Culture of winning or tank?

[ONE LOVE]

Having all-time great luck at drafting isn't a plan. Good thing they weren't above tanking either. Did nothing to their longterm culture and it is one of the most egregious cases in recent memory.

Well yeah it helped that they can pick talent, but like you said they weren't above tanking.

And did you see the Ring Ceremony? I'd bet 90% of the crowd (and/or most of the TV audience) even know that the Warriors once tanked.

 

[TheStormofWar]

No one said we couldn't do both. In my mind though, culture is more difficult to rebuild than talent. If the roster somehow pulls a .500 season despite the current headwinds, then Ainge, Zanick, and Hardy are in a good position in regard to the latter. That means their valuable players on the roster who are doing the right things. You can always acquire more people with the skills, but mindset is a more difficult beast.

Not to go life coach, but I'm a firm believer that you cannot teach mindset. Rather, that's something learned through experience and self-realization. In most cases, for someone to move beyond their current station, they first have to WANT to do that. If this club pulls a play-in type of season despite the gauntlet of great teams they will push through, that means there's something there that needs to be built around and encouraged.

 

[FrenchJazzFa]

If we do a Memphis style strategy, im all in. Memphis never really tank hard, just keep playing and remain a 30-35 win team it could work. Of course you have to be lucky at lottery but even if you tank you need some luck. And blow all the team just to get a top player keep you years away to become a contender.
The roster is quite good with many players who can be here in the coming years. We have to tank this year only, get 20-25 win and be smart at the draft. I totally trust DA in what he is doing.

 

[hgb]

Do you guys remember when the Warriors out tanked us and got our NY (?) pick which got them Harrison Barnes which then kick started their Championship run?

We actually helped them get their 4 titles by being too proud to out-tank that year.

They didn't out-tank us, they out-tanked someone else (looks like Raptors). We would've had the 18th pick (Terrence Jones), but it was traded.
(Next year we got their 21st pick (Dieng) which was traded in the Trey Burke trade.)

 

[TheStormofWar]

If we do a Memphis style strategy, im all in. Memphis never really tank hard, just keep playing and remain a 30-35 win team it could work. Of course you have to be lucky at lottery but even if you tank you need some luck. And blow all the team just to get a top player keep you years away to become a contender.
The roster is quite good with many players who can be here in the coming years. We have to tank this year only, get 20-25 win and be smart at the draft. I totally trust DA in what he is doing.

Bingo. There was still a measure of luck getting Ja, but most of the roster was simply about getting the right players who were fitting what they built. It's better for a team to bust its arse and be horrible than for a team to have all the talent but be lazy. If a team is grinding hard while still losing, that's impressive to me. You can teach skills, you cannot teach motivation.

 

[idiot]

Over the last 20 years, how many players picked in the top 3 of the draft (the top 60 draft choices over the past two decades) helped the team that drafted him (without first belonging to any subsequent teams) to win a championship by being the best player on the team?

0

How many even made the finals in this context?

3 (Jayson Tatum, Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant). (A few others could conceivably get there still, though just a few.)

How long do you have to go back before you find a player that was drafted in the top 3 that won his team a championship (without switching teams first)?

25 years (Duncan -- but maybe even he shouldn't count, because his team was certainly not gutted in the process of achieving the draft pick)



So that's basically 1 draft pick out of the last 75 top picks who has won his team a championship as the best player without changing teams first (as Lebron did). Wemby may indeed be great, but we're still fighting long odds if we think he's the simple meal-ticket to a championship.

 

[idiot]

I think we agree that where we are doesnt make a lot of sense. We didnt build around Rudy which made a ton of sense and was easy to do and we didnt get crappy enough in the off season to be in the running for a top pick. My sense for months has been that there is no plan other than being opportunistic. Hope it works.

Can you name me a team that has won a championship in the last 20 years primarily because they tanked effectively?

I don't think you can. But even if you can, for every team you name I think I can name several championship teams that have succeeded primarily by being opportunistic (or lucky if you want to call it that).

 

[hgb]

They didn't out-tank us, they out-tanked someone else (looks like Raptors). We would've had the 18th pick (Terrence Jones), but it was traded.
(Next year we got their 21st pick (Dieng) which was traded in the Trey Burke trade.)

That was a solid tank job, though. While my Warriors-fan brother to this day claims it was all injuries (they had several, including obviously Curry, but also David Lee struggling a lot), the did for example lose the 2nd to last game to the (then) New Orleans Hornets 81-83.

Klay Thompson played 27 minutes, including 0 in the 4th. Same thing against SAS in the last game (playing Chris Wright, Jeremy Tyler, Mickell Gladness, Dominic McGuire and Mikki Moore(!)) for the full 12 minutes of the 4th.

 

[The Fresh Prince]

With all due respect, I'm kinda over "solid squad"s. This franchise has been very good at that, little less and little more.

Well.. I meant solid, potential championship squad. It's not easy to draft high one year, improve to playoff status next year (no point in tanking with no pick). Matter of fact, doesn't Memphis get our pick that year? Would suck to do very bad that year, and they get another superstar to put next to Ja. Lol, oh man they'd become the next Warriors if that happens.

 

[fishonjazz]

I can’t get over how Bogey went to Detroit (?) and the Lakers just stared at the freight train that is Russell Westbrook barreling down the track and have done nothing.

I don’t know who gets more blame, but it is an absolute absurdity nothing got done there.

That’s a long way of saying the roster is way too good to organically lose 50 games. But nothing is more important than getting a true blue-chipper.

I was just going to come on to jazzfanz this morning and point out how good the lakers would look with bogey and how good the lakers draft picks would look with the jazz. That trade made too much sense for everyone.


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[fishonjazz]

Im full on tank note.
I was watching game one and it was fun to see our guys play well but i kept hoping the nuggets would go on a big run and we would lose.
Its hard to hate a win but I definitely didnt like the win and would rather have had a loss.


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[fishonjazz]

I'm just a fan. I don't get to choose whether or not I spend $1,000 on a lottery ticket.

What I do get to choose is whether or not I enjoy this season.

A. It was a hypothetical question. In the hypothetical you do get to buy the lottery ticket.

B. You can enjoy a season of tanking. In fact you can even enjoy it more than a season of trying to win. We were trying to win last season. I thought last season was not fun at all. It was very frustrating.
This season ther is no pressure and losses are wins. Thats pretty sweet.


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[fishonjazz]

How did the Spurs get Tim Duncan again?

I don't see their fans moaning about winning 5 Championships by tanking that 1 year…

But tanking for duncan cost the spurs their winning culture!


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[fishonjazz]

I remember way back when, when we had a team who's best players were Andrei Kirilenko, Raja Bell, and Carlos Arroyo. We won 42 games that year, and it drew attention from players across the league so much that we had Kenyon Martin considering signing with us.

Of course, we went with the better choice and got Boozer, but we also got Memo.

There's guys out there that will see the winning, positive culture and want to buy in if we do excess expectations and become a Cinderella storyesque team.

There's always the chance that Brooklyn has loads of chemistry issues and has a very bad year. I think this teams culture, and chemistry, and playstyle is too good to tank.

I hope you also remember that the biggest reason we were good again soon after than is because we got the #3 pick and drafted deron williams.


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[fishonjazz]

The Spurs didn't tank to get Duncan. Their best player got hurt, didn't play most of the year, and their other good players fell off a cliff in production.

On the flip side, the team that did tank for Duncan, the Celtics, didn't get him.

They could have played david robinson and won more games. They chose to tank instead.


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[fishonjazz]

No one said we couldn't do both. In my mind though, culture is more difficult to rebuild than talent. If the roster somehow pulls a .500 season despite the current headwinds, then Ainge, Zanick, and Hardy are in a good position in regard to the latter. That means their valuable players on the roster who are doing the right things. You can always acquire more people with the skills, but mindset is a more difficult beast.

Not to go life coach, but I'm a firm believer that you cannot teach mindset. Rather, that's something learned through experience and self-realization. In most cases, for someone to move beyond their current station, they first have to WANT to do that. If this club pulls a play-in type of season despite the gauntlet of great teams they will push through, that means there's something there that needs to be built around and encouraged.

Eh, if you have enough talent then a winning culture happens no matter what.
Do you think the cavs had an amazing winning culture the year before they drafted lebron? Of course not. They sure did win a lot of games once they got lebron though. Culture went from losing to winning 10 seconds after they selected lebron with the #1 pick.


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[fishonjazz]

Over the last 20 years, how many players picked in the top 3 of the draft (the top 60 draft choices over the past two decades) helped the team that drafted him (without first belonging to any subsequent teams) to win a championship by being the best player on the team?

0

How many even made the finals in this context?

3 (Jayson Tatum, Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant). (A few others could conceivably get there still, though just a few.)

How long do you have to go back before you find a player that was drafted in the top 3 that won his team a championship (without switching teams first)?

25 years (Duncan -- but maybe even he shouldn't count, because his team was certainly not gutted in the process of achieving the draft pick)



So that's basically 1 draft pick out of the last 75 top picks who has won his team a championship as the best player without changing teams first (as Lebron did). Wemby may indeed be great, but we're still fighting long odds if we think he's the simple meal-ticket to a championship.

You could probably do the same thing for any scenario. Winning championships is hard. Best way to do it is to have the most talent.
How many teams in the last 50 years won the championship based simply on heart, hustle, scrappiness, and gumption rather than having the most talent?


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[idiot]

You could probably do the same thing for any scenario. Winning championships is hard. Best way to do it is to have the most talent.
How many teams in the last 50 years won the championship based simply on heart, hustle, scrappiness, and gumption rather than having the most talent?


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This was not just "any scenario" I was exploring. This is the scenario that so many are saying is our only realistic chance to get a championship.

I agree with you that winning a championship is hard. I agree that top-tier talent is needed. I agree that tanking vs winning culture is at least partly a false choice. I just don't totally buy the argument that our only serious way to make these achievements is by tanking the bejeezus out of one or multiple seasons. In fact, I think the historical evidence shows how unlikely it is to win a championship through primarily a tanking strategy.

If the Jazz put all their eggs in the tanking basket, I'll understand the rationale. If they don't, I hardly think that we're losing any chance of ever winning a championship.

 

[ONE LOVE]

They didn't out-tank us, they out-tanked someone else (looks like Raptors). We would've had the 18th pick (Terrence Jones), but it was traded.
(Next year we got their 21st pick (Dieng) which was traded in the Trey Burke trade.)

Oh ok but I remember us beating them in the final game of the season that led to the coin toss that we eventually lost? Did I remember that right?

 

[ONE LOVE]

I’ll just leave this here as I think it’s pertinent to the discussion at hand…


View: https://youtu.be/47DmUM7MW7s