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Locke's Tone: Tank on The Horizon?

I believe that tanking is the only true religion and all others are an abomination in my sight. I think any Jazz fan that’s 100% honest with themselves thinks the same thing. I love Don and I love Rudy, but I just can’t picture any scenario in which we choose one or the other and go on to compete for a title.

And for any Jazz fan who’s wringing their hands over Ryan Smith having enough money to effectively run this team and be a tax payer, just stop that immediately. When Ryan purchased the team, I seem to remember all the reports stating that he had a net worth around 7 or 8 billion. Now obviously, most of that is not liquid assets, but it probably could become so pretty damn fast if needed. Just for fun, let’s say that Ryan currently only has $1 billion in the bank. If the NBA sent him a bill for $100 million in luxury tax, Ryan could pay that and still have $900 million on hand. The dude probably couldn’t go broke if he tried. Not only that, it’s not like he’s not making money being the Jazz owner. There’s a reason that franchise values are going through the roof: Because each team makes a **** ton of money.
 
The 100% right thing to do is do the GS or SA tank. Keep the best young player on the team but have that player miss most of the season. Lose a ton and nail the high draft pick.

Having a top 4 pick with Donovan is so much better than just having a top 4 pick.
 
LoPo said:
The 100% right thing to do is do the GS or SA tank. Keep the best young player on the team but have that player miss most of the season. Lose a ton and nail the high draft pick.

Having a top 4 pick with Donovan is so much better than just having a top 4 pick.
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How do you propose we have Don sit out the entire season?
 
When no “win now” trades materialized around the draft, I wondered if things might trend this direction. The reality is, unless you could move Rudy for like talent, or could move the surrounding pieces around Don and Rudy for something of value, the options pretty quickly become blow it up for picks and young pieces or run it back for more of the same.
 
YoungJefe said:
How do you propose we have Don sit out the entire season?
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It doesn't take the entire season to make it into the bottom 4 of the draft. Don could have a very strong start to the season, we realize we have some roster work to do, then he sits after the All Star Break when he's getting Lasix, recovering from an ankle, etc.
 
LoPo said:
It doesn't take the entire season to make it into the bottom 4 of the draft. Don could have a very strong start to the season, we realize we have some roster work to do, then he sits after the All Star Break when he's getting Lasix, recovering from an ankle, etc.
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We'd have to win 20-25 games, so half of what we've averaged with Rudy/Don.
 
YoungJefe said:
We'd have to win 20-25 games, so half of what we've averaged with Rudy/Don.
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Just stick with me for a minute with this train of thought...

- trade Rudy for the type of young, promising talent we have been linked to - DAndre Hunter, Pat Williams, etc.
- trade Conley for expirings and any sort of draft compensation possible
- trade Bojan for expirings and any sort of draft compensation possible
- sign guys who are young and have potential

If we come back next year with draft capital, a promising young player like Williams/Hunter, Donovan and other pieces who could improve, then we have the makings of what we want. In an ideal world, we show some promise early on, but Don needs to sit the 2nd half of the season for whatever reason.

Going into next year, we would have Don, Williams/Hunter, a top 5 pick, and loads of cap space. That's the core of new revival. It takes a year of pain, but it could be 5-10 years of promise following.
 
LoPo said:
Just stick with me for a minute with this train of thought...

- trade Rudy for the type of young, promising talent we have been linked to - DAndre Hunter, Pat Williams, etc.
- trade Conley for expirings and any sort of draft compensation possible
- trade Bojan for expirings and any sort of draft compensation possible
- sign guys who are young and have potential

If we come back next year with draft capital, a promising young player like Williams/Hunter, Donovan and other pieces who could improve, then we have the makings of what we want. In an ideal world, we show some promise early on, but Don needs to sit the 2nd half of the season for whatever reason.

Going into next year, we would have Don, Williams/Hunter, a top 5 pick, and loads of cap space. That's the core of new revival. It takes a year of pain, but it could be 5-10 years of promise following.
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It's going to be nearly impossible to trade Rudy and the other team send us matching salary but we completely tank.
A team sending us expiring deals for Conley would be doing us a favor, so we'd have to send draft capital out.
Bojan for a bad contract would probably net picks.
 
YoungJefe said:
It's going to be nearly impossible to trade Rudy and the other team send us matching salary but we completely tank.
A team sending us expiring deals for Conley would be doing us a favor, so we'd have to send draft capital out.
Bojan for a bad contract would probably net picks.
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Let's just say we do the Rudy deal with Chicago. It will largely be built around Vuc, Williams, Coby White and picks. White and Williams are exactly the type guys we would want. Young, promising, hungry and probably not taking us to the playoffs.

Conley to Washington for KCP, Ish Smith and a future pick is fair. Both of those contracts are expiring.

Bojan to the Boston Celtics for their huge trade exception or to Portland for Bledsoe and draft picks makes sense.

The only question would be - would Donovan sign on off one probably bad year? I'm not here to answer that question, but if you want to know what I'd do, that would be it.
 
I’m fine with trading Mitchell and Rudy for picks and young players. There was something missing from this team all of last season. Made it really hard to believe in them because the flaws were glaringly obvious. People can get behind young players if they can see hope for the future.
 
LoPo said:
Let's just say we do the Rudy deal with Chicago. It will largely be built around Vuc, Williams, Coby White and picks. White and Williams are exactly the type guys we would want. Young, promising, hungry and probably not taking us to the playoffs.

Conley to Washington for KCP, Ish Smith and a future pick is fair. Both of those contracts are expiring.

Bojan to the Boston Celtics for their huge trade exception or to Portland for Bledsoe and draft picks makes sense.

The only question would be - would Donovan sign on off one probably bad year? I'm not here to answer that question, but if you want to know what I'd do, that would be it.
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I think a team of Don - White - KCP - Williams - Vuc is the exactly the type of team that you don't want. Not good enough to make the playoffs but to good to secure a top pick.

If we're selling off everyone for picks, I'm sure Don will ask out. There's no guarantee that those young guys develop, we get lucky in the lottery, or whoever we pick pans out. So there's no guarantee it's a one year rebuild.
 
YoungJefe said:
I think a team of Don - White - KCP - Williams - Vuc is the exactly the type of team that you don't want. Not good enough to make the playoffs but to good to secure a top pick.

If we're selling off everyone for picks, I'm sure Don will ask out. There's no guarantee that those young guys develop, we get lucky in the lottery, or whoever we pick pans out. So there's no guarantee it's a one year rebuild.
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I think so much of this depends on how good Hardy is, and what Ainge really wants to do.

If we got draft assets for Rudy, Conley and Bojan, I'm not sure how Ainge would use it. Would he flip them and build right now? Wait to build in summer 2023?

I don't think Don has much to lose by waiting a year to see how it all goes down. But if he wants gone, he'll let Ainge know. Trading the two old guys and Rudy for youth and/or picks is the right call.
 
LoPo said:
I think so much of this depends on how good Hardy is, and what Ainge really wants to do.

If we got draft assets for Rudy, Conley and Bojan, I'm not sure how Ainge would use it. Would he flip them and build right now? Wait to build in summer 2023?

I don't think Don has much to lose by waiting a year to see how it all goes down. But if he wants gone, he'll let Ainge know. Trading the two old guys and Rudy for youth and/or picks is the right call.
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If a team with Don, KCP, Williams, and Vuc is as bad as teams like the Rockets, Thunder, Pistons, etc. who are literally trying to be terrible, Hardy is probably a horrible coach.

The difficult thing with a Rudy trade is that you have to match $38M in salary coming back with most potential trade partners so we'll likely get a couple solid players at least making it hard to tank.

I don't see anyone giving up draft capital to take on Conley's $50M over the next two years.
 
YoungJefe said:
If a team with Don, KCP, Williams, and Vuc is as bad as teams like the Rockets, Thunder, Pistons, etc. who are literally trying to be terrible, Hardy is probably a horrible coach.

The difficult thing with a Rudy trade is that you have to match $38M in salary coming back with most potential trade partners so we'll likely get a couple solid players at least making it hard to tank.

I don't see anyone giving up draft capital to take on Conley's $50M over the next two years.
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I don't think you set out to tank, but if the opportunity presents itself, then you tank. GS and SA didn't start the season setting to tank. They had Robinson and Elliott or Steph, Klay and Draymond, then ran into injuries, bad luck, whatever. At that point, then decided to shelve the better players and play the youth which inevitably lost a ton.
 
LoPo said:
I don't think you set out to tank, but if the opportunity presents itself, then you tank. GS and SA didn't start the season setting to tank. They had Robinson and Elliott or Steph, Klay and Draymond, then ran into injuries, bad luck, whatever. At that point, then decided to shelve the better players and play the youth which inevitably lost a ton.
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The Warriors tanking really didn't play a huge role in their bounce back, literally 0 players in their playoff rotation were guys they drafted with early picks...
 
The model for a team to rebuild is the model that New Orleans used. They traded AD and got a haul for him. Then they bided their time and traded Jrue when he brought back a haul. Now they're sitting pretty, despite the fact that they've gotten nothing from Zion, basically gave up Lonzo Ball for free and have gotten very little from Jaxson Hayes, NAW and Kira Lewis.

Jazz need to go for the double-haul.
 
Ferguson_Mellochill said:
The model for a team to rebuild is the model that New Orleans used. They traded AD and got a haul for him. Then they bided their time and traded Jrue when he brought back a haul. Now they're sitting pretty, despite the fact that they've gotten nothing from Zion and basically gave up Lonzo Ball for free.

Jazz need to go for the double-haul.
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I mean realistically you just need to hit on a star once and it changes the whole trajectory of your franchise. We've seen it with Luka in Dallas, Ja in Memphis, Trae in Atlanta,
 
YoungJefe said:
I mean realistically you just need to hit on a star once and it changes the whole trajectory of your franchise. We've seen it with Luka in Dallas, Ja in Memphis, Trae in Atlanta,
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A team ultimately needs to have three stars to go all the way. A small-market team needs to draft at least two of them and then have enough assets left over to trade for a third. Even better if the SM team can draft all three like the Warriors did and the Thunder did originally.

This is why the Jazz really couldn't afford to lose Gordon Hayward the way they did. That basically killed this iteration of the Jazz.
 
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