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Culture of winning or tank?

Win or tank?

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KqWIN said:
You’re right on all of this.The unfortunate reality is that there is no benefit to not tanking in the NBA. So however marginal the gains are for a single year, there are no gains for winning 20 games versus 30 games. In theory you should have more to begin with at 30 games. But it really depends on what’s delivering you those 30 games in terms of what that means for the future.

Generally, tanking is an often overrated strategy in my opinion. But the obsession of tanking is just a symptom of how fans have started to view the NBA. The NBA is not a league that lives on day to day competition. People don’t care about day to day competition, the only thing that matters is the future and the larger context. Winning games does not matter unless it means something for tomorrow.

I do feel like people buy into tanking because there is feeling that the team is working towards a title…even if they are disregarding the extremely low probability and unreliability of that strategy.

OTOH, I don’t really buy into the negative effects of tanking. I don’t think a culture is created when you win 30 games versus 20. If you win 30 games on the backs of vets who won’t be here in a couple years, you are worse off than the team that wins 20 on the backs of young players who are talented but simply not experienced enough and/or not ever going to be good enough. This is true independent of the draft incentive.

Also….More wins =\= better culture. You can win the maximum amount of games, have everyone happy, and it still be a negative basketball culture IMO. The most recent version of the Jazz was a perfect example. Trust team had its ups and downs, and there was constant talk about whether or not the players were best buds. Truth is, I don’t think the buddy buddy stuff mattered. I think the reason they failed is because they built bad habits during the regular season that set them up to fail in the preseason. This was true when they were best buds and had the best record and also when they were passive aggressively throwing jabs at each other in the media. The noise didn’t matter….what mattered is that they built a rigid brand of basketball that could not compete in the playoffs and did not have the ability to divert from their habits. You can obviously build bad habits from being in a situation where wins don’t matter, but that can also happen when trying to maximize wins.
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Great post


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hgb said:
The fact that we traded him for a very solid vet doesn't exactly scream tanking, does it? 2 games in, it's pretty obvious that KO is helping us win games (as Bojan also surely would've done, but we got younger, saved money and we've got Kelly next year if we want to).
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This is true but only because we won 2 games we weren’t supposed to win. I dont think DA made that trade because he thought KO was going to win us bunch of games this year. He doesnt care about wins this season. Im betting he is smart enough to know that winning 33 games doesnt help the franchise anymore than winning 23 games. In fact its quite the opposite.


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Keefe said:
I know culture is important but the tank is far more important. Elite players is what wins rings. No elite player will ever sign in Utah unless drafted by Utah. We need to tank to get that elite player. He won’t have to be drafted in the top two (Wemby, Scoot) necessarily but we likely need a top 5-7 pick, and if we don’t get one, we will need to be extremely lucky that whoever we draft at #10 (hypothetically) hits and becomes ala Kawhi or whoever else.

Again, this isn’t to say culture isn’t hugely important. It is. But right now, tanking, far and away is more important. And that’s why the signing of someone like Olynyk baffled me.
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Ya i mean is the culture way better if we win 30 games rather than 23 games?
At the end of a 30 win season are all the players popping champagne and celebrating those extra 7 wins? I doubt it.

And tanking wont always work. In fact most of the time it wont work. Many many busts from top picks.
But if i asked anyone, including anti tankers, if they would sacrifice 7 wins this season because it would mean we get to draft lebron next year instead of derozan or someone then i bet they would sacrifice those 7 wins and take lebron despite the hit our “culture” would take from those extra losses.
In a season when we are going to lose more games than we win regardless of anything else, you might as well give yourself the best chance at a lebron type player. If it fails and you dont get that player then are you really any worse off than if you won a few more games but still sucked? I dont think so.

Having said all that, i got caught up in the first two games to the point that i have have this hope that we are really good and might make the playoffs. If thats the case then screw the tank.

Basically, if we arent going to be good then lets be really bad. But if we are going to be good then lets be as good as possible and win all the games.

These first two games have really turned things upside down and made things interesting for sure.


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fishonjazz said:
I think ainge tried to intentionally make the team bad to make our pick better this season. So does literally everyone who commentates and writes about the nba nationally and locally.
The jazz won 2 games that they weren’t supposed to win. That wasnt the plan.
I have enjoyed the wins and im fine with more winning but that wasnt the plan. The moves made did not indicate an attempt to win as many games as possible. This is pretty obvious.
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The Mitchell/Gobert trades were done for the purpose of acquiring young talent and a ton of other teams draft picks. Does it make us worse short-term? Yes. Was that the exclusive purpose of the trade? Obviously not.

fishonjazz said:
I notice you used the term “better for the development of the younger players” rather than “ainge thinks olynyk will help us get more wins”
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Just because a move isn't done to get us more wins in the short-term does not mean it's automatically for tanking purposes. As I said before, I think Ainge does this trade even if the Jazz do not own their own 2023 pick.

fishonjazz said:
Part of rebuilding is getting draft picks and having those draft picks be as good of picks as possible. Draft picks don’t help you win as you cant put them into a game. Rebuilding, especially rebuilding the way we did (trading all our best players) is synonymous with tanking.
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I think you and One Love just don't understand what tanking means.

Tanking is when you deliberately make your team worse for the sake of making your own draft picks better. Trading all of your best players for other teams picks is not that. Rebuilding is absolutely not synonymous with trading. Ainge rebuilt the Celtics twice. Neither time did he rely on making the Celtics as bad as possible to get a better draft pick. Did he make the Celtics worse in the short-term during the rebuild? Yes. He made them deliberately worse in order to get other teams picks. And THOSE picks were what supercharged the Celtics rebuild.

fishonjazz said:
We could have rebuilt around our all stars still in their primes and traded away bogey, royce, clarkson, and conley for a rebuild that keeps us looking like a competitive team that wants to win and that would be a rebuild that is not synonymous with tanking.
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That would have been another strategy, but once again, and here's the thing I think you and One Love keep not getting: Just because a trade makes your team worse in the short-run doesn't mean it was made for the purpose of making your own draft pick better (ie tanking).

A good exercise is to ask yourself if all the moves the Jazz made this offseason make complete sense even IF the Jazz didn't own their own 2023 pick. I think they absolutely do and would still be completely on board with all of them.
 
If winning is driven by the players that will be here in 2-3 years then winning a little extra is okay. If it’s driven by Mike, KO, JC, etc then the future “culture” benefits will be minimal and pale in comparison of reducing our chances at a couple superstars and drastically reducing our chance at landing an all star this draft. It still can get done at 7 or 8 and it’s true we have a non zero chance at moving up but the cultural benefits are fleeting.

The other benefit of a tear down/tank is not only improving your own draft equity but cashing in on good vets for draft assets or additional future flexibility. The draft pick market has dried a bit it seems (at least for firsts). Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to acquire a bunch of seconds and some additional cap space for next year. If we get 20 games in and it’s all we can get for Mike/JC/KO then we should consider it strongly.

The other benefit is development time. While having vets guide the young guys is nice… nothing will help their development more than regular playing time and opportunities. They can get gifted too many minutes sometimes… but Ochai languishing in the G league is tough. He’s a 3 and D guy and that league is so different… not sure he develops the habits he needs to there.

Unless it’s Kessler, Lauri, Vando, Sexton, and Ochai leading us to 35 wins it is counterproductive imo.
 
MT Steve said:
The Mitchell/Gobert trades were done for the purpose of acquiring young talent and a ton of other teams draft picks. Does it make us worse short-term? Yes. Was that the exclusive purpose of the trade? Obviously not.


Just because a move isn't done to get us more wins in the short-term does not mean it's automatically for tanking purposes. As I said before, I think Ainge does this trade even if the Jazz do not own their own 2023 pick.


I think you and One Love just don't understand what tanking means.

Tanking is when you deliberately make your team worse for the sake of making your own draft picks better. Trading all of your best players for other teams picks is not that. Rebuilding is absolutely not synonymous with trading. Ainge rebuilt the Celtics twice. Neither time did he rely on making the Celtics as bad as possible to get a better draft pick. Did he make the Celtics worse in the short-term during the rebuild? Yes. He made them deliberately worse in order to get other teams picks. And THOSE picks were what supercharged the Celtics rebuild.


That would have been another strategy, but once again, and here's the thing I think you and One Love keep not getting: Just because a trade makes your team worse in the short-run doesn't mean it was made for the purpose of making your own draft pick better (ie tanking).

A good exercise is to ask yourself if all the moves the Jazz made this offseason make complete sense even IF the Jazz didn't own their own 2023 pick. I think they absolutely do and would still be completely on board with all of them.
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Ya agree to disagree. We could have traded donovan and rudy for good young players. Or good vets. Instead we traded our all stars for other teams castoffs. Players that no one wanted. Players that bounced around the league. Players whose previous teams weren’t playing much because they werent good enough to get minutes.
That is an attempt to be bad. Turns out that the castoffs can play or the coaching is amazing or we are surprising teams. We are winning. Looking simply at the donovan, rudy, oneal, and bogey trades on paper though we werent trying to build a roster to win games this season. Literally no one in the media around the country thought we were trying to win based on the trades we made. Quite the opposite. Jazz fans were either pissed that we were tanking or happy that we were tanking before the season started.
No one was like “i love these trades we made. We are going to win so many games this season now!”
What did vegas have the jazz winning prior to the season? How many games have we been favored in so far?
This roster was assembled with the expectation of many many losses. By design.


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fishonjazz said:
Ya agree to disagree. We could have traded donovan and rudy for good young players. Or good vets. Instead we traded our all stars for other teams castoffs. Players that no one wanted. Players that bounced around the league. Players whose previous teams weren’t playing much because they werent good enough to get minutes.
That is an attempt to be bad. Turns out that the castoffs can play or the coaching is amazing or we are surprising teams. We are winning. Looking simply at the donovan, rudy, oneal, and bogey trades on paper though we werent trying to build a roster to win games this season. Literally no one in the media around the country thought we were trying to win based on the trades we made. Quite the opposite. Jazz fans were either pissed that we were tanking or happy that we were tanking before the season started.
No one was like “i love these trades we made. We are going to win so many games this season now!”
What did vegas have the jazz winning prior to the season? How many games have we been favored in so far?
This roster was assembled with the expectation of many many losses. By design.


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This.
 
Winning a good number of games VS winning a championship are 2 different things. (We were #1 in the League and we saw what happened to that team).

Then I think we need to ask ourselves "Do we need a Top 10 talent on the team to win an NBA Championship?"

With the exception of the 2004 Pistons I think the answer to that is "Yes". (Even Toronto needed Kawhi)

Then the next question is "How would the Jazz go and grab a Top 10 talent?"

We ain't gonna get it through FA I don't think.. Trading would be extremely difficult (look at what TWolves gave up for Gobert.. Cavs for Donovan and they're not even top 10 players)

That's why people say we need to build through the draft. (and being really bad for a few seasons intentionally)
 
fishonjazz said:
Ya agree to disagree. We could have traded donovan and rudy for good young players. Or good vets. Instead we traded our all stars for other teams castoffs. Players that no one wanted. Players that bounced around the league. Players whose previous teams weren’t playing much because they werent good enough to get minutes.
That is an attempt to be bad. Turns out that the castoffs can play or the coaching is amazing or we are surprising teams. We are winning. Looking simply at the donovan, rudy, oneal, and bogey trades on paper though we werent trying to build a roster to win games this season. Literally no one in the media around the country thought we were trying to win based on the trades we made. Quite the opposite. Jazz fans were either pissed that we were tanking or happy that we were tanking before the season started.
No one was like “i love these trades we made. We are going to win so many games this season now!”
What did vegas have the jazz winning prior to the season? How many games have we been favored in so far?
This roster was assembled with the expectation of many many losses. By design.


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I can promise you that I'm not arguing that the Jazz tried to be good this season.

I don't know how else I can explain it man. We just have a different definition of tanking.
 
ONE LOVE said:
Winning a good number of games VS winning a championship are 2 different things. (We were #1 in the League and we saw what happened to that team).

Then I think we need to ask ourselves "Do we need a Top 10 talent on the team to win an NBA Championship?"

With the exception of the 2004 Pistons I think the answer to that is "Yes". (Even Toronto needed Kawhi)

Then the next question is "How would the Jazz go and grab a Top 10 talent?"

We ain't gonna get it through FA I don't think.. Trading would be extremely difficult (look at what TWolves gave up for Gobert.. Cavs for Donovan and they're not even top 10 players)

That's why people say we need to build through the draft. (and being really bad for a few seasons intentionally)
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Once the decisions to trade O’Neale and Gobert were made, I was all in on the tank. I personally thought that DA would tear the foundation down to the studs. . . and then burn that down too. But only if it could happen before the season started.

I think you have to roll with who you have - unless the Jazz get an offer they can’t refuse. IMO, the Jazz should still be sellers and look to move everyone on a 2 year contract (except Vando - I’ve come around to keeping him as a long-term piece). . . Conley, Clarkson, Beasley, Olynyk, Gay and THT should all still be on the trading block. Draft assets and young players to build around Markkanen, Sexton, Agbaji, Kessler and Vando.

With that said. . . Will Hardy is a keeper. It’ll be fascinating to see if he can mold this “Island of Misfit Toys” into a playoff team after trading away 4/5 starters (including 2 All Stars) from last season.
 
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MT Steve said:
I can promise you that I'm not arguing that the Jazz tried to be good this season.

I don't know how else I can explain it man. We just have a different definition of tanking.
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Let me put it this way. Before this season started EVERYONE said we were tanking. Some people were happy about it. Some were upset about it. Some were right in the middle. But everyone said we were tanking. If you are honest with yourself i bet you even said we were tanking after the trades we made.


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Avery said:
I guess Wemby won’t be looking at SLC real estate.
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Oh well there goes our best case scenario 14% chance at fame and glory. But in all fairness, in light of the tragic Chet Holmgren injury, people are being unrealistically optimistic if they don’t consider the possibility of him being the biggest first pick disappointment since Greg Oden. Or how about #2 overall Sam Bowie?
 
fishonjazz said:
Let me put it this way. Before this season started EVERYONE said we were tanking. Some people were happy about it. Some were upset about it. Some were right in the middle. But everyone said we were tanking. If you are honest with yourself i bet you even said we were tanking after the trades we made.


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Everyone? Ainge, Smith, Zanick, and Hardy all said we were not tanking. That they would be competitive while being flexible. I agree with what MT Steve is saying. Where you guys are hung up is on definition. The Jazz are in a rebuild. The definition of a rebuild is Playing there best players and trying to complete and see were the group takes them and if there are keepers that you can continue to rebuild with.
The definition of tanking is dumping all your Vets and good players rolling out young guys that have no chance to complete and then sitting guys that are helping you win so that you loose even more. Then hoping you loose enough multiple years in a row to get really high picks.
Ainge has never really ranked. Just rebuilt. So I’m sure that is still his plan here
 
Every team will say they are not tanking even if it's obvious they are
Adam Silver and the NBA are always lurking and listening :) :) :)
 
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