the former does not necessarily indicate the answer to the latter.
There are several important distinctions. First, most bad teams are bad because the organizations are bad. That only stops via management or ownership turnover, which tends to not happen quickly and, even if it does, is going to take a pretty long time to take effect. Those bad organizations hopelessly pollute the samples and make it impossible for a broad data survey to produce a meaningful answer to the question we actually care about. That question is, what are the results when a good organization decides to shed talent in exchange for future assets because they've decided that their current talent isn't sufficient to be anything more than a mediocre team?
I don't think there is going to be an easy way to answer this empirically. There probably aren't enough examples of such teams for there to be meaningful data and building a control will be even harder. Additionally, the evaluation of which organizations are good instead of bad is very difficult to quantify. But, if we did want to quantify it, the group we actually want to look at is what happens to teams that had a sustained run above a minimum win threshold (somewhere around 40, we'll say) then dropped below a certain win level (say, 25). We want to know the future of these teams, not the broad swath of bad teams. And, we want to compare it to teams that had similar past results but didn't tank. (As in, the control needs to exclude teams that are in the process of getting better. Teams that are improving are generally not involved in the tanking issue.) You are hopefully beginning to see why this is an incredibly difficult question to answer empirically and why Berri's analysis fails to come close. He might be right, I really don't know, but he's written nothing that convinces me that he is.
There are several important distinctions. First, most bad teams are bad because the organizations are bad. That only stops via management or ownership turnover, which tends to not happen quickly and, even if it does, is going to take a pretty long time to take effect. Those bad organizations hopelessly pollute the samples and make it impossible for a broad data survey to produce a meaningful answer to the question we actually care about. That question is, what are the results when a good organization decides to shed talent in exchange for future assets because they've decided that their current talent isn't sufficient to be anything more than a mediocre team?
I don't think there is going to be an easy way to answer this empirically. There probably aren't enough examples of such teams for there to be meaningful data and building a control will be even harder. Additionally, the evaluation of which organizations are good instead of bad is very difficult to quantify. But, if we did want to quantify it, the group we actually want to look at is what happens to teams that had a sustained run above a minimum win threshold (somewhere around 40, we'll say) then dropped below a certain win level (say, 25). We want to know the future of these teams, not the broad swath of bad teams. And, we want to compare it to teams that had similar past results but didn't tank. (As in, the control needs to exclude teams that are in the process of getting better. Teams that are improving are generally not involved in the tanking issue.) You are hopefully beginning to see why this is an incredibly difficult question to answer empirically and why Berri's analysis fails to come close. He might be right, I really don't know, but he's written nothing that convinces me that he is.
Brickowski said:
Grin&MartyBarret said:
Morgan's Magic Snowplow said:
You guys are admirably patient. Brick's shtick of straw man ad nauseam has me defeated at this point, but to MMS's point, here's a list of average career stats sorted by draft pick. And I think this pick value chart was posted in this forum last year.
But then again, Ben Wallace was a winner, and he wasn't even drafted, so...
Brickowski said:
Adding to the links DannyDarwinism included, here's an 82games.com study of the value associated with each pick in the first round. Spoiler alert: the higher you pick, the better the player you get.
But more than anything, I'm just really glad that another thread got derailed and we're all arguing in some narrow way about what Brickowski thinks about the efficiency of the NBA draft. The funny part is, all of this started because you decided, based on Stevens' pre-season rotations, that the Celtics were tanking. The Celtics are now 4-4, clearly aren't tanking, and yet here we are, still discussing it.
Brickowski said:
But, that's not really the question. The question is either whether it is worth it to trade away aging talent that could keep a team around 40 wins for draft picks and lesser players that might make a team really bad in the short term or to watch those players age, see that team gradually get worse, and try to add talent to the same group of young players that comprise the future with fewer draft picks? Or, the question is, given a young team that has some talent but clearly not enough to be a genuinely good team, is it better for them to win games in a strong draft year because "winning breeds winning" or is it better for them to lose because that gets you a higher draft pick and because "talent wins?" And, if we are asking the latter question, a corollary to that is, are there ways to go about "tanking" that don't hurt the development of the players you have? Or, if there are not, what is the trade off between getting superior future talent and damage to the development of present assets?
I throw all those questions out there because they are meaningful questions worth discussing in the context of this Celtics team. The list is not intended to be exhaustive. But, the question you keep asking isn't. Obviously, it's easier to build a championship team by starting with a good team that just needs to add another piece or two. That wasn't an option for the Celtics nor is it currently an option.
I really don't get this forum's obsession with hating on Brickowski. Far too many personal attacks and insinuations about his intelligence. The dude clearly cares about basketball and follows it closely. He has different opinions than you do, nobody is right or wrong.
I can easily see what he's saying. Olynyk, Sullinger, et al. have a long way to go before you can say they're the core of a future 50 win team, but if they do somehow translate this early success into continued success, the calculus moving forward almost has to change. If you put Rondo on this team tomorrow, uninjured and at the top of his game, are you sure they couldn't win 40, 45 games? It's far, far, far too early, but a 4 game winning streak has to be taken as a sign to potentially look at re-evaluating what you think you know. Last season's team only won 4 in a row 3 times all season (although twice 6 in a row).
The argument for tanking is easy to make, but hard to implement, especially with a young team and a young coach. These men all have pride and aren't going to want to lose. I'm not going to fault them for that. Yes, it's true that historically, Boston hasn't been a great FA destination, but I don't know why it follows that it must not be one moving forward. The current NBA landscape is very different from the historical one, and whatever racial baggage Boston carried at one point will only continue to diminish over time. It will never become a warm weather city, but if Danny manages the cap well and can offer a max deal to the right FA, Boston can stand a shot. And if the team the FA is joining is already a decent team, he probably stands a slightly better shot...
Obviously, it's far more likely that we'll look back on this little win streak early with fondness for how cute and out of the ordinary it proved to be in a season full of losing. But people are far too declarative on how there's only one way to do this. I really like the post above that points out that the data points for how to rebuild an NBA team in the salary cap era are too sparse for there to be any real empirical evidence that says how to do it. There are failures and successes of all kinds, and if we're being honest, it depends far more on the whims of 18-25 year old men and where they decide to spent a few years than any of us would like to admit.
My last point would be that I think we focus too much on the win totals, if we're to use Danny Ainge's past performance as a future guide. He's shown a pretty clear preference for asset acquisition over pretty much anything else. Even deals like LaFrentz could be easily viewed in terms of salary cap management, draft pick acquisition, and future returns. He tried to hit home runs on guys like Welsch or Marcus Banks. He hit a bit of one with Al Jefferson and even Perkins to an extent. Mixing these players at times produced poor results, but that's probably more coincidental than by design. It seems clear to me that Ainge wants for his players to increase in value, either to the point that they become part of his future rotation or trade bait a la Al Jefferson for Garnett. Winning and losing has an affect on the value of the mix of assets, but I doubt it's his focus. If you look at his actions this offseason, it's really a mirror image of some of his past actions, where he took on some bad contracts to make weight in trades to make continued asset acquisition more plausible. He's always had an affinity for trading, so we should assume that there will be a reshuffling by mid season, as he seeks to alter his asset mix more favorably over time. I honestly doubt there's more of a plan than this, and that's probably by design. The big drawback to tanking is that it picks one strategy that you need to execute on (that requires luck) in order to be successful. I get the sense that Danny prefers to keep his options open, develop tradeable assets, and likely will try to manage his cap so that he could strike via FA OR by trade on a player of his choosing. I have no idea if this is right or wrong, but it's certainly not a crazy plan.
I can easily see what he's saying. Olynyk, Sullinger, et al. have a long way to go before you can say they're the core of a future 50 win team, but if they do somehow translate this early success into continued success, the calculus moving forward almost has to change. If you put Rondo on this team tomorrow, uninjured and at the top of his game, are you sure they couldn't win 40, 45 games? It's far, far, far too early, but a 4 game winning streak has to be taken as a sign to potentially look at re-evaluating what you think you know. Last season's team only won 4 in a row 3 times all season (although twice 6 in a row).
The argument for tanking is easy to make, but hard to implement, especially with a young team and a young coach. These men all have pride and aren't going to want to lose. I'm not going to fault them for that. Yes, it's true that historically, Boston hasn't been a great FA destination, but I don't know why it follows that it must not be one moving forward. The current NBA landscape is very different from the historical one, and whatever racial baggage Boston carried at one point will only continue to diminish over time. It will never become a warm weather city, but if Danny manages the cap well and can offer a max deal to the right FA, Boston can stand a shot. And if the team the FA is joining is already a decent team, he probably stands a slightly better shot...
Obviously, it's far more likely that we'll look back on this little win streak early with fondness for how cute and out of the ordinary it proved to be in a season full of losing. But people are far too declarative on how there's only one way to do this. I really like the post above that points out that the data points for how to rebuild an NBA team in the salary cap era are too sparse for there to be any real empirical evidence that says how to do it. There are failures and successes of all kinds, and if we're being honest, it depends far more on the whims of 18-25 year old men and where they decide to spent a few years than any of us would like to admit.
My last point would be that I think we focus too much on the win totals, if we're to use Danny Ainge's past performance as a future guide. He's shown a pretty clear preference for asset acquisition over pretty much anything else. Even deals like LaFrentz could be easily viewed in terms of salary cap management, draft pick acquisition, and future returns. He tried to hit home runs on guys like Welsch or Marcus Banks. He hit a bit of one with Al Jefferson and even Perkins to an extent. Mixing these players at times produced poor results, but that's probably more coincidental than by design. It seems clear to me that Ainge wants for his players to increase in value, either to the point that they become part of his future rotation or trade bait a la Al Jefferson for Garnett. Winning and losing has an affect on the value of the mix of assets, but I doubt it's his focus. If you look at his actions this offseason, it's really a mirror image of some of his past actions, where he took on some bad contracts to make weight in trades to make continued asset acquisition more plausible. He's always had an affinity for trading, so we should assume that there will be a reshuffling by mid season, as he seeks to alter his asset mix more favorably over time. I honestly doubt there's more of a plan than this, and that's probably by design. The big drawback to tanking is that it picks one strategy that you need to execute on (that requires luck) in order to be successful. I get the sense that Danny prefers to keep his options open, develop tradeable assets, and likely will try to manage his cap so that he could strike via FA OR by trade on a player of his choosing. I have no idea if this is right or wrong, but it's certainly not a crazy plan.
I really think you need to make an effort to understand the shortcomings of your argument.Brickowski said:
1) The chances of drafting a successful player in the 1-5 range is ~50%.
2) The chances of drafting a successful player in the 20-25 range is ~15%.
So those are just the baseline odds that you aren't acknowledging. It's not that it's impossible to draft a good player outside the top 10, it's that it's much, much less likely.
Now, let's think about the last, say, 10 NBA champions. How many of them featured a player drafted in the top, say, 10 picks of an NBA draft?
2013: Miami Heat: LeBron went 1st in '03, Bosh went 4th in '03, Wade went 5th in '03, Ray Allen went 5th in '96
2012: Miami Heat
2011: Dallas Mavericks: Dirk went 9th in '98, Tyson Chandler went 2nd in '01, Jason Terry went 10th in '99, Kidd went 2nd in '94
2010: Los Angeles Lakers: Kobe (just outside the top 10 at 13th in '96), Gasol went 3rd, Bynum went 10th, Odom went 4th, etc.
2009: Los Angeles Lakers
2008: Boston Celtics: Pierce went 10th, Garnett went 5th, Allen
2007: San Antonio Spurs: Only Tim Duncan, who went 1st, but that's a pretty big "only."
2006: Miami Heat: Shaq went 1st, Wade, Payton went 2nd
2005: San Antonio Spurs
2004: Detroit Pistons: Rip Hamilton went 6th, Billups went 3rd, Rasheed went 4th
2003: San Antonio Spurs
You can't win a championship in the NBA without stars, and you almost never draft stars outside of the top 10.
When it comes to rebuilding in the NBA, it is. A key rebuilding mechanism literally involves ping pong balls...nighthob said:
dynomite said:
Interesting chart, but how many of those players were drafted by the teams they won their championship with?
2013: Wade
2012: Wade
2011: Dirk, I guess Kidd technically
2010: Kobe (didn't fit your criteria)
2009: Kobe
2008: Pierce
2007: Duncan
2006: Wade
2005: Duncan
2004: Hamilton
I think there's pretty clear evidence here that you're going to have to have drafted one of your key guys. But trade and FA have played a major, major role. I don't know what order, if any, you need to follow, but not one of these champions were built by drafting a core and developing it to a championship. They pretty much all supplemented with parts along the way. I also think it's sort of interesting that you need to expand it to the 10-15 range to make a case for all these champions. I think there's a pretty substantial likelihood this team ends up in that ballpark when all is said and done. This clearly doesn't prove (nor disprove) the idea that you need a top 5 pick to win in the NBA
teddykgb said:
The irony here is that Brickowski, by definition, is both right and wrong on this issue. Why? Because he's not arguing with anybody but himself. Not a single person is arguing that the Celtics should lose on-purpose at the expense of developing the younger players already on the roster, and yet that's the idea that he's been arguing against for a couple of months now. It stems from a basic misunderstanding of what "tanking" in the NBA actually means. Very rarely do teams actively try to lose games and never do they actively try to hinder the growth of their young players. The players themselves, of course, are battling for a longterm place in the NBA and the money that comes from that, so they're certainly going out and putting forth the effort. Even the 0-8 Jazz aren't actively trying to lose, and they're clearly developing youth in Hayward, Kanter, and Favors. My frustration with Brickowski has nothing to do with his opinions, but rather with how he re-states them over and over and re-frames his arguments.
As for the basic idea of "nobody is right or wrong", I challenge Brickowski to find an example of a 40ish win team that added a couple of picks in the 20s and went on to win an NBA championship.
bowiac said:
Most teams that tear down are just looking to move into the top ten. While they'd love to win the lotto, obviously, the real point of the tear down is to give yourself multiple options to improve. Because even if you don't win the draft lottery a #8 pick, for example, is a much bigger trade chit than the 23rd pick. This is why when people throw out the "What happened the last time the Celtics sucked, the tank job failed!" I always respond with "How could it have failed, they turned #5 into an all star and as a result a top 5 player in the NBA refused to sign an extension with any team other than the Celtics." It's much harder to do that when your primary trade chit is a pick in the back half of the first round.
So is this our "best of both worlds" scenario (fun to watch and rapid rebuilding)?
2013 season
- Celtics manage to win 30 games and end up with the 9th pick in the 2014 draft
- Brooklyn disappoints due to injuries and only wins 33 games giving us the 10th pick in the 2014 draft
- Stevens demonstrates that he's a coaching wiz, especially with player development
- Olynyk, Sullinger, and Faverani develop into solid rotational guys
- Rondo comes back late, but healthy and impactful
- Bass is traded to a contender at the deadline for a 2nd round pick
Next Spring/Summer
- Green is packaged with the 9th overall pick to move into the 5th overall spot.
- Celtics draft a guy like Dante Exum #5 who ultimately exceeds all expectations and becomes a superstar
- Celtics draft a guy like James Young #10 who also exceeds expectations
- Celtics sign Paul Pierce to a 1 year contract (finishes career where he belongs...20min/game)
2014
- Rotation: Rondo (PG), Exum (SG), Pierce/Young (SF), Sullinger/Olynyk/Faverani (PF/C)
- Team goes through growing pains, but wins 36 games.
- Ainge drafts smartly again, in the 11th overall spot.
2015
- Team signs/trades for a star level player (They're a more attractive destination now)
- Team wins 45 games, makes the payoffs
2016
- Team wins 53 games, loses ECF
Which part of this is the biggest stretch?
2013 season
- Celtics manage to win 30 games and end up with the 9th pick in the 2014 draft
- Brooklyn disappoints due to injuries and only wins 33 games giving us the 10th pick in the 2014 draft
- Stevens demonstrates that he's a coaching wiz, especially with player development
- Olynyk, Sullinger, and Faverani develop into solid rotational guys
- Rondo comes back late, but healthy and impactful
- Bass is traded to a contender at the deadline for a 2nd round pick
Next Spring/Summer
- Green is packaged with the 9th overall pick to move into the 5th overall spot.
- Celtics draft a guy like Dante Exum #5 who ultimately exceeds all expectations and becomes a superstar
- Celtics draft a guy like James Young #10 who also exceeds expectations
- Celtics sign Paul Pierce to a 1 year contract (finishes career where he belongs...20min/game)
2014
- Rotation: Rondo (PG), Exum (SG), Pierce/Young (SF), Sullinger/Olynyk/Faverani (PF/C)
- Team goes through growing pains, but wins 36 games.
- Ainge drafts smartly again, in the 11th overall spot.
2015
- Team signs/trades for a star level player (They're a more attractive destination now)
- Team wins 45 games, makes the payoffs
2016
- Team wins 53 games, loses ECF
Which part of this is the biggest stretch?
Jer said:
A few things, this is the 2014 NBA season. Secondly, as noted a few times in this thread, the Celtics will not get a lottery selection from Brooklyn unless both the Nets and Hawks miss the playoffs. Which won't happen. And this isn't the NFL draft, no one is trading #5 in this draft for two worse players.
And that logic is even stronger with a deep draft.nighthob said:
I'm beginning to think Randle might actually be a better bet than Wiggins (although Wiggins still may have a higher ceiling) and that Parker is very likely to at least be a 2nd or 3rd banana on a good team, and that's without getting into some other guys. People keep falling back on this "ping pong balls" argument but any Top 3 pick this year would be by far the most valuable asset the Celtics would hold and you have a 65% chance of getting a Top 3 pick (and a lock to get #4 if you don't) as the team with the worst record and a 56% chance of getting a Top 3 pick with the second best record. There's actually a pretty unique opportunity this year to minimize the role of luck in the equation and nearly guarantee yourself some kind of building block player that would be worth considerably more than what we currently have rostered.
And I challenge you to find a team other than San Antonio that, since the lottery was instituted in 1985, has won a championship with a no. 1 pick that it drafted. And the only team during the lottery era to win a championship with a No. 2 or 3 pick that it drafted was Detroit with Darko, and he was a human victory cigar. What happens when you put these great players on crap teams is they get disgruntled and want to go somewhere else. That was true of Shaq in Orlando, KG in Minnesota and LeBron in Cleveland.
If you build enough value in the players you have, you can trade them for superstars or clear the decks and sign stars as free agents. That's how virtually every championship team has acquired its superstars during the lottery era (or by taking them with lower picks, e.g. Kobe).
Morgan's Magic Snowplow said:
I also think that people are making too much of the passivity thing with Wiggins. Which is to say that they're obsessing over the word "passive" and not reading the rest, because the actual knocks are that he might not be as aggressive as a Russell Westbrook type and that he's passive on the perimeter. The NCAA with its full zones and aggressive handchecking makes life difficult on guys that thrive off penetration. Like Wiggins. I'm a lot less worried about him in the NBA game with its strict handchecking rules and illegal defense rules.
Brickowski said:
More shifting of the goal posts and ignoring of context. Suddenly, it's only worth owning a lottery pick if it's the #1 overall pick and you win a championship with that player. Gotcha.
1. Shaq went to the finals in Orlando. If they don't idiotically trade away Chris Webber, I'm gonna go ahead and predict a couple of Shaq-Webber championships in Orlando. Shaq became disgruntled because their front office screwed up.
2. LeBron went to the finals in Cleveland. Danny Ferry made several dumb moves and capped out that team without providing LeBron with a suitable supporting cast. If Cleveland doesn't make that mistake, LeBron is still there.
3. Minnesota had a great team with KG, Spreewell, and Cassell for a stretch, and KG basically had to be cajoled out of Minnesota.
And I don't disagree with the bolded at all. I just don't understand why you think it's impossible to develop lottery picks. Why do you assume that a player picked in the 20s by a winning team is going to carry more value than a lottery pick? And why do you think that people here are unwilling to make a trade at any point? Drafting Andrew Wiggins doesn't necessitate that you hold onto him forever. If the Celtics ended up with him, or Randle, or Exum, or whoever and decided in 3 years to package him for Kevin Durant they could absolutely do that. And that would very likely be a more attractive package to Sam Presti than Alex Poythress. For the last time, nobody is arguing that you shouldn't build value in the players you have. The argument is that players at the top of the draft, on average, are more talented and therefore carry more value, both on the court and in the trade market.
Brickowski said:
Shaq leaving Orlando had nothing to do with "crap teams" (because those Magic teams were pretty good) and everything to do with his wanting to be a movie star. And Garnett actually didn't want to leave Minnesota until after they tried trading him without first saying "Hey, Kev, we'd like to see you play on a winner, is it OK if we trade you so that we can start over?" But, unless you're claiming that Boston's front office is so inept that they will grossly mismanage a roster to the point that any top five pick will want out, what's the point? Because even if that is the case then they have an even worse chance of making those 20-40 picks which you think are the basis of a title contender pay off.
Do folks here think Indiana is a legitimate contender this year? There is nothing vaguely close to a top 5 pick on their roster-- and that includes the players they acquired in trades or signed as free agents. Their current starting five: Paul George (#10), Hibbert (#17, acquired from Toronto in a Trade for Jermaine O'Neal, also a #17 pick), David West (#16, passed over by the Celtics in favor of Marcus Banks), George Hill (#26) and Lance Stephenson (#40). Their other rotation players include Granger (another #17, who is currently injured), Scola (2nd rounder), Solomon Hill (picked last year at #23), Ian Mahinmi (#28) and C.J. Watson (undrafted).
Pretty much this, and you can extend it back further and it looks the same.dynomite said:
Winning a title is super unlikely no matter what, you need to get lucky somewhere. If maximizing title equity is the goal, then we want to be picking in the top three at some point, its by far the easiest way to acquire a superstar and finding that superstar is the hardest part of building a championship team.
That doesnt mean you throw games or that you need to obtain that player this year, but it means turning most tradeable assets today into chances at the lottery down the road is the best way to go. Ainge is about maximizing title equity and he understands that, so I expect we'll continue to see moves in that direction. Adding complementary players to a 40 win team is a great way to have a good team that gets bounced in the second round for years.
The best case example, IMO, of building a team without a top three pick (i.e. winning in the lottery) is the team we watched for the last five years. That relied on binking a HOF player with the tenth pick to go with building up those tradeable assets, which I think is much more unlikely than finding a HOF in the top 3 and building from there.
Brickowski said:
Its not that you cant build a great roster without the lottery, its that its infinitely more difficult to do. How many lucky breaks did Indiana need? Its rare that guys like Paul George, or Dirk or Pierce slip to #10. They had a high pick and got lucky that a player of that caliber slipped. Indiana is a case study on a team that beat the odds. I dont think you want your team building strategy to be based on one of the least likely scenarios of how to build a winner.
I don't think it is impossible. I don't think it's worth tanking for the sake of high picks. Losing has too many other adverse consequences, that's all I'm saying. It's much, much more difficult to develop a good supporting cast when you are losing so many games. Bad habits develop.Grin&MartyBarret said:
Name this team:
2005/2006 - 33 wins
2006/2007 - 24 wins
Then.........
2007/2008 - 66 wins & title
When you have a competent GM & coach, you can have a well run franchise that can suck and develop players at the same time. Ainge was the competent GM in that scenario, and it certainly looks like Stevens is a competent coach thus far. It seems we have the foundation in place to do that again
2005/2006 - 33 wins
2006/2007 - 24 wins
Then.........
2007/2008 - 66 wins & title
When you have a competent GM & coach, you can have a well run franchise that can suck and develop players at the same time. Ainge was the competent GM in that scenario, and it certainly looks like Stevens is a competent coach thus far. It seems we have the foundation in place to do that again
2006-07 was a blatant tank engineered by Rivers, plus Pierce was hurt for a good part of the year. Also, at the risk of repeating myself, that strategy failed, because instead of Oden or Durant, the C's had to settle for Green at #5. But Ainge had a backup plan to make chicken salad out of chicken manure, and with a little help from Presti (who was dumping salaries) and McHale (who had a disgruntled superstar on his hands) he was able to pull it off.
It was a special case, and so was the Spurs holding Robinson out to get Duncan.
It was a special case, and so was the Spurs holding Robinson out to get Duncan.
Those are interesting points that I hadn't really considered about handchecking and aggression from the perimeter/wing in the NCAA. People also forget that Wiggins dominated in a lot of high school all star games, so its not like he has a track record of disappearing when faced with real competition. KU-Duke tonight looks like must see TV. I'm also interested to see how Parker looks when matching up against a much longer and more athletic team.nighthob said:
Brickowski said:
How did the strategy fail? Obviously it wasn't the optimal outcome but do you think Danny was going with the "1st pick or bust" philosophy? Any good GM is going to prepare himself for every scenario. Obviously there was some luck involved, but there's always a certain amount of luck with every championship team.
Who knows, maybe Danny will hold Rondo out longer this season as well similar to Duncan and Pierce.
The part where Atlanta has a top 10 pick.
What happens to us if Brooklyn finished worse than Atlanta? Do we get Atlanta's pick instead?
What happens to us if Brooklyn finished worse than Atlanta? Do we get Atlanta's pick instead?
Brickowski said:
Even without the trades the team would have been OK. They wouldn't have been a title contender, but they could have taken Noah with the 5th pick. A Rondo/Pierce/Noah core is solid. They still would've had Jefferson to flip for another piece even if didn't bring in somebody as quite as good as KG.
Look, the team isn't going to win a title this season, nor is it going to be close to winning a title this season. Thus, the goal clearly is to maximize assets going forward. Obviously a high pick is a major asset. On the other hand, a lot of value comes from developing the young players on the roster. So, the question going forward basically is scouting our own roster, trying to figure out which of these players can be developed into enough value going forward that they'll either be part of a contender or traded for a part on a contender.
If it really turns out that we have a 40-win team as currently constructed, without Rondo, then because of its youth, this is too good of a team to tear down and rebuild; that means that trading Rondo for an equivalent asset who's a better fit and letting this core develop will make a contender very quickly. If it's not, which I strongly suspect is the case, then we don't need to worry about this debate -- we'll lose a lot of games and get to use the season to figure out who stays long-term as part of the next core.
I think maybe here's a better way to put it:
The goal is to end up with the most assets after the coming offseason, right? The tough decisions come when you feel that a player has value to his current team but will decline in value by next season (e.g., Pierce, Garnett). Then you have to balance the two. Rondo would have been a tough call if healthy, but unless you feel he can't return as a similar player, he's worth more in trade value in the future than he is at this moment.
So, the way that teams get into NBA purgatory is by making the wrong decisions and holding onto declining assets while not contending. No matter what, that's not happening here. Sure, we could have players decline in value due to catastrophic injury or because Ainge turns out to be wrong on, say, Olynyk's potential. But for the most part, we should expect that the roster will be increasing in value by developing this season, and if it increases enough in value to produce a 40-win team and a late lottery pick, that's going to be more valuable than a top pick and finding out that all of our young players are busts. And, either way, we avoid NBA purgatory as long as we continue to keep our roster filled with appreciating assets and make good decisions. A roster filled with good, valuable young players and the cap space that comes with a young roster is an alternative strategy for getting a top NBA player, after all.
If it really turns out that we have a 40-win team as currently constructed, without Rondo, then because of its youth, this is too good of a team to tear down and rebuild; that means that trading Rondo for an equivalent asset who's a better fit and letting this core develop will make a contender very quickly. If it's not, which I strongly suspect is the case, then we don't need to worry about this debate -- we'll lose a lot of games and get to use the season to figure out who stays long-term as part of the next core.
I think maybe here's a better way to put it:
The goal is to end up with the most assets after the coming offseason, right? The tough decisions come when you feel that a player has value to his current team but will decline in value by next season (e.g., Pierce, Garnett). Then you have to balance the two. Rondo would have been a tough call if healthy, but unless you feel he can't return as a similar player, he's worth more in trade value in the future than he is at this moment.
So, the way that teams get into NBA purgatory is by making the wrong decisions and holding onto declining assets while not contending. No matter what, that's not happening here. Sure, we could have players decline in value due to catastrophic injury or because Ainge turns out to be wrong on, say, Olynyk's potential. But for the most part, we should expect that the roster will be increasing in value by developing this season, and if it increases enough in value to produce a 40-win team and a late lottery pick, that's going to be more valuable than a top pick and finding out that all of our young players are busts. And, either way, we avoid NBA purgatory as long as we continue to keep our roster filled with appreciating assets and make good decisions. A roster filled with good, valuable young players and the cap space that comes with a young roster is an alternative strategy for getting a top NBA player, after all.
dynomite said:
I feel compelled to point out something that I think has been missing from the Tankapalooza argument thus far- the Cs tanking is all fine and good for trying to get into the lottery, but the teams listed here (with the exception of the '05 and '07 SAS who had Ginobli and Parker) all have at least three of these high picks. Even if you count a soon-to-be 28-year old Rajon Rondo coming off a torn ACL as a superstar (#21 overall pick, FWIW), you still don't have enough high-end talent to compete with the upper echelon who continue to form super teams of at least two-to-three All-Stars.
Yeah, as I stated earlier I think Boston should actually look to add a pick in that 12-16 range by helping the Lakers out by clearing Nash's salary off the books (via a Humphries for Nash and pick swap deal). Though obviously they'll want to wait until at least the quarter pole to get a read on what Brooklyn and Atlanta look like (since they have the lesser of those two picks).
There are many other flaws with that analysis:
2012-2013: The Heat didn't draft LeBron, Bosh, or Allen.
2011: The Mavs didn't draft Chandler, Terry, or Kidd, and they drafted Dirk a decade before they won.
2009-2010: The Lakers didn't draft Pau or Odom.
2008: The Celtics didn't draft Garnett or Allen, and they drafted Pierce a decade before they won.
2006: The Heat didn't draft Shaq or Payton.
2004: The Pistons didn't draft Hamilton, Billups, or Rasheed.
Basically, only the Spurs titles had a real proximate relationship to tanking, or even to drafting high.
In other words, nobody denies you need stars to win, and nobody denies stars tend to be drafted high. The disconnect is the belief by the tankers that the most effective way to acquire stars is through tanking. I think that isn't true from an analytic or a recent history perspective.
2012-2013: The Heat didn't draft LeBron, Bosh, or Allen.
2011: The Mavs didn't draft Chandler, Terry, or Kidd, and they drafted Dirk a decade before they won.
2009-2010: The Lakers didn't draft Pau or Odom.
2008: The Celtics didn't draft Garnett or Allen, and they drafted Pierce a decade before they won.
2006: The Heat didn't draft Shaq or Payton.
2004: The Pistons didn't draft Hamilton, Billups, or Rasheed.
Basically, only the Spurs titles had a real proximate relationship to tanking, or even to drafting high.
In other words, nobody denies you need stars to win, and nobody denies stars tend to be drafted high. The disconnect is the belief by the tankers that the most effective way to acquire stars is through tanking. I think that isn't true from an analytic or a recent history perspective.
bowiac said:
Absolutely true. You can go about it in a variety of ways- a string of successful drafts (SAS), collecting chips and trading them (BOS) or luring big-ticket free agents (MIA, LA). My point is that they're going to need a few of them, and tanking doesn't even guarantee you one.
bowiac said:
No but every circumstance you pointed out already had an established star player that they drafted through the lottery except the Pistons. Does Garnett and Allen come here without Pierce? Does Lebron, Bosh, and Shaq go to Miami without Wade? I think everyone understands championship teams need to do more than just draft a franchise player, but having one is clearly the most important piece. Now maybe you think Rondo is that star player but that's an entirely different argument.
To be fair, as a representative of the "tankers" I don't actually believe that. I believe that the most effective way to acquire stars is through being a marquee FA destination (Miami, LA) or, barring that, by having 1-2 established All Stars and thus being able to sell yourself as a situation in which another star, either a FA or a guy wanting a trade, could put you over the top (Celtics in 2008).bowiac said:
The problem is that we're not a marquee free agent destination and we're nowhere near - really, not remotely close - to having enough talent to sell ourselves as a team with championship potential like we did with KG. We're starting over and the most effective way to acquire a star when you're starting over is pretty clearly by drafting high, especially in an unusually loaded draft.
Brickowski said:
Can we focus on one conversation at a time? I was responding to this:
Brickowski said:
Debunking this theory that losing has adverse consequences and doesnt allow you to develop your assets. The 2005-2007 are about as bad as you can get from a tanking perspective, and we developed assets while the team also stuck together for the most part. With a horribly run organization, yes tanking for years and years will be a problem, but it shouldnt be a problem here.
TOleary25 said:
Well, Ray Allen didn't have a say in the matter, he was under contract and Sam Presti wanted the opportunity to draft Jeff Green to pair with Durant. Boston was able to give them that chance. If they have eked out 40 wins and ended up with the 14th pick, Brickowski would say that they would have been better off, but clearly they wouldn't have had the assets to trade for Kevin Garnett's (then) best friend in the NBA, which in turn made Garnett suddenly affordable by Boston because he refused to sign an extension with any other team (meaning that no one would trade more than scraps to Minnesota for Garnett).
Again, people need to stop getting hung up on the odds of whether or not a top ten pick will allow them to draft a cornerstone player. Because even if Ainge doesn't see anyone he likes on the board with his pick, the pick itself leaves you with a lot of trade options. Heck, New Orleans just turned a 7' 210lb center that will miss the season with reconstructive knee surgery and has no offensive game to speak of into a borderline all star player. The point of the top ten pick is to increase your rebuilding options beyond "We're going to get lucky and draft a franchise player in the mid first round."
bowiac said:
Its very true that superstars dont win titles with the team that drafted them. However, beyond drafting there are 2 ways to acquire players: free agent signings (not happening here) or trades. To trade you need assets, so even if you dont draft the superstar you need guys to trade for the superstar. The centerpiece to the KG trade was Al Jefferson who we were fortunate to draft at 15. The Heat traded Lamar Odom (4 overall), Brian Grant (8) and Caron Butler (10) for Shaq. So if you got the trade route, you might not need sub-4 picks but you need some picks that are pretty high to find the guys to trade for the guy that can take you to the promise land
No, Seattle had to settle for Green at #5. Boston "settled" for an all star SG. Which is sort of the point. Without that top 5 pick Boston doesn't get Ray Allen and we're still waiting on #17.
If Danny drafted Oden, then we'd still be waiting for #17. I could see a Pierce/Durant team potentially willing a title, though.
If Danny drafted Oden, then we'd still be waiting for #17. I could see a Pierce/Durant team potentially willing a title, though.
bowiac said:
I think the disconnect is how people view the lottery pick. It should be viewed as an asset, plain and simple. I don't think anybody is arguing that you absolutely must draft a superstar to win a championship; obviously there are multiple ways to acquire the necessary superstar. What isn't up for debate is that in the vast majority of instances, acquiring said superstar requires the development of assets of all sorts, and one of the most consistently valuable assets, particularly under the new CBA, are lottery picks. I don't think the issue here is that the "tankers" feel that the draft is the most effective way to acquire stars, I think it's a case where given the Celtics' current situation, it's clearly the most viable. The real crux of the debate here is about how to maximize assets in order to acquire the superstar you need to win; the majority of people seem to agree that it helps to find yourself in the lottery, while a vocal minority believe that you can develop later picks into assets that can then be used to build a contending team. I'm in the camp that believes that lottery picks are, on average, far more valuable than late first round picks, even if they're not used to draft a superstar. There's actually a lot of lottery picks involved in the examples you mentioned. Detroit didn't draft Rasheed Wallace, no. But they did trade a lottery pick for him (#6 pick in 2004). The Heat didn't draft Shaq, but they traded a guy they took in the lottery 2 years prior (Caron Butler) for him. The Celtics don't get Allen without the #5 overall pick, and without Allen, Garnett doesn't accept a trade to Boston.