Great Article by Chris Mannix on "Tanking"

[D.o.s.]

Agreed, you need more of a long-term plan than "get bad and be bailed out by the lottery."

What is this!? A reasonable opinion on "tanking"?

Get outta town with that crap

My bad, lemme try again.

"WIGGINS OR BUST!!!"

or

"CELTIC PRIDE WE DON'T TANK, HAVE NEVER TANKED, AND WILL NEVER TANK!!!!"

[Snakehead]

It worked for the '97 Spurs.
It worked for the '84 Rockets.
It worked for the '03 Cavs.
It worked for the '12 Warriors.
It worked for the Seattle SuperThunder.

He is right that "just tanking doesn't get the job done," though.

What do you say about the countless teams who have swam in lottery water for years without ever getting significantly better?

They either drafted poorly, were run poorly, or got unlucky with how talented the drafts were in the years they tanked.

So in other words tanking words except when it doesn't. Well, that was insightful.

Tanking doesn't succeed often enough for it to be a good strategy, so long as you have other options.  The Celtics have other options.  People who think that getting a high draft pick is the only chance for success are wrong.

Collecting assets is just the smarter move.  And that's what we are doing.

[D.o.s.]

Derrick Rose's Bulls, if he doesn't suffer a knee injury they may have a title.  the NBA is a super star driven league more than any other sport.  The only team I can remember that wasn't built with high lottery picks were the 2000's pistons.  Every title can be tied to a high pick.  The C's don't get Ray Allen without the 5 pick to trade and KG doesn't come to Boston if they don't have Ray Allen.  Lebron / Bosh don't go to Miami if Wade isn't there.  The Spurs / Rockets don't win titles without Duncan and The Dream, Kobe was a lottery pick. Yes, the Pistons won one title doing it without tanking and maybe the Pacers will prove us wrong? The evidence over the last few decades shows that securing lottery picks / with a competent GM is the path back to a title.  Not sure why people don't get this?

The lakers did it without tanking when they traded divac for Kobe and signed Shaq as a free agent. They then also traded Marc Gasol for pau Gasol , without tanking. Tanking has get low probability of workin out long term. The spurs team never tanked to get Duncan, they lost their star center for the season and got lucky when the odds were in the celtics favor to land Duncan

They sat David Robinson, Sean Elliot, and Chuck Person for the season after their injuries, and I would posit that the only reason they sat those guys for as long as they did--as opposed to bringing them back as quickly as possible--was because of Tim Duncan.

They went from a 59 win team to a 20 win team. (That remains the second largest single-season decline in the NBA, by the way--only the LeBron-less 2011 Cavs did worse.) They fired their coach and their general manager took over. If that isn't circumstantial evidence of a tank job, I'm not sure what else could be.

[Vermont Green]

The reason that tanking doesn't work every time is that there are multiple elements of chance involved with drafting.  First and foremost there is the whole Ping-Pong ball thing but drafting itself is a very unpredictable, especially now that all the stars are so young.

There have been countless can't miss players that have missed.  Bad/unlucky drafting is only one of the many problems for the Bobcats.  Tanking and drafting can work, especially in a year where are studs coming out in the draft but there is no guarantee.  Drafting is riskier but potentially with higher reward than say trading for or signing established veterans.

We are in a position where we should get some good draft picks, we have assets to pull off decent trades, and eventually we will have cap space and have some shots at some of the better free agents.  We are in good shape to rebuild using all available paths.

[fairweatherfan]

It worked for the '97 Spurs.
It worked for the '84 Rockets.
It worked for the '03 Cavs.
It worked for the '12 Warriors.
It worked for the Seattle SuperThunder.

He is right that "just tanking doesn't get the job done," though.

What do you say about the countless teams who have swam in lottery water for years without ever getting significantly better?

They either drafted poorly, were run poorly, or got unlucky with how talented the drafts were in the years they tanked.

So in other words tanking words except when it doesn't. Well, that was insightful.

Could you describe a strategy that doesn't fit that description?  Everything works except when it doesn't, or else everyone/no one does it and no advantage is gained.

Where the "insight" comes in is trying to sort out which strategies have a better or worse chance of working, and why.

[Stizz44]

If management running the Bobcats weren’t idiots and went with Damian Lillard or Andre Drummond they would be in a much better situation.

[BballTim]

It worked for the '97 Spurs.
It worked for the '84 Rockets.
It worked for the '03 Cavs.
It worked for the '12 Warriors.
It worked for the Seattle SuperThunder.

He is right that "just tanking doesn't get the job done," though.

  Two of the five teams it worked for (out of all the teams that tanked over a 30 year period) won a title. I can see why so many people (not necessarily you) see it as an easy solution to our problems.

[fairweatherfan]

It pretty much worked for the '06-'07 Celtics, too.

I think multiple seasons of tanking and poor management is the losing strategy. One season in the tank with a solid plan, that's another thing entirely.

Yeah, any kind of tank or rebuild or whatever the term is now requires contingency plans.  One lottery draw led Danny to likely switch from "trade Pierce and build around Al, Rondo, and Oden/Durant" to "cash in assets to snap up stars from teams that are looking to bottom out themselves." 

Did the "tank" fail?  It would've if we had no Plan B beyond "Top-2 or bust", but instead, we switched tacks and it led directly to 5-6 seasons of elite contention.

[D.o.s.]

It worked for the '97 Spurs.
It worked for the '84 Rockets.
It worked for the '03 Cavs.
It worked for the '12 Warriors.
It worked for the Seattle SuperThunder.

He is right that "just tanking doesn't get the job done," though.

  Two of the five teams it worked for (out of all the teams that tanked over a 30 year period) won a title. I can see why so many people (not necessarily you) see it as an easy solution to our problems.

I believe the verdict's still out on the Seattlahoma City SuperDer and the Warriors.

[playdream]

tanking isn't the only way
but giving the certain situation tanking is indeed the best way
for the celtics future

[BballTim]

It worked for the '97 Spurs.
It worked for the '84 Rockets.
It worked for the '03 Cavs.
It worked for the '12 Warriors.
It worked for the Seattle SuperThunder.

He is right that "just tanking doesn't get the job done," though.

  Two of the five teams it worked for (out of all the teams that tanked over a 30 year period) won a title. I can see why so many people (not necessarily you) see it as an easy solution to our problems.

I believe the verdict's still out on the Seattlahoma City SuperDer and the Warriors.

  I'd put more stock in OKC than GS though.

[kozlodoev]

Could you describe a strategy that doesn't fit that description?

A strategy in which you hedge your bets. Play for a draft pick, develop the talent that you have, position yourself to execute trades. That's precisely what we did in 2006.

"Rebuilding" a team by losing 60 games and hoping that one player can win games by himself is not exactly a very high percentage strategy.

[ssspence]

It worked for the '97 Spurs.
It worked for the '84 Rockets.
It worked for the '03 Cavs.
It worked for the '12 Warriors.
It worked for the Seattle SuperThunder.

He is right that "just tanking doesn't get the job done," though.

  Two of the five teams it worked for (out of all the teams that tanked over a 30 year period) won a title. I can see why so many people (not necessarily you) see it as an easy solution to our problems.

I believe the verdict's still out on the Seattlahoma City SuperDer and the Warriors.

  I'd put more stock in OKC than GS though.

Worth pointing out that it didn't work out for OKC... meaning, not getting the #1 pick saved them, as they got Durant instead of Oden.

The gist there would back up Mannix's point: the draft is a much of a crap shoot as the lottery, so there's not much upside in literally attempting to lose games (not to mention the bad karma)... just as we saw with ML's Cs.

Nothing wrong with eschewing (trading?) veterans to develop young talent. You can still play hard game in / game out, and still lose enough games to get some ping pong balls.

[Moranis]

It worked for the '97 Spurs.
It worked for the '84 Rockets.
It worked for the '03 Cavs.
It worked for the '12 Warriors.
It worked for the Seattle SuperThunder.

He is right that "just tanking doesn't get the job done," though.

What do you say about the countless teams who have swam in lottery water for years without ever getting significantly better?

what countless teams are those?  Sure you have the Bobcats and in years past the Clippers, but those are easily explained by their terrible management, but what are these other countless teams you speak of that have toiled in the lottery for years.

[BballTim]

Derrick Rose's Bulls, if he doesn't suffer a knee injury they may have a title.  the NBA is a super star driven league more than any other sport.  The only team I can remember that wasn't built with high lottery picks were the 2000's pistons.  Every title can be tied to a high pick.  The C's don't get Ray Allen without the 5 pick to trade and KG doesn't come to Boston if they don't have Ray Allen.  Lebron / Bosh don't go to Miami if Wade isn't there.  The Spurs / Rockets don't win titles without Duncan and The Dream, Kobe was a lottery pick. Yes, the Pistons won one title doing it without tanking and maybe the Pacers will prove us wrong? The evidence over the last few decades shows that securing lottery picks / with a competent GM is the path back to a title.  Not sure why people don't get this?

  The Lakers didn't use high draft picks. Neither did the Pistons, neither did the Mavs. The Celts had the 5th pick but it was out of the top tier of players in that draft. Those teams (even without the Celts) have won a fair amount of the titles in this century.