Culture of winning or tank?

[JazzGal]

So basically, you would be happy with having a solid team that makes the playoffs every year but doesn't necessarily have the high-end talent to win a championship? That's exactly what we've had the last 6 years. Wasn't the whole reason why we blew up the roster and started a re-build because being a good team but not a great team wasn't good enough anymore? Didn't we all want more? Aren't we trying to build a roster that can be a true championship contender? I don't want to half *** this rebuild, I'm all in on being bad in the short term if it helps us win a championship in the long term.

I've been a Jazz fan since 1985. I am happy with having a solid team that makes the playoffs every year. I've gotten to see that most every year. I would love a championship some day, but it isn't the reason I watch the team.

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[idiot]

It’s not the kiss of death… it just means the odds are much worse… you did the homework now do the math… it’s not randomness it’s just ****ing math.

I understand the math and the odds. My point is that even the best odds that can be obtained (by the worst record) are not reliable enough as a strategy to put all your money down (a full tank).

Sure, someone's going to get lucky and end up with Wemby. Someone's going to get lucky and end up with Scoot. But there's nearly a 3 in 4 chance that neither of them will be available to us, no matter what we do. And there's certainly well less than a 50% chance (and I think even that's being quite generous, based on the other historical evidence I've been uncovering) that either of them will lead us to the promised land.

Then what? We'll have totally gutted the team. Some team that (as likely as not) didn't "suffer" as much as us will have Wemby. Maybe we'll have Ausur Thompson (ie someone with talent, but not immediately transformational) -- yipee! -- and we'll be looking at 4-5 years more of hard tanking with who-knows-what kind of draft classes as the reward.

I can see why some people might be willing to go here. I can't see why those people are trying to persuade us that it's the "only" path.

If you have to go back 25 years to find an example of a team that tanked, got lucky in the lottery (with much better odds than exist now -- and didn't have to gut the team in the process, by the way), and then was carried by this player to championships, then maybe tanking isn't really the fail-safe strategy it's often presented as.

 

[idiot]

It’s not the kiss of death… it just means the odds are much worse… you did the homework now do the math… it’s not randomness it’s just ****ing math.

By the way, I'd argue that it's both math and randomness. Math and randomness aren't opposites. Math helps us understand the type of randomness at play, but there sure is a whole bunch of randomness involved in who ends up with Wemby or Scoot.

 

[idiot]

Wait, I just realized that you had RJ Barrett in this list. Solid work outside of that. . .

Good point. I might be a little more of an RJ believer than you -- he's still incredibly young. But it's extremely long odds that the Knicks could win a title with him as the best player on the team. He'd essentially have to turn into Jimmy Butler and they'd have to have a Pistons-championship-like team around him.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

I just want a more clear direction. If we choose to take ourselves out of a 17% chance of Victor I'll survive. If we want to try and be a play-in team who pulls off an upset to get smoked in the actual playoffs, I'll enjoy it.

I want to enjoy the Jazz being sneaky good, but it's hard to when the expectation we built up all off-season was tank.

At this point I think that might be the actual direction Danny wants to go. He wants a solid team that he has a lot of ability to play with (as in a lot of assets to make deals). Especially when you look back at his comments. I think he was just bored with the team because there was nothing for him to mold. He was given a finished product he could only change some minor things on. Danny fancies himself an architect, not an interior decorator.

Hopefully we get some kind of move in the next month that makes things a bit more clear.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Overall I just want THT to get 30 mpg.

 

[Eddie Zero]

Not really… in many drafts and likely this one you won’t be able to do that. It’s usually gonna cost 3 firsts to move into that range… like 15/20 can move you up to 10ish based on history… but sometimes you can offer 4-5 first and not move up… just like the Justise Winslow draft. So it’s not easy.

If it’s all luck teams should just trade those top 5 picks… picking out a few busts and stating it’s “luck” is dumb.

I think you missed my point there. I would be fine with being a roster that is playing winning ball all season ends up losing a play in game sits there by record at 11th before the lottery, and moves up by lottery luck. Or just picks at 11.
I was not suggesting they could move up to 4 from 10 with 21 and 28 from the Wolves and PHI. I was suggesting they could win a top pick from late lottery then trade the other two to move up again into the late lottery or right after. 19 and 25 for example could easily get you 14 if its a team void of picks and needs an extra to trade later or something.
I know it aint easy moving up into any pick range, but there is nothing dumb about realizing the majority of teams that tank almost never get the 1 pick its always some team who didn't. Call me a conspiracy theorist but I feel there is a lot of Karma or something shady that goes on behind closed doors when it comes to draft "luck"

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

If the Jazz sauce the Pelicans I will hop on the compete now **** Victor train. Pelicans are legit now and don't need marinating like the Wolves or Nuggets.

 

[idiot]

I just want a more clear direction. If we choose to take ourselves out of a 17% chance of Victor I'll survive. If we want to try and be a play-in team who pulls off an upset to get smoked in the actual playoffs, I'll enjoy it.

I want to enjoy the Jazz being sneaky good, but it's hard to when the expectation we built up all off-season was tank.

At this point I think that might be the actual direction Danny wants to go. He wants a solid team that he has a lot of ability to play with (as in a lot of assets to make deals). Especially when you look back at his comments. I think he was just bored with the team because there was nothing for him to mold. He was given a finished product he could only change some minor things on. Danny fancies himself an architect, not an interior decorator.

Hopefully we get some kind of move in the next month that makes things a bit more clear.

You mean 14% (sorry to be so anal, but people have been arguing about how terrible it would be to see our odds going down from 14% to 10.5%, say, so I guess the difference must be a huge deal).

I think we've been hoodwinked (by some parts of the local/national media) to think that there's only a few possible "clear directions" that a team can take. Particularly, we've been led to believe that tanking is the only strategic option for a (especially small-market) team that has passed its competitive window.

How's this for a strategy -- finish second in the conference with an aging team and then:

• Keep your two best players for two more years while finishing 7th in the conference each of those years
• Keep those two best players on for another year as a non-playoff team
• Keep one of those players on yet again for one more year while finishing with 33 wins and trade the other 2/3 of the way through the year for some OK youngish talent and a second-round pick
• Finish 9th in the conference for the next two years in a row after their previous two best players were finally gone

Is this a clear direction? Would you recommend it to anyone?

The Grizzlies seem to have made it work for them and are regarded as one of the best young teams in the league.

Of course, they got lucky with Ja, did OK in drafting Jaren Jackson the one time they had a truly bad record (not a home run by any means), and hit on a whole bunch of late picks. But that's kind of my point. Having an identifiable "strategy" is less important than either luck or wise choices. The best teams need a whole bunch of both. The strategy itself is somewhat minor, by comparison.

 

[str8line]

Ooh, the poll is tied.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

You mean 14% (sorry to be so anal, but people have been arguing about how terrible it would be to see our odds going down from 14% to 10.5%, say, so I guess the difference must be a huge deal).

I think we've been hoodwinked (by some parts of the local/national media) to think that there's only a few possible "clear directions" that a team can take. Particularly, we've been led to believe that tanking is the only strategic option for a (especially small-market) team that has passed its competitive window.

How's this for a strategy -- finish second in the conference with an aging team and then:

• Keep your two best players for two more years while finishing 7th in the conference each of those years
• Keep those two best players on for another year as a non-playoff team
• Keep one of those players on yet again for one more year while finishing with 33 wins and trade the other 2/3 of the way through the year for some OK youngish talent and a second-round pick
• Finish 9th in the conference for the next two years in a row after their previous two best players were finally gone

Is this a clear direction? Would you recommend it to anyone?

The Grizzlies seem to have made it work for them and are regarded as one of the best young teams in the league.

Of course, they got lucky with Ja, did OK in drafting Jaren Jackson the one time they had a truly bad record (not a home run by any means), and hit on a whole bunch of late picks. But that's kind of my point. Having an identifiable "strategy" is less important than either luck or wise choices. The best teams need a whole bunch of both. The strategy itself is somewhat minor, by comparison.

Of course luck, or lack of it, trumps all, but I would still call the strategy the most major thing.

 

[idiot]

I put culture into the lead not because I think it's an either-or choice, but because I'm still in my pushing-back-against-tanking-as-the-only-reasonable-choice stage of things.

 

[idiot]

Of course luck, or lack of it, trumps all, but I would still call the strategy the most major thing.

Let me slightly amend what I said, then. Strategy matters, but I don't believe there's one single pre-ordained strategy that will turn out best.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

Let me slightly amend what I said, then. Strategy matters, but I don't believe there's one single pre-ordained strategy that will turn out best.

Sure, Benedict Mathurin looking like the ROTY so far and he was the 6th pick

 

[The Midnight]

Golden States clearly tanked to grab Harrison Barnes. Do they not have a winning culture?

 

[The Midnight]

Edited.

Celtics (via Ainge) cleared the house and we’re bad for a while. Then eventually with the picks they grab Tatum and others. Do they not have a winning culture?

They reached the Finals last year.

 

[idiot]

Golden States clearly tanked to grab Harrison Barnes. Do they not have a winning culture?

That was like end-of-the-year positioning so that they could get the 8th pick rather than no pick at all, yeah?

Far different than what we're talking about here.

 

[The Midnight]

Tanking doesn’t mean that once you’re equipped with the right talent you can’t turn around and have a winning culture. I don’t know why the poll makes it seem like you can only have and not the other.

You CAN have BOTH.

 

[idiot]

Celtics (via Ainge) cleared the house and tanked to grab Tatum. Do they not have a winning culture?

They reached the Finals last year.

Celtic won 53 games the season before they grabbed Tatum. They let the Nets do their tanking for them.

 

[The Midnight]

That was like end-of-the-year positioning so that they could get the 8th pick rather than no pick at all, yeah?

Far different than what we're talking about here.

They were bad for a number of years go read my post earlier in the thread.