Losing out on a top-8 pick in a good draft when you don’t have anything resembling “The Guy” could well be catastrophic. Our young guys don’t look like candidates because there are maybe 30 at most of them in the league. Being terrible for another year may or may not be terrible for these players development but again… we don’t have the most amazing group to begin with.
Look, the reality is we’re in a bad spot and there are no easy answers. If you’re happy with a 41-win team with no extra assets (which is what will happen after we trade a bunch of picks for… Sabonis? Trae Young if we’re lucky?), then that’s your preference. I don’t give a single **** about that. I just don’t, and I know a lot of people that feel the same (or at least did, until the reality of what rebuilding is for most teams came into being).
Maybe I should have just stuck with the critique of Lillard and his contract vs. going into it about tanking but I think this is an important topic to consider.
In terms of tanking:
I'm afraid that we will get stuck in the pattern of looking for the magic solution or the magical player that will solve all our problems. Tanking might be a good plan for long term success via. high draft picks or it can become an excuse to never try to build anything. Because if we are tanking, then of course we are going to be bad. Nobody needs to be held accountable for anything, not the players, not the coaches, not the front office. Everyone is happy because losing horribly was the plan all along. There are pitfalls to this kind of approach that can't be measured by the numbers or draft picks.
I will acknowledge that this is the first year of proper "tanking". Perhaps another year or 2 would benefit the rebuilding process.
As long as we are doing proper evaluations on our talent and are preparing properly/keeping the right mindset, its fine.
I don’t even understand what “building the team” means here. Does building the team mean Sexton and Collins? Other options seem legitimately horrible.
Losing a pick isn’t the end of the world….but why are you losing that pick and how are you building forward? If we lose the pick, it should be because our young players have played well enough to win that many games. Not because we wanted to accelerate to 9th place worst finish.
Another approach to "building the team" (aside from tanking) would be to add veterans who can play their positions competently, test various lineups to see which ones prove most positive, then build upon those lineups and players. Move on from players who are clearly negative/don't provide positive value/don't fit and gradually bring young players along until they prove or disprove themselves. Rinse, Repeat, get a little bit better every year. Aka the normal, boring way to build a team. Also the way most teams do it, that can be a good or bad thing.
With the Jazz, this approach would consist of building around Lauri + Sexton + Kessler, keeping Dunn, getting a 3&D wing guy from somewhere, etc. but the team clearly wasn't interested in doing that. They would rather feed minutes to rookies/2nd year players to speed development to the detriment of the current team which coincides with tanking/draft picks. A synergistic strategy, but one that produces some horrible basketball.
All I'm saying is that we can't stand still forever if luck doesn't fall our way, its fine to do it for 1 maybe 2 more years.
Honestly, I just saw the discussion about taking the Lillard contract and a minor asset just because it helps us lose and I had to respond.
Dumping vets who play well for future assets, fine.
Playing young players a ridiculous amount of minutes even when they are an active detriment on the court for development, fine.
Trading for a 50+ million per year boat anchor to get some minor assets because they will help us lose, I think I have to draw the line there.
