2024-2025 Tank Race

[SoberasHotRod]

I think where these probabilities play in is when we start talking about trading productive players for less than market value in order to potentially improve lottery odds. There are more parts of the equation than some consider.

Take Sexton for example:

What is his current entertainment value, how does he help current and future rookie contract players, what could his future role on a contending team be when we are ready for that, what is the chance we can retain him at that point, what is the potential replacement cost?

VS

how much is he hurting lottery odds, how might he be holding back rookie contract players, etc.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

The other problem with free agency and trades is that real stars virtually never get traded before they’re 30 and star players will never be in play to sign with the Jazz before they’re 30 also. If we want to build something enduring, the draft is the only route we have. At least at this point. IMO.

I think Ainge disagrees with you, but is probably being proven wrong currently.

 

[NUMBERICA]

I think Ainge disagrees with you, but is probably being proven wrong currently.

The most notable exception in spirit to some of the ideas above is Ainge and the Garnett/Allen acquisitions. However:
-Garnett and Allen were both well over 30
-they were acquired with picks acquired through tanking and a young budding star they developed and had RFA rights to.

 

[KqWIN]

I think where these probabilities play in is when we start talking about trading productive players for less than market value in order to potentially improve lottery odds. There are more parts of the equation than some consider.

Take Sexton for example:

What is his current entertainment value, how does he help current and future rookie contract players, what could his future role on a contending team be when we are ready for that, what is the chance we can retain him at that point, what is the potential replacement cost?

VS

how much is he hurting lottery odds, how might he be holding back rookie contract players, etc.

This is why I've said I wouldn't even be opposed to trading away Sexton for nothing (expirings only). I think we could get more than that, but the way I think about it is....would we sign Sexton as FA to the contract he's on? To me that's a hard no, people would be up in arms if we did that this off season and for good reason. You can do the same thing for every other winning player on the roster....and they key considerations beyond the actual trade package are 1) what is the potential value they can give beyond two years 2) what is the damage they do to tanking in the next two years.

 

[NUMBERICA]

The most notable exception in spirit to some of the ideas above is Ainge and the Garnett/Allen acquisitions. However:
-Garnett and Allen were both well over 30
-they were acquired with picks acquired through tanking and a young budding star they developed and had RFA rights to.

If we can acquire TWO first-ballot hall-of-famers (one of them an MVP) that are absolutely perfect fits with Lauri, even if they are ~32 years old, sure, let’s go for it. I have no idea on earth who those players are.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

This is why I've said I wouldn't even be opposed to trading away Sexton for nothing (expirings only). I think we could get more than that, but the way I think about it is....would we sign Sexton as FA to the contract he's on? To me that's a hard no, people would be up in arms if we did that this off season and for good reason. You can do the same thing for every other winning player on the roster....and they key considerations beyond the actual trade package are 1) what is the potential value they can give beyond two years 2) what is the damage they do to tanking in the next two years.

I think your conclusions are logical even if I'm probably on the other side of the equation. I think Sexton has tremendous entertainment value and is good for the rookie contract guys. I think there is a small chance he can be part of the next good team we put together. I don't think he hurts our draft odds that much. So in my equation we should not take much less than market value to move him.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

If we can acquire TWO first-ballot hall-of-famers (one of them an MVP) that are absolutely perfect fits with Lauri, even if they are ~32 years old, sure, let’s go for it. I have no idea on earth who those players are.

Paul George and Mikal Bridges?

 

[KqWIN]

I think your conclusions are logical even if I'm probably on the other side of the equation. I think Sexton has tremendous entertainment value and is good for the rookie contract guys. I think there is a small chance he can be part of the next good team we put together. I don't think he hurts our draft odds that much. So in my equation we should not take much less than market value to move him.

I don't think entertainment value should mean nothing, but personally I don't really enjoy watching Sexton play. I don't think Sexton is too damaging to lotto hopes, but it is non-zero and instead of thinking it as of a question of "is the tanking rolling or not" with a binary yes/no answer I think about it as losing 1-2 spots in lotto positioning. It's just not worth it to me. I also don't have too much attachment to Sexton and just generally believe there's a lot of players like him in the league and it's not too difficult to acquire someone like him down the road.

I would have been willing to give him the runway to potentially become a star, but the coaching staff/FO haven't been willing to do so. Current state of Sexton is half measure and I'd rather just get rid of him at this point.

 

[NUMBERICA]

Paul George and Mikal Bridges?

The closest I got is Giannis and Dame. Let’s also remember that Lauri is no Paul Pierce.

 

[SoberasHotRod]

I don't think entertainment value should mean nothing, but personally I don't really enjoy watching Sexton play. I don't think Sexton is too damaging to lotto hopes, but it is non-zero and instead of thinking it as of a question of "is the tanking rolling or not" with a binary yes/no answer I think about it as losing 1-2 spots in lotto positioning. It's just not worth it to me. I also don't have too much attachment to Sexton and just generally believe there's a lot of players like him in the league and it's not too difficult to acquire someone like him down the road.

I would have been willing to give him the runway to potentially become a star, but the coaching staff/FO haven't been willing to do so. Current state of Sexton is half measure and I'd rather just get rid of him at this point.

I think that's all reasonable.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Every direction is hard, winning a championship is extremely difficult and requires a tremendous amount of luck regardless. But one of the reasons I think people overrate tanking is because it's easy to draw out that direct path that @idiot outlined. So easy to say, "tank->draft->superstar->championship". Other paths may be less clear, but that doesn't mean less likely or less effective. Not saying specifically, but I don't think people really stop and consider how unlikely the tanking plan is to work despite the apparent simplicity of it. For example, when we had Mitchell and Gobert....it's much easier to just say "tank and then we draft those players again" instead of building around the two superstars we already had and hitting on an unlikely move to get us to the destination.

Tanking is fine, it's definitely better than half tanking or whatever the hell we were doing the past two years. It's still highly overrated both in it's ease of execution and effectiveness IMO. There's a great deal of smugness about tanking=king that rubs me the wrong way.

The smugness goes both ways though. The never tankers will mention how it doesn't ever work and then you give them 5-10 examples of it working and they are like "that wasn't tanking".

There is just no fool proof plan or even a good route you feel is dependable. Its just choosing between bad choices. I thought it was smart to pivot when we did but we should have been shuffling the deck the two years or so before that and made some tremendous errors prior to the tear down. Tony Jones has also said we didn't have the choice of keeping Donovan. So I think he had let them know behind the scenes but... shrug.

At this point I think anti-tankers have to think its the best route for us now but smart tankers also need to know this route almost surely leads to multi year pain and just an okayish outcome.

Side note - I think I have the solution to fix tanking but will wait for the pod to outline it. Remind me @Elizah Huge when we pod as I think I have stumbled onto a concept that would work.

 

[underdog]

Now do the other team building strategies. What exactly is the alternative? We are both doing the tank and middle build by holding other teams picks. If we opt to build through FA and trades we have the necessary fodder to do that. The tank is one component of what we opted to do. None of the strategies have high success rates. Even trading for stars has some catastrophic consequences and a low success rate.

Its likely a multi-year endeavor though as we haven't hit on the drafted star with our mid/late lotto or other picks (most likely) and haven't gotten the luck of jumping into the top 4 to have a better shot at drafting the star. At this point we have to likely sell off part of the infrastructure that would make it a quick rebuild.

Exactly. What’s the alternative? The Jazz changed direction and now have a bunch of young players. And I don’t think Danny himself is a big fan of tanking. He has talked about this before—how hard it is to draft star players. But in our current situation, tanking makes the most sense, and that’s why we’re doing it. And I think it’ll be a two-year tank

 

[The Jazz Wonderbra]

There is roughly 6% difference in chances to land top 2 pick with 5th best odds vs best odds. People act like that matters but it doesnt for a single draw. You need to get really lucky either way if top 2 is all that matters.

The margin of error for a single cointoss is always 50%. Both heads and tails have 50% chance of appearing but the result of one toss will always be 100 to 0.

Thats the problem of the lottery, and why you shouldnt sacrifice too much to jump 1 or 2 spots. Being the worst team really doesnt pay off anymore, when even the 5th worst gets just 3.5% less lotto balls.

Mostly because the teams ahead of you end up still ahead of you. And higher odds for the teams behind you to leapfrog means you have a more likely chance of ending up with the 6th, 7th, or even 8th pick than you do a top 2. So... 3 is statistically a LOT better position than 5.

 

[The Jazz Wonderbra]

Such a silly post. It was 1st vs 5th odds, not 6th, and the premise was that we must land a top 2 pick. Pick floor seems pointless in that context.

Also FYI the average expected draft position for the worst record is 3.7, and for 5th worst its 5.0.... but thats besides the point if the argument is that we must land Flagg/Harper.

Last year Detroit was passed by the 9th and 10th worst records.

Top 2 pick is huge, but historically top 5 picks are significantly better odds of hitting than 6 - 10 picks.

 

[KqWIN]

The smugness goes both ways though. The never tankers will mention how it doesn't ever work and then you give them 5-10 examples of it working and they are like "that wasn't tanking".

There is just no fool proof plan or even a good route you feel is dependable. Its just choosing between bad choices. I thought it was smart to pivot when we did but we should have been shuffling the deck the two years or so before that and made some tremendous errors prior to the tear down. Tony Jones has also said we didn't have the choice of keeping Donovan. So I think he had let them know behind the scenes but... shrug.

At this point I think anti-tankers have to think its the best route for us now but smart tankers also need to know this route almost surely leads to multi year pain and just an okayish outcome.

Side note - I think I have the solution to fix tanking but will wait for the pod to outline it. Remind me @Elizah Huge when we pod as I think I have stumbled onto a concept that would work.

Perhaps I have missed this from my perspective, but I don’t see the two sided smugness. What I see mostly is people claiming “OKC model” but I have never ever seen “Pistons model” or insert any other failed build. A big part of the smugness that bothers me is that people act like tanking is without fail and then pretend as if it’s only sacrifice that needs you to get there. Like if you don’t agree with a tanking strategy it is only because you are impatient. I can only speak from my own experience and am not denying what you’re saying….but that’s what I’ve gathered from endless tanking convos over the years.

Reality is that I think the decision needs to be made on a case by case basis. I find that looking at tanking/anti-tank from a large, general perspective turns into a reductive and meaningless conversation. Is it good? If we’re not talking about a specific team and situation, I’m just not interested in talking about it.

Also, I just want to say that tanking at a concept (regardless of effectiveness) just completely sucks. I wouldn’t blame anyone who doesn’t want partake.

 

[HadAnEffectHere]

Perhaps I have missed this from my perspective, but I don’t see the two sided smugness. What I see mostly is people claiming “OKC model” but I have never ever seen “Pistons model” or insert any other failed build. A big part of the smugness that bothers me is that people act like tanking is without fail and then pretend as if it’s only sacrifice that needs you to get there. Like if you don’t agree with a tanking strategy it is only because you are impatient. I can only speak from my own experience and am not denying what you’re saying….but that’s what I’ve gathered from endless tanking convos over the years.

Reality is that I think the decision needs to be made on a case by case basis. I find that looking at tanking/anti-tank from a large, general perspective turns into a reductive and meaningless conversation. Is it good? If we’re not talking about a specific team and situation, I’m just not interested in talking about it.

Also, I just want to say that tanking at a concept (regardless of effectiveness) just completely sucks. I wouldn’t blame anyone who doesn’t want partake.

To be clear, tanking is bad for the league, bad to follow, and bad to watch, but Ainge had to hype up his regime as bringing a title team to Utah to justify trading Mitchell and Gobert. He set the expectations above second round exit to justify trading the entire team, but the only way to do in Utah by drafting two top 15 players in the NBA (one of whom is a top 3 player in the NBA) and that is extremely unlikely without extreme tanking over a period of many years.

And it could still fail, of course.

 

[KqWIN]

To be clear, tanking is bad for the league, bad to follow, and bad to watch, but Ainge had to hype up his regime as bringing a title team to Utah to justify trading Mitchell and Gobert. He set the expectations above second round exit to justify trading the entire team, but the only way to do in Utah by drafting two top 15 players in the NBA (one of whom is a top 3 player in the NBA) and that is extremely unlikely without extreme tanking over a period of many years.

And it could still fail, of course.

I don't even disagree with what we're doing. In fact, I've been calling for it. But like I said, each of these situations and the decision to tank or not should be on an individual basis. As a whole, I think the effectiveness of tanking is highly overrated even if it can be the right move in a certain situation. A big part of that is the expectations vs reality that @idiot outlined. We all know the reality and difficulty of making unlikely moves outside of the draft. But when it comes to the tanking it's often seen as this failproof, dummy proof method.

There are those who are always against tanking just because it's horrible....I think some take that and say tanking must always be good as long as you're willing to sacrifice but I don't find that to be the case. Tanking can both be horrible and also sometimes the wrong teambuilding strategy. Again, depends on the situation.

 

[idiot]

Now do the other team building strategies. What exactly is the alternative? We are both doing the tank and middle build by holding other teams picks. If we opt to build through FA and trades we have the necessary fodder to do that. The tank is one component of what we opted to do. None of the strategies have high success rates. Even trading for stars has some catastrophic consequences and a low success rate.

Its likely a multi-year endeavor though as we haven't hit on the drafted star with our mid/late lotto or other picks (most likely) and haven't gotten the luck of jumping into the top 4 to have a better shot at drafting the star. At this point we have to likely sell off part of the infrastructure that would make it a quick rebuild.

Not trying to argue that other strategies are necessarily better -- just that the high-loss tanking strategy is much less likely to yield the desired results than we typically think.

If anything, I'm arguing that strategy is less important than execution and serendipity. Like almost all of the contenders, you need a lot of luck to hit on the big stuff, as well as a lot of skill in hitting at lots and lots of smaller stuff.

Sometimes tanking turns out to be larger or smaller parts -- even if not the largest part -- of the answer (Cleveland, OKC [though they didn't need high-loss seasons to build a contender], Houston, Denver). Sometimes it's not really much involved with success at all (Knicks, Bucks, Suns, Boston, Golden State). Sometimes it's the major factor (Dallas, Memphis, maybe Atlanta). In many, or perhaps even most, cases it yields nothing much more than we achieved without tanking in the Rudy/Donovan era (Minnesota, Philadelphia), a time when we arguably were following no "strategy."

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Perhaps I have missed this from my perspective, but I don’t see the two sided smugness. What I see mostly is people claiming “OKC model” but I have never ever seen “Pistons model” or insert any other failed build. A big part of the smugness that bothers me is that people act like tanking is without fail and then pretend as if it’s only sacrifice that needs you to get there. Like if you don’t agree with a tanking strategy it is only because you are impatient. I can only speak from my own experience and am not denying what you’re saying….but that’s what I’ve gathered from endless tanking convos over the years.

Reality is that I think the decision needs to be made on a case by case basis. I find that looking at tanking/anti-tank from a large, general perspective turns into a reductive and meaningless conversation. Is it good? If we’re not talking about a specific team and situation, I’m just not interested in talking about it.

Also, I just want to say that tanking at a concept (regardless of effectiveness) just completely sucks. I wouldn’t blame anyone who doesn’t want partake.

You may like the solution I concocted.

I see know it alls on all sides. Not gonna lie though some of the hardcore tankers are some of the biggest dumbasses and they are smug on top of it. So yeah... I get ya.

 

[Handlogten's Heros]

Not trying to argue that other strategies are necessarily better -- just that the high-loss tanking strategy is much less likely to yield the desired results than we typically think.

If anything, I'm arguing that strategy is less important than execution and serendipity. Like almost all of the contenders, you need a lot of luck to hit on the big stuff, as well as a lot of skill in hitting at lots and lots of smaller stuff.

Sometimes tanking turns out to be larger or smaller parts -- even if not the largest part -- of the answer (Cleveland, OKC [though they didn't need high-loss seasons to build a contender], Houston, Denver). Sometimes it's not really much involved with success at all (Knicks, Bucks, Suns, Boston, Golden State). Sometimes it's the major factor (Dallas, Memphis, maybe Atlanta). In many, or perhaps even most, cases it yields nothing much more than we achieved without tanking in the Rudy/Donovan era (Minnesota, Philadelphia), a time when we arguably were following no "strategy."

Its true. The real strategy is to get insanely lucky one way or another and make good decisions (that also require some luck) along the way. I think the reason the tear down was smart was in part because I feel the writing was on the wall (okay if others feel differently that's fine) and because we nabbed the future luck of a couple additional teams. That particular flavor of tanking hasn't been done much and has had a higher success rate. OKC/Boston... can't think of too many others though Philly did this just didn't have as big a head start. I think it was a smart start but we haven't nailed a ton of stuff since so its likely a longer process than I had hoped.