Between 2003 and 2018 Nuggets and Bucks combined for 4 bottom 3 finishes in their conferences and 17 playoff appearances with only 1 of those 17 going beyond first round. That is the definition of being "mid".
They got into the tournament with over 50% success rate and fell in the first round almost 95% of the time. Bucks had 4 bottom 3 finishes while Denver had ZERO. Always at the bubble, or always exiting in the first round. I'm not gonna go check their closing records from the seasons when they were outside, but I bet they did late tanks as much as the rest. So 5-6 years ago you would have labeled them both in that "bad franchises" category, yet now they are recent champions coming from small markets.
Now your turn to provide evidence of a deep grinding tank leading to a championship. Minimum requirement could be say.... 3 consecutive years of picking in top 7?
PS:
During that same timeframe (2003-2018) Sacramento had 3 playoff appearances and 7 bottom 3 finishes in conference. So your logic holds absolutely no water. Both Nuggets and Bucks were 100x more mid than Sacramento.
Do you know what's the commonality between the Bucks and the Nuggets? They both drafted their MVPs in the draft... and both drafted them way outside of the top 10. They didn't become great from the middle because of trading for Jonh Collins or Kelly Olynyk types... they became great because they picked MVPs in the draft... and then built around them. The hard part is the MVP part. A while ago I went back about 30 years in the past and looked at all the NBA champions in that timespan. I think only one or two didn't have an NBA MVP on their roster. If you have faith that we can get an MVP level player drafting in the middle.. then... sure... lets do it. I would always go for as high of a pick as possible... especially in drafts with clear generational talents.