Why the tank isn't in as much jeopardy as you think, A Settle the **** Down piece, by fallenchicken:
It's pointless to whine about the Lakers win. We're really not winning games because of Richard Jefferson and you know it (if anything, we should be playing him more for the tank), so stop with the "You just want to play vets" straw man. If we win a game because Derrick Favors has an awesome performance, oh well. I know to the fan-base the bird in the bush seems better than the one in hand, but we need Favors to develop. At least until we draft him, Favors is more important to our team than the fantasy chance of Jabari.
We're probably not going to out-tank the Bucks. I'd like too, but they are outstandingly bad. I mean they are bad in ways we've never seen before. They'll be writing books studying just how bad they are. But... a hero arises: pray for Larry Sanders! Pray for the Greek Freak to finally do something and validate all the hype!
Here's the good news: We could, and hopefully will, out-tank the rest. Let's remember that this Jazz team is one injury away. If one of Trey, Hayward, Burks, Marvin, Favors don't play, we lose. Marvin is an expiring contract; there's always a chance we could move him to a playoff team, or get involved in a bigger trade. History says Favors and Marvin are getting injured again this season. I wouldn't be surprised if Trey has to sit out another ten games with an injury. He hurt his ankle only two nights ago.
How many teams are actually, balls-out tanking, as opposed to just being bad? Let's see here: the Bucks (who are getting Larry Sanders back), The Sixers (Michael-Carter Williams is coming back from injury, as well), and Orlando. The Celtics and Suns, who predicted to out-tank us before the season started, could very likely make the playoffs. Sucks for them, good for us. Sacramento oddly traded for Rudy Gay--they seem to be trying to win games. (Or maybe they're just executing a brilliant tank plan, making Rudy Gay the driver). Toronto is the 4th seed in the East; they're not tanking. The Lakers are trying to win. They have too much pride to tank, and coach Pringles is playing for his job.
Other threats: New York, Brooklyn, Cleveland and Memphis all have pressure to win and make the playoffs, even if they won't. Some of those teams, we won't mention any names, don't even own their picks. And, with the exception of maybe New York at this point--who has the talent to turn it on at some point here (waiting...)--they're all better than us.
If we're saying let's try to move Marvin Williams, just to get him off the team and make it that much harder for us to win: I'm with you. We're all with you. Make it happen. But I won't root against our young core for a hypothetical savior. We're going to get in the lottery the good old fashioned way: by being legitimately bad. Which, please don't forget, no matter what David Locke tells you: we're bad. We're really, really bad! And we're going to lose a lot of games. We beat a ****ty Lakers team at home. Oh well. Happy for Favors. It was cool for him to get a game-winner. Let's move on to the next loss, shall we?
