Down with tanking, play to win!

[Koufax]

Some who seem opposed to doing well seem to suggest that the team should play its less experienced players in an effort to (a) develop them and (b) lose.  To a large extent, that's what they are doing, except that they are winning.  Kris Humphries is not playing, although he is qualified to do so.  Keith Bogans is not playing.  Gerald Wallace has been moved to the bench.  Phil Pressey is playing.  Only Marshon Brooks is young and not playing.  Would you play him over Courtney Lee because he's got two years of NBA experience instead of 5?  Or would you play 5 guards at the same time to ensure a loss?  Make Gerald Wallace a DNP - coaches decision night after night, even though he puts out maximum effort, thereby providing a good example to the younger players?
 
What if anything are the Celtics doing wrong?  Or is the problem that some of us actually enjoy seeing them win, even though our enjoyment has no impact on the fate of the team?

 

[moly99]

There are a few issues I have with the tanking strategy:
 
1) People are talking about the prospects in this draft like they will all declare. It's very unlikely they all will. There will still be decent players around by pick six or seven, but one or two of Wiggins, Randle, Exum, Parker and Smart are probably not going to be in the draft.
 
2) Even with the worst record in the league you still only have a 25% chance at the number one pick. If it was a choice of Wiggins vs trying to win (with a young roster) then losing intentionally would make sense. But there's a 75% chance you won't get Wiggins even if you throw games.
 
3) Even if you get the number one pick in a draft with an MVP-level player in it, it won't mean championships unless you build a good team around that guy. See Howard in Orlando and Lebron in Cleveland.

 

[Brickowski]

If the best example is both imperfect and from nearly 25 years ago, then that's a good sign that the "need a superstar" crowd is probably right here. To put it simply, the 2014 draft will certainly feature good players outside of the top 3 but Randle, Parker, and Wiggins are far more likely to be cornerstones of a future title team than anyone outside of the lottery. After watching all 3 tonight, I find them all to be "tank worthy".

So far, Parker is the best of the three.

 

[crystalline]

Yes, Joe Morgan disagrees. You can develop individual skills while losing, but you will have great difficulty developing players who know how to win as part of a team. That kind of development takes winning itself. Positive reinforcement works wonders.

Therefore you agree with this statement:
Many skills improve faster from activities and drills that are not the optimal strategy for winning a game.

I have made my point. If you want to continue to insist on winning above all else, you will be contradicting yourself.

Learning how to win may be a goal but it is not the ONLY goal. (Actually I would say that learning how to play hard for 48 and how to close out games are both more important and more concrete than learning to win. )

 

[Brickowski]

Isn't learning to "close out games" the same thing as learning to win? Can you "close out" a game and lose it?

 

[wutang112878]

It's not a few more, and as I pointed out, he went from decent to superstar for many reasons beyond a large increase in efficiency. He also got more usage, blocks, rebounds, and decreased his turnovers. 

 
I think we see him differently.  Forgive me if I dont get too excited about 1 more rebound a game, 0.2 more blocks per 36, 0.2 more turnovers per 36 and by the way his 3 point shooting went from amazing to very good, decreasing from 42.2% to 36.5%  Its just my opinion but as young budding superstars going from year 2 to 3 to 4, I would expect them to carry more of the team and do more, that just seems like a natural career arc to me.  I just dont see how the talent around him should be viewed as what facilitated that. 
 
I just think back to watching Paul Pierce progress as a player.  Year 2 to 3 he took an extra ~3 shots a game, his FG% went up, his 3pt FG% went up and surprise, surprise he got 3 more FTs per game (a 50% increase vastly outpacing his increase in FGs), he added a rebound per game and his turnovers went up slightly.  A very similar story to Durant and the talent around Pierce from year 2 to 3 was virtually identical and awful.  I think if we looked at a handful of superstars, we would see very similar stories, jump in usage, improvement in efficiency which is mainly due to an increase in free throws that outpaces the increase in FGs

 

[fairlee76]

Isn't learning to "close out games" the same thing as learning to win? Can you "close out" a game and lose it?

Yeah, I often disagree with you but I have no idea how to differentiate "closing out games" from winning.  Please crystalline, enlighten us.
 
After watching some of the games last night (I admittedly missed most of Randle's explosion in the second half), I am in love with Parker's game.  If he continues to play like that, it seems likely he's going either 1st or 2nd.  His game is very translatable to the NBA.

 

[wutang112878]

There are a few issues I have with the tanking strategy:
 
1) People are talking about the prospects in this draft like they will all declare. It's very unlikely they all will. There will still be decent players around by pick six or seven, but one or two of Wiggins, Randle, Exum, Parker and Smart are probably not going to be in the draft.
 
2) Even with the worst record in the league you still only have a 25% chance at the number one pick. If it was a choice of Wiggins vs trying to win (with a young roster) then losing intentionally would make sense. But there's a 75% chance you won't get Wiggins even if you throw games.
 
3) Even if you get the number one pick in a draft with an MVP-level player in it, it won't mean championships unless you build a good team around that guy. See Howard in Orlando and Lebron in Cleveland.

 
1 - As nighthob pointed out upthread, the value of the pick isnt just for the player you might select, its also just having the pick.  You can trade the #6 pick for the next Ray Allen, or considering the cycle of this team perhaps you package it with another player on the roster for a young budding all-star. 
 
2 - The odds suck, no doubt about that, but the question is what is there to gain by trying to maximize wins at all costs?  If you are making the argument that maximizing wins will maximize the development of players currently on the roster, then the question becomes does the additional development of Olynyk and Sully justify the decreased odds of landing a Wiggins.  I think thats going to be a difficult case to make because while the decrease in odds is quantifiable, the additional value of that development is really subjective.  Can we really quantify how much more Olynyk will have as a trade asset or in future value to the Celtics if we win 42 games instead of 32?  I dont know where to start on trying to answer that question, you probably have to look at the development of players in efficiency and usage and regress that with playing time minutes and actual wins to see which is really the deciding factor, and I am pretty confident that minutes will be the deciding factor
 
3 - There are maybe 10 guys in the NBA that could really lead your team to a title, finding one of those guys is by far the most difficult part of team building.  There are a lot more players that can be your #2 player, and even more that can be your #3 player, and so on.  Finding that first star is by far the most difficult part of team building.  The Cleveland Lebron years were destined to fail because they made splashy move after splashy move trying to give him a sidekick(s) every year to try to win that specific year, rather than working to find him that real #2 guy.  Howard's years are so difficult to judge, they had a decent cast around him at times but Howard himself isnt an offensive superstar who can carry the team so you really need an unique cast around him.  So you really needed an elite GM to figure out how to do that.  Then add in all the conflict with Ron Jeremy for whatever reason and their reliance on shooting 3s which made them very streaky and that certainly didnt help.  There are a lot of difficulties to overcome there. 

 

[Brickowski]

One thing about Durant is that he is a great free throw shooter. He's up there with the best of all time. When you give him two more free throws a game, his scoring average goes up by almost that much. Plus you can't foul him at the end of close games.

If I were to point to the one individual skill that contributes most to winning, that's it.

 

[wutang112878]

Whats the skill, hitting free throws or getting free throws?

 

[Brickowski]

Whats the skill, hitting free throws or getting free throws?

Both, but IMHO hitting them is more important. Dwight Howard can get 15-20 free throws a game without even trying. Teams foul him intentionally because they know he can't make them.

 

[bowiac]

One thing about Durant is that he is a great free throw shooter. He's up there with the best of all time. When you give him two more free throws a game, his scoring average goes up by almost that much. Plus you can't foul him at the end of close games.

If I were to point to the one individual skill that contributes most to winning, that's it.

As I mentioned, in addition to leading the lead in free throws taken that year, he also became a 90% shooter.
 
It's crazy to think he wasn't a vastly superior player in year 3.

 

[Koufax]

If the best example is both imperfect and from nearly 25 years ago, then that's a good sign that the "need a superstar" crowd is probably right here.

The best example is the Los Angeles Lakers from 2000 through 2011.  Their run included 7 NBA championships sparked by Kobe Bryant who was drafted 13th in 1996 by Charlotte and acquired that summer in exchange for Vlade Divac.  The Lakers had won 53 games that year, so they didn't tank.  Since then, they have had only one losing season. 
 
If you want to dismiss that as a one-off unrepeatable event (picking Charlotte's pocket), then you elminate 7 recent championship years.  Another good recent example of constructing a championship roster without the need to tank is Dallas, which acquired Milwaukee's no. 9 pick in the 1998 draft and drafted Dirk Nowitski.  Their championship roster included other high draft picks (Tyson Chandler and Jason Kidd), but they were acquired for much less value than a lottery pick.  For example, Jason Kidd was acquired in a multiplayer mutiteam deal in which the biggest asset that Dallas gave up was the no. 21 pick. 

 

[wutang112878]

The best example is the Los Angeles Lakers from 2000 through 2011.  Their run included 7 NBA championships sparked by Kobe Bryant who was drafted 13th in 1996 by Charlotte and acquired that summer in exchange for Vlade Divac.  The Lakers had won 53 games that year, so they didn't tank.  Since then, they have had only one losing season. 
 
If you want to dismiss that as a one-off unrepeatable event (picking Charlotte's pocket), then you elminate 7 recent championship years.  Another good recent example of constructing a championship roster without the need to tank is Dallas, which acquired Milwaukee's no. 9 pick in the 1998 draft and drafted Dirk Nowitski.  Their championship roster included other high draft picks (Tyson Chandler and Jason Kidd), but they were acquired for much less value than a lottery pick.  For example, Jason Kidd was acquired in a multiplayer mutiteam deal in which the biggest asset that Dallas gave up was the no. 21 pick. 

 
 
Dallas is a good example no doubt.
 
Kobe is really unique.  He was drafted 13th because he was coming out of high school (now banned) and said he would only play for one team.  There are only 2 recent players who have been the alpha dog and won titles with a complete rebuild/revamp between the first and next title, thats Duncan and Kobe.  Generational talents.  The only other players I think can do that based on their age, skill and durability might be Lebron and Durant.  Thats a tall order to find a guy who can be a top 3 player in the league for 8 plus years.  So its not an impossible strategy but its very improbable

 

[Grin&MartyBarret]

The best example is the Los Angeles Lakers from 2000 through 2011.  Their run included 7 NBA championships sparked by Kobe Bryant who was drafted 13th in 1996 by Charlotte and acquired that summer in exchange for Vlade Divac.  The Lakers had won 53 games that year, so they didn't tank.  Since then, they have had only one losing season. 
 
If you want to dismiss that as a one-off unrepeatable event (picking Charlotte's pocket), then you elminate 7 recent championship years.  Another good recent example of constructing a championship roster without the need to tank is Dallas, which acquired Milwaukee's no. 9 pick in the 1998 draft and drafted Dirk Nowitski.  Their championship roster included other high draft picks (Tyson Chandler and Jason Kidd), but they were acquired for much less value than a lottery pick.  For example, Jason Kidd was acquired in a multiplayer mutiteam deal in which the biggest asset that Dallas gave up was the no. 21 pick. 

 
You're sort of relying on a technicality here. Yes, Kobe Bryant was drafted outside of the lottery. But he was also drafted at 17, straight out of high school, and was one of the first two players to attempt to skip college and go straight to the NBA  after a 20 year period where nobody had attempted to do so. A lot of the examples people cite in terms of finding a superstar level talent outside of the lottery tend to be high school to the pros guys or European guys. The first is no longer allowed and the league has evolved drastically in terms of scouting Europe. Those used to be inefficiencies that good teams could take advantage of, but that has become increasingly difficult now.

 

[Brickowski]

Kobe is really unique.  He was drafted 13th because he was coming out of high school (now banned) and said he would only play for one team.

He has since said that he would have been happy to play for the Celtics, who had him in for a workout. Maybe that's revisionist history, but if it's true he would have been an upgrade over Antoine Walker.

 

[teddykgb]

 
You're sort of relying on a technicality here. Yes, Kobe Bryant was drafted outside of the lottery. But he was also drafted at 17, straight out of high school, and was one of the first two players to attempt to skip college and go straight to the NBA  after a 20 year period where nobody had attempted to do so. A lot of the examples people cite in terms of finding a superstar level talent outside of the lottery tend to be high school to the pros guys or European guys. The first is no longer allowed and the league has evolved drastically in terms of scouting Europe. Those used to be inefficiencies that good teams could take advantage of, but that has become increasingly difficult now.

 
But, as he correctly points out, if you rule out Kobe as "not fair" then you're eliminating a ton of the sample size.  Maybe part of the issue in debating tanking versus something not quite tanking is in using championships as a barometer.  It's likely hard to define "championship contender", but this is really the goal, isn't it? Top 4 seed in the conference, maybe?  I wonder what the data would like like if you increased the definition of successful to include teams and drafts that clearly bore some success, even if they weren't able to achieve an actual championship.  In a league like this, that seems like an awfully high barometer.

 

[nighthob]

The best example is the Los Angeles Lakers from 2000 through 2011.  Their run included 7 NBA championships sparked by Kobe Bryant who was drafted 13th in 1996 by Charlotte and acquired that summer in exchange for Vlade Divac.  The Lakers had won 53 games that year, so they didn't tank.  Since then, they have had only one losing season. 
 
If you want to dismiss that as a one-off unrepeatable event (picking Charlotte's pocket), then you elminate 7 recent championship years.  Another good recent example of constructing a championship roster without the need to tank is Dallas, which acquired Milwaukee's no. 9 pick in the 1998 draft and drafted Dirk Nowitski.  Their championship roster included other high draft picks (Tyson Chandler and Jason Kidd), but they were acquired for much less value than a lottery pick.  For example, Jason Kidd was acquired in a multiplayer mutiteam deal in which the biggest asset that Dallas gave up was the no. 21 pick. 

 
There was also this other guy there, named Shaq. And the second item that you're ignoring is that Bryant wasn't some unknown gem sitting on the board at 13, he lasted that long because he had made the Todd Van Poppell threat of never signing unless he got what he wanted. The 13th pick was the earliest pick that LA could get its hands on to draft him with. He was otherwise considered a top 5 talent at a time when NBA teams still weren't scouting the high school ranks. The modern equivalent would be China, because it's the last unscouted frontier left. So if your rebuilding plan is "We're gonna draft this franchise player from China that no one has a handle on!" good luck with it.
 
Also, Don Nelson's coup wasn't trading for Milwaukee's pick, it was trading down from #6 and picking up extra assets and still getting the guy he wanted, who he would have picked sixth if Milwaukee hadn't been focused on Tractor Traylor. And, again, he got Dirk at a time when European scouting was very crude, those days are loooooong past. Every team (save possibly the Clippers) has a European scouting department these days, plus the NBA plus even private scouting services cover the continent. So those 15-20 year old examples are sort of irrelevant unless you're talking about finding unknown talent in China.

 

[Koufax]

I went back and looked at the last 21 NBA champions, examined their key players, and figured out whether the team had tanked to get him or them.  The teams that tanked were San Antonio, Houston and Seattle/Oklahoma City.  Together the account for 8 championships.
 
The teams that did not tank to acquire their key talent were the Lakers, the Suns (1993), the Supersonics (1996), the Jazz (97-98) and the Mavericks.  Together then account for 13 championships.  The Jazz is a pure example -- they drafted Karl Malone in 1985 with the 13th pick overall, and John Stockton in 1984 with the 16th pick.
 
If you exclude the Lakers because of Kobe, then there are 5 remaining examples of teams that acquired their key talent without tanking to get there.  But to me, excluding the Lakers smacks of cherry-picking the data.  Can you exclude San Antonio because they only sucked because of a serious injury to David Robinson?  I thought not.

 

[nighthob]

He has since said that he would have been happy to play for the Celtics, who had him in for a workout. Maybe that's revisionist history, but if it's true he would have been an upgrade over Antoine Walker.

 
Yeah, to this day I'll never forgive Bird for wasting that #6 pick on Walker after Boston turned #9 and the Big Bindlestiff into #6 and a future Dallas first. And I think Bryant's actual words were that if Boston had drafted him he would have signed eventually. The Bryant/Pierce Celtics would have been the greatest asshole team in NBA history. It's a pity it didn't happen.

 

[Grin&MartyBarret]

 
But, as he correctly points out, if you rule out Kobe as "not fair" then you're eliminating a ton of the sample size.  Maybe part of the issue in debating tanking versus something not quite tanking is in using championships as a barometer.  It's likely hard to define "championship contender", but this is really the goal, isn't it? Top 4 seed in the conference, maybe?  I wonder what the data would like like if you increased the definition of successful to include teams and drafts that clearly bore some success, even if they weren't able to achieve an actual championship.  In a league like this, that seems like an awfully high barometer.

 
I'm not saying Kobe is "not fair", I'm saying it's not a realistic comparison going forward. We're having this discussion within the context of the Celtics future and the current NBA. Talking about how the Lakers built a championship team by grabbing a high school kid at #13 overall isn't really relevant to today's NBA, unless you think that Kobe would have slipped outside of the lottery after a year at Duke or wherever he was going to go.

 

[Grin&MartyBarret]

I went back and looked at the last 21 NBA champions, examined their key players, and figured out whether the team had tanked to get him or them.  The teams that tanked were San Antonio, Houston and Seattle/Oklahoma City.  Together the account for 8 championships.
 
The teams that did not tank to acquire their key talent were the Lakers, the Suns (1993), the Supersonics (1996), the Jazz (97-98) and the Mavericks.  Together then account for 13 championships.  The Jazz is a pure example -- they drafted Karl Malone in 1985 with the 13th pick overall, and John Stockton in 1984 with the 16th pick.
 
If you exclude the Lakers because of Kobe, then there are 5 remaining examples of teams that acquired their key talent without tanking to get there.  But to me, excluding the Lakers smacks of cherry-picking the data.  Can you exclude San Antonio because they only sucked because of a serious injury to David Robinson?  I thought not.

 
What is tanking? I think the reason we're going around in circles here is because nobody has defined that yet. For instance, the Pacers are widely held up as a team that's been built into a contender without tanking. Yet they had a 4 year stretch where they failed to win more than 36 games and drafted Paul George in the lottery after winning 32 games. There seems to be this misconception that to get into the lottery you have to lose on purpose and throw development into the wind. I don't think that's the case.
 
Sidenote--I'm not really sure I see how the Lakers and Mavs are responsible for 13 of the last 21 championships. Are you counting conference championships? If so, why are we dealing with an odd number?

 

[nighthob]

 
But, as he correctly points out, if you rule out Kobe as "not fair" then you're eliminating a ton of the sample size.  Maybe part of the issue in debating tanking versus something not quite tanking is in using championships as a barometer.  It's likely hard to define "championship contender", but this is really the goal, isn't it? Top 4 seed in the conference, maybe?  I wonder what the data would like like if you increased the definition of successful to include teams and drafts that clearly bore some success, even if they weren't able to achieve an actual championship.  In a league like this, that seems like an awfully high barometer.

 
Again, American high schoolers are intensely scouted these days, even though you can no longer draft them upon graduation. So if you're saying that Boston can exploit an underscouted pool of players to find a franchise player outside the lottery (and keep in mind even that doesn't completely cover the Bryant situation as there were signability fears with him), where are you finding that pool? 

 

[DJnVa]

If the Durant discussion is going to keep rolling along, can it be split out? There's two distinct "conversations" going on and the tanking one is hard enough to follow on its own.

 

[Koufax]

 
What is tanking? I think the reason we're going around in circles here is because nobody has defined that yet. For instance, the Pacers are widely held up as a team that's been built into a contender without tanking. Yet they had a 4 year stretch where they failed to win more than 36 games and drafted Paul George in the lottery after winning 32 games. There seems to be this misconception that to get into the lottery you have to lose on purpose and throw development into the wind. I don't think that's the case.
 
Sidenote--I'm not really sure I see how the Lakers and Mavs are responsible for 13 of the last 21 championships. Are you counting conference championships? If so, why are we dealing with an odd number?

In doing my survey, I considered a losing record to be tanking, even though that is not necessarily correct.  I only looked at NBA champions.  As for the 13 championships, you must have missed the part about the Suns, the Supersonics and the Jazz. None of the teams that won these championships had a losing record in the year prior to acquiring their key talent.

 

[Grin&MartyBarret]

In doing my survey, I considered a losing record to be tanking, even though that is not necessarily correct.  I only looked at NBA champions.  As for the 13 championships, you must have missed the part about the Suns, the Supersonics and the Jazz. None of the teams that won these championships had a losing record in the year prior to acquiring their key talent.

 
The Suns, Sonics, and Jazz never won championships. . .

 

[teddykgb]

 
Again, American high schoolers are intensely scouted these days, even though you can no longer draft them upon graduation. So if you're saying that Boston can exploit an underscouted pool of players to find a franchise player outside the lottery (and keep in mind even that doesn't completely cover the Bryant situation as there were signability fears with him), where are you finding that pool? 

 
I'm not arguing that the world hasn't changed.  Of course it has.  It's entirely appropriate to say that the context the Celtics operate in today is quite different than the one the Lakers operated in then.  I'm simply pointing out that removing Kobe's rings probably overly narrows an already too narrow data set.  This isn't a reason to include them, just saying that I don't know that the answers here are going to be found by examining past champions, especially if we're going to pick and choose which champions count and which do not because of contextual changes.
 
Defining tanking is going to be tough, as it means all things to all people.  Someone posed the question recently in this thread, but I think the rubber hits the road in terms of what the GM and coach do with the veteran players and rookies.  A sure way to lose would be for either or both to mandate either playing underperforming/unmotivated vets or overexposing under developed kids.  If they continue to play each and every game to win, and determine playing time largely on merit, then I think they're not "tanking".  There are thousands of shades of grey and all kinds of in between around the merits of developing players in there, but overall it amounts to whether they're going to continue to try to put the best team on the floor to win games on a nightly basis.  Most of this falls on Ainge, and whether he wants to do some "Major League" style subterfuge mid season to try to somehow artificially generate a lottery pick or a better lottery pick.  In my mind, this would be counter productive.  I can do nothing but admit that given the choice between a 16 pick and a 10 pick, i'd rather we got the asset that is the 10th pick.  But I don't think I'd make that a goal in any way.  This is very hard to argue against without creating strawmen, because lots of people would say that we need a top 5 pick, or a top 10 pick, etc, but there's probably very little consensus on what we should be striving for, if anything.  I guess I'm coming around to the idea that this is probably way more of a crapshoot than I'd ever want to admit, and the team should just try to win every game they play and let things take care of themselves.  Maybe it would be optimal to play to lose an extra dozen games to increase the odds of landing the next great Celtics superstar, but doing so has a host of very difficult to quantify downsides that I personally wouldn't want the team to pursue that strategy.  More than anything, if I'm arguing in this thread, i'm arguing against the notion that there is "one way" to build in the NBA.  There are flaws to all approaches, and you're going to have to mix skill and a little bit of luck.  This isn't a reason to not try or to make it harder on yourself, but there seems to be a prevailing notion (again, a strawman) that the Celtics best path to success is to suck as completely as humanly possible this season.  I think there's room for disagreement there.  The obvious solution, of course, on a site like this, is to look to data to try to answer this question, but pretty much all of the data is flawed because of all of the special circumstances that surrounds almost all of these superstar moves.
 
At the end of the day, I'm really, really uninterested in being Cleveland.  I think it will be interesting to see if they can lock up Irving this summer.  The NBA is evolving toward a bit less movement of FAs, imo, so maybe the draft has to become the model, even if you can't definitively prove that it has been to this point. 

 

[ivanvamp]

FWIW, I took a look at the 1989-90 Pistons, a team I always found interesting because it seemed, like the current Celtics, like a team of many good players with no superstar.  And they won the championship.  Isiah Thomas would disagree about the lack of a superstar, and maybe the facts bear him out.  Here is what I found.  Ranking the players in order of win shares, they had:
 
1. Bill Lambeer, drafted 65th by Cleveland in 1979 
2. Dennis Rodman, drafted 27th by Detroit in 1986
3. Joe Dumars, drafted 18th by Detroit in 1985
4. Isiah Thomas, drafted 2d by Detroit in 1981
5.  Vinnie Johnson, drafted 7th by Seattle in 1979
6.  Adrian Dantley, drafted 7th by Buffalo in 1976
7.  Rick Mahorn, drafted 35th by Washington in 1980
8.  John Salley, drafted 11th by Detroit in 1986
9.  James Edwards, drafted 46th by the Lakers in 1977
 
So yes, that roster had a no 2 overall who was important to the squad.  But the lion's share of the win shares came from guys who were low draft picks and/or started out on other teams.  It's not like Detroit was some glamorous destination that could attract free agents anxious to play there.  This suggests to me that it is possible to put together a winning team with good drafting, trading and coaching, without years of getting high draft picks by sucking.  This example is imperfect because of Isiah Thomas,  I admit.  It's the best I could come up with.

 
I get your point, but I'd also say that Isaiah Thomas was absolutely a superduper star.  He was one of the best PG ever to play the game.  
 
I actually wonder why he retired when he did.  At age 32 (his last year), he put up 14.8 ppg and 6.9 apg.  I guess maybe he didn't feel like playing if he wasn't going to be THE MAN on a team anymore?  Because a veteran, 33-yr old PG that can still put up 14 pgs and 6+ assists a game is very valuable.  

 

[Koufax]

 

 

 
The Suns, Sonics, and Jazz never won championships. . .

What an idiot I am.  I cut and pasted something without looking carefully.  What I missed was all those championships won by the Bulls, who really, really tanked.  So I need to go back to the drawing board.

 

[Grin&MartyBarret]

 
I'm not arguing that the world hasn't changed.  Of course it has.  It's entirely appropriate to say that the context the Celtics operate in today is quite different than the one the Lakers operated in then.  I'm simply pointing out that removing Kobe's rings probably overly narrows an already too narrow data set.  This isn't a reason to include them, just saying that I don't know that the answers here are going to be found by examining past champions, especially if we're going to pick and choose which champions count and which do not because of contextual changes.
 
Defining tanking is going to be tough, as it means all things to all people.  Someone posed the question recently in this thread, but I think the rubber hits the road in terms of what the GM and coach do with the veteran players and rookies.  A sure way to lose would be for either or both to mandate either playing underperforming/unmotivated vets or overexposing under developed kids.  If they continue to play each and every game to win, and determine playing time largely on merit, then I think they're not "tanking".  There are thousands of shades of grey and all kinds of in between around the merits of developing players in there, but overall it amounts to whether they're going to continue to try to put the best team on the floor to win games on a nightly basis.  Most of this falls on Ainge, and whether he wants to do some "Major League" style subterfuge mid season to try to somehow artificially generate a lottery pick or a better lottery pick.  In my mind, this would be counter productive.  I can do nothing but admit that given the choice between a 16 pick and a 10 pick, i'd rather we got the asset that is the 10th pick.  But I don't think I'd make that a goal in any way.  This is very hard to argue against without creating strawmen, because lots of people would say that we need a top 5 pick, or a top 10 pick, etc, but there's probably very little consensus on what we should be striving for, if anything.  I guess I'm coming around to the idea that this is probably way more of a crapshoot than I'd ever want to admit, and the team should just try to win every game they play and let things take care of themselves.  Maybe it would be optimal to play to lose an extra dozen games to increase the odds of landing the next great Celtics superstar, but doing so has a host of very difficult to quantify downsides that I personally wouldn't want the team to pursue that strategy.  More than anything, if I'm arguing in this thread, i'm arguing against the notion that there is "one way" to build in the NBA.  There are flaws to all approaches, and you're going to have to mix skill and a little bit of luck.  This isn't a reason to not try or to make it harder on yourself, but there seems to be a prevailing notion (again, a strawman) that the Celtics best path to success is to suck as completely as humanly possible this season.  I think there's room for disagreement there.  The obvious solution, of course, on a site like this, is to look to data to try to answer this question, but pretty much all of the data is flawed because of all of the special circumstances that surrounds almost all of these superstar moves.
 
At the end of the day, I'm really, really uninterested in being Cleveland.  I think it will be interesting to see if they can lock up Irving this summer.  The NBA is evolving toward a bit less movement of FAs, imo, so maybe the draft has to become the model, even if you can't definitively prove that it has been to this point. 

 
You're uninterested in having a top 3 point guard in the league? People talk about the NBA like the problems facing Cleveland or Charlotte or whoever are systemic, but with better management those teams would be in much better shape. Danny Ainge is a really good GM. Are you really uninterested in his having two #1 overall picks in a short period?
 
Further, Kyrie Irving has no choice but to be a Cav for at least 6 more years. They can match, and will match, any offer a team extends to him. And they're the only team that can offer him a 5th year.

 

[bowiac]

 
What an idiot I am.  I cut and pasted something without looking carefully.  What I missed was all those championships won by the Bulls, who really, really tanked.  So I need to go back to the drawing board.

I also don't see the Heat in there or the Pistons.

 

[bowiac]

What is tanking? I think the reason we're going around in circles here is because nobody has defined that yet. For instance, the Pacers are widely held up as a team that's been built into a contender without tanking. Yet they had a 4 year stretch where they failed to win more than 36 games and drafted Paul George in the lottery after winning 32 games. There seems to be this misconception that to get into the lottery you have to lose on purpose and throw development into the wind. I don't think that's the case.

I think at the extremes, lets say Rondo comes back with a strong 3 point shot, reincarnated as Mike Conley, Sullinger loses another 10 pounds and becomes Paul Millsap, and Avery Bradley attains his tiny-Andre Iguodala upside, and the Celtics are suddenly winning games in late December/early January, on pace for a 7/8 seed because the East is so awful. What I'm mostly opposed to is coming up with a phantom injury for Rondo, playing Sullinger at SF, and moving Bradley to PG at that point, just in order to lose games.
 
If the tankers aren't on board with that, and okay with trying to win, and putting the young players in positions to succeed, then I'm honestly not sure there's a disagreement.

 

[wutang112878]

I think at the extremes, lets say Rondo comes back with a strong 3 point shot, reincarnated as Mike Conley, Sullinger loses another 10 pounds and becomes Paul Millsap, and Avery Bradley attains his tiny-Andre Iguodala upside, and the Celtics are suddenly winning games in late December/early January, on pace for a 7/8 seed because the East is so awful. What I'm mostly opposed to is coming up with a phantom injury for Rondo, playing Sullinger at SF, and moving Bradley to PG at that point, just in order to lose games.
 
If the tankers aren't on board with that, and okay with trying to win, and putting the young players in positions to succeed, then I'm honestly not sure there's a disagreement.

 
You bring up a great scenario.  Do you believe in NBA purgatory?

 

[Jer]

Personally I'm fine with tanking via roster construction, but I want the coaching staff and players to be doing everything they can to win/improve. I do buy into the theory that having the players and coaches intentionally under-performing has long-term consequences. If players aren't motivated by winning, then they'll probably focus on padding their personal stats. Perhaps my biggest concern is that it would damage Steven's credibility/relationship with the players. He has a chance to be the real deal.
 
I can actually bare watching a losing team that's gritty and working hard. This is especially true if you've got some young guys that are developing their games and improving.
 
The good news for me is that this is exactly the approach that they seem to be taking.
 
However Ainge can go nuts handicapping this team. The easiest way he could achieve that is to trade Green ASAP. Hopefully he pulls this trigger as soon as a good deal materializes.
 
I have no clue how many wins this would produce. But if you get to 25, you probably have no shot at Wiggins/Parker, but it does put you around #4-6.
 
I do think that we'll look back at this conversation in a month and laugh. 4-4 is a surprise, but the schedule will toughen and teams like Miami won't be half-assing it forever. This could quickly become 8-15.

 

[allstonite]

Personally I'm fine with tanking via roster construction, but I want the coaching staff and players to be doing everything they can to win/improve. I do buy into the theory that having the players and coaches intentionally under-performing has long-term consequences. If players aren't motivated by winning, then they'll probably focus on padding their personal stats. Perhaps my biggest concern is that it would damage Steven's credibility/relationship with the players. He has a chance to be the real deal.
 
I can actually bare watching a losing team that's gritty and working hard. This is especially true if you've got some young guys that are developing their games and improving.
 
The good news for me is that this is exactly the approach that they seem to be taking.
 
However Ainge can go nuts handicapping this team. The easiest way he could achieve that is to trade Green ASAP. Hopefully he pulls this trigger as soon as a good deal materializes.
 
I have no clue how many wins this would produce. But if you get to 25, you probably have no shot at Wiggins/Parker, but it does put you around #4-6.
 
I do think that we'll look back at this conversation in a month and laugh. 4-4 is a surprise, but the schedule will toughen and teams like Miami won't be half-assing it forever. This could quickly become 8-15.

 
This is where I'm at. The way I'm thinking of it is to say that Ainge is tanking, not the Celtics. He hired a talented but young head coach who can go in and learn the pro game while the emphasis isn't totally on winning now. He left the roster full of young players to play and make mistakes with ample playing time. He also left a couple of expiring contracts to show off and either let expire or use to acquire assets to help us in the future. Everyone gets to play hard but Danny put together a team that lacks the talent to win many games and he doesn't view that as a bad thing. I don't think we're in for another 1997 or even 2007 run. If nothing else, it should be better to watch. 

 

[bowiac]

You bring up a great scenario.  Do you believe in NBA purgatory?

Not especially, no. I believe NBA purgatory is mostly a consequence of bad management, the same way NBA cellar dwelling is. Having a bad GM will cripple a tanking based rebuild, or a Rockets/Pacers style rebuild.

 

[wutang112878]

Not especially, no. I believe NBA purgatory is mostly a consequence of bad management, the same way NBA cellar dwelling is. Having a bad GM will cripple a tanking based rebuild, or a Rockets/Pacers style rebuild.

 
You might not believe this, but we dont completely agree on this one!  I dont think its impossible to improve your team if you are a 7/8 seed for multiple years, but I think its more difficult.  Assuming you dont move up in the lottery the difference of a couple spots in the draft is negligible, but I think there is value for your franchise to have a ~2% chance of moving up to the top 3 instead of making the playoffs just to get bounced in <6 games.  Now if you have a young core in place that just needs time to develop and contend, I am all for making the playoffs.  If you have a young core like we have with intriguing pieces but simply doesnt have the upside talent to ever be a top 3 seed then I dont think there is that much value in the playoff experience

 

[teddykgb]

 
You're uninterested in having a top 3 point guard in the league? People talk about the NBA like the problems facing Cleveland or Charlotte or whoever are systemic, but with better management those teams would be in much better shape. Danny Ainge is a really good GM. Are you really uninterested in his having two #1 overall picks in a short period?
 
Further, Kyrie Irving has no choice but to be a Cav for at least 6 more years. They can match, and will match, any offer a team extends to him. And they're the only team that can offer him a 5th year.

 
I suppose I linked two ideas together without explaining why.  I'm not interested in being Cleveland because I'm not interested in drafting and developing the next Lebron only to watch him win titles elsewhere.  Of course, it was great and they almost won the damn thing with him, but it's really hard to keep these talented individuals if you can't turn the team around quickly toward winning.  Each situation will be different because each superstar is different, but it's not easy to be bad enough to get one of these guys but become good enough to keep them, especially if they are high school aged (in the past) or 1 and done in college.  They aren't going to engineer that turnaround alone.
 
I mentioned Irving because Cleveland in particular might be in the unenviable position of having to have this play out again so quickly.  Irving isn't Lebron level talent, but he's already showing signs of not wanting to extend, refusing to comment on it, etc.  As you correctly point out, this is a longer term problem, but at some point semi soon they're going to have to figure out if he's willing to stay or shop him.

 

[nighthob]

 
I'm not arguing that the world hasn't changed.  Of course it has.  It's entirely appropriate to say that the context the Celtics operate in today is quite different than the one the Lakers operated in then.  I'm simply pointing out that removing Kobe's rings probably overly narrows an already too narrow data set.  This isn't a reason to include them, just saying that I don't know that the answers here are going to be found by examining past champions, especially if we're going to pick and choose which champions count and which do not because of contextual changes.

 
I don't think that's what they're saying, the claim is that it isn't hard to find franchise changers outside the lottery and point to archaic scouting inefficiencies as evidence of this. And the others weren't even discounting so much as pointing out that it's a completely unique situation that can't be completely repeated due to CBA and scouting changes.

 

[nighthob]

 
I suppose I linked two ideas together without explaining why.  I'm not interested in being Cleveland because I'm not interested in drafting and developing the next Lebron only to watch him win titles elsewhere.  Of course, it was great and they almost won the damn thing with him, but it's really hard to keep these talented individuals if you can't turn the team around quickly toward winning.  Each situation will be different because each superstar is different, but it's not easy to be bad enough to get one of these guys but become good enough to keep them, especially if they are high school aged (in the past) or 1 and done in college.  They aren't going to engineer that turnaround alone.

 
Actually Cleveland's problem is that James really was a generational talent and immediately turned the Cavs around. So they went immediately from historically bad to merely bad. Their 2004 pick was tenth. Now, had Paxson not butchered the selection the Cavs might have won a title. But he did. And he went on making questionable personnel moves until he was fired and Danny Ferry hired. Who immediately bet the house on an oft-injured guard whose only good years were contract years. Which, shockingly, backfired on them when he got injured again and largely lost interest in basketball as he was on his last deal. But there's no particular reason that Boston needs to be mismanaged.

 

[Grin&MartyBarret]

 
I suppose I linked two ideas together without explaining why.  I'm not interested in being Cleveland because I'm not interested in drafting and developing the next Lebron only to watch him win titles elsewhere.  Of course, it was great and they almost won the damn thing with him, but it's really hard to keep these talented individuals if you can't turn the team around quickly toward winning.  Each situation will be different because each superstar is different, but it's not easy to be bad enough to get one of these guys but become good enough to keep them, especially if they are high school aged (in the past) or 1 and done in college.  They aren't going to engineer that turnaround alone.
 
I mentioned Irving because Cleveland in particular might be in the unenviable position of having to have this play out again so quickly.  Irving isn't Lebron level talent, but he's already showing signs of not wanting to extend, refusing to comment on it, etc.  As you correctly point out, this is a longer term problem, but at some point semi soon they're going to have to figure out if he's willing to stay or shop him.

 
I'm not really sure how to respond to this. You don't want to draft the best player in the world because he might end up leaving 7 or 8 years later? Every GM in the league would have gladly switched places with Paxton and tried to build a championship team around LeBron. There's nothing more valuable in the NBA than having a cost controlled superstar.

 

[dhellers]

 
 
However Ainge can go nuts handicapping this team. The easiest way he could achieve that is to trade Green ASAP. Hopefully he pulls this trigger as soon as a good deal materializes.
 

With the basketful of probably so-so picks (from Brooklyn and LAC), is there much marginal value in yet another so-so pick acquired by trading Green (since who but a near contender would want him)?

 

[bowiac]

With the basketful of probably so-so picks (from Brooklyn and LAC), is there much marginal value in yet another so-so pick acquired by trading Green (since who but a near contender would want him)?

Presumably they could get a future pick, in another year. Most teams would rather keep their pick in this draft if they wanted I assume.

 

[wutang112878]

With the basketful of probably so-so picks (from Brooklyn and LAC), is there much marginal value in yet another so-so pick acquired by trading Green (since who but a near contender would want him)?

 
This is a little bit of an understatement. 
 
The 16 and 18 picks are where the real value is for the Celtics.  In 15/16 the Nets have Joe Johnson and Deron Williams under contract, and if they resign Lopez to the max he will probably command they are over the current cap.  They cant trade any of their first round picks, so the only way they can add talent is through the MLE or via trade.  I dont know if you followed the career of Billy King but he isnt the brightest bulb on the string.  The overall point being, they are kind of locked into this roster for the foreseeable future and that 15/16 squad could have some real problems.  And come 2018 we simply have no idea what that franchise might be like.  By then we could be winning a title and that could be our 2nd Len Bias pick, the future in the NBA really changes quickly.

 

[Jer]

With the basketful of probably so-so picks (from Brooklyn and LAC), is there much marginal value in yet another so-so pick acquired by trading Green (since who but a near contender would want him)?

 
Of course I'm biased on this front... I just don't see Green contributing on our next contending team. However he's just good enough to add a handful of wins to this one. I'd also hope that we could put the cap room to good use.
 
As for what we could get in return, I have some faith that Danny is pretty good at finding value. If I come across some good examples I'll post them over in the chips/keepers thread.

 

[mcpickl]

I think at the extremes, lets say Rondo comes back with a strong 3 point shot, reincarnated as Mike Conley, Sullinger loses another 10 pounds and becomes Paul Millsap, and Avery Bradley attains his tiny-Andre Iguodala upside, and the Celtics are suddenly winning games in late December/early January, on pace for a 7/8 seed because the East is so awful. What I'm mostly opposed to is coming up with a phantom injury for Rondo, playing Sullinger at SF, and moving Bradley to PG at that point, just in order to lose games.
 
If the tankers aren't on board with that, and okay with trying to win, and putting the young players in positions to succeed, then I'm honestly not sure there's a disagreement.

I am on board with the "tanking" side I'd say, but I'd agree with what you say here. I wouldn't be on board with the Celtics basically throwing games.
 
Once the season starts, I think they have to try to win every game they play. The tanking strategy shouldn't involve coaching decisions. It's purely an offseason roster construction strategy to me.
 
I don't think a 7/8 seed is the optimal place for this organization to be, but if come the end of the season that's the spot this team is earning then by all means they should take it. At that point the odds of moving up into the top three from a team just missin the playoffs is very small anyway. Likely outcome is just moving their draft position from around 12 to around 16.

 

[mcpickl]

There are a few issues I have with the tanking strategy:
 
1) People are talking about the prospects in this draft like they will all declare. It's very unlikely they all will. There will still be decent players around by pick six or seven, but one or two of Wiggins, Randle, Exum, Parker and Smart are probably not going to be in the draft.
 
2) Even with the worst record in the league you still only have a 25% chance at the number one pick. If it was a choice of Wiggins vs trying to win (with a young roster) then losing intentionally would make sense. But there's a 75% chance you won't get Wiggins even if you throw games.
 
3) Even if you get the number one pick in a draft with an MVP-level player in it, it won't mean championships unless you build a good team around that guy. See Howard in Orlando and Lebron in Cleveland.

To the bolded, yes those odds are correct. But also with the worst record in the league, you have a 100% chance of a top 4 pick. In this draft that is very likely to be extremely valuable.
 
I think this point keeps getting glossed over in the opposition to the tanking strategy. It's not the #1 pick or bust. I'd say any team that truly tanks this year and ends up with a bottom three record will be very happy with the player they end up with, whether they pick 1st, 6th, or anywhere in between.

 

[ishmael]

I think at the extremes, lets say Rondo comes back with a strong 3 point shot, reincarnated as Mike Conley, Sullinger loses another 10 pounds and becomes Paul Millsap, and Avery Bradley attains his tiny-Andre Iguodala upside, and the Celtics are suddenly winning games in late December/early January, on pace for a 7/8 seed because the East is so awful. What I'm mostly opposed to is coming up with a phantom injury for Rondo, playing Sullinger at SF, and moving Bradley to PG at that point, just in order to lose games.
 
If the tankers aren't on board with that, and okay with trying to win, and putting the young players in positions to succeed, then I'm honestly not sure there's a disagreement.

 
This team has 30 win talent, and could maybe get to .500 if everything breaks right (including Rondo's recovery and the young guys coming along). Given that reality (and I think it is fair to say after a loss to the Bobcats at home), I am fine with DA dealing some guys in season to push us down towards 25 wins and a higher pick.
 
Disrupting Kelly Olynyk and Vitor Faverani's development < a better chance at Wiggins/Parker/Randle.
 
PS: how on earth do you lose to the Bobcats when Kemba Walker shoots 1-13?

 

[nighthob]

To the bolded, yes those odds are correct. But also with the worst record in the league, you have a 100% chance of a top 4 pick. In this draft that is very likely to be extremely valuable.
 
I think this point keeps getting glossed over in the opposition to the tanking strategy. It's not the #1 pick or bust. I'd say any team that truly tanks this year and ends up with a bottom three record will be very happy with the player they end up with, whether they pick 1st, 6th, or anywhere in between.

 
This is the important part, Boston got Ray Allen in 2007 and last June the Pelicans got a borderline all star for the 6th pick in the worst draft this side of 2k. A top 10 pick gives you options that don't exist with a pick in the back half of the first round.

 

[Devizier]

In what world was Isaiah Thomas not a superstar?