Suns and Lakers in full tank mode, Brooklyn keeps winning. Trouble for us?

[Darío SpanishFan]

No. Not the slightest trouble.

[schabette]

This team has motivation to Win, all these teams I listed above have hardly any motivation at all at this point.

Ok so let me get this straight: The Brooklyn Nets, who own the worst record in the league by a large margin have more motivation to win, than the Pistons or Bulls, who are fighting for a playoff spot or the celtics who are trying to secure homecourt advantage in the 2nd round.

Yeah, sure, sounds logical!

[jbpats]

This team has motivation to Win, all these teams I listed above have hardly any motivation at all at this point.

Ok so let me get this straight: The Brooklyn Nets, who own the worst record in the league by a large margin have more motivation to win, than the Pistons or Bulls, who are fighting for a playoff spot or the celtics who are trying to secure homecourt advantage in the 2nd round.

Yeah, sure, sounds logical!

Brooklyn absolutely has motivation to beat the Celtics, what's their incentive to lose out? Make a rival that much better for that much longer? And do you think tonight is a guarantee with IT out? Especially if Nets are playing hard like they have been?
Bulls season is over now that Wade is done, I predict that team will be in full on rebuild mode and Butler WILL become available this off season. What is more important to them a slim chance at a 8th seed or a good draft spot?
You are correct about the Pistons, they are just one of the most inconsistent teams in the NBA, along with the Hawks. I think a streaky Nets team who wants to screw the Celtics can give both of these teams some serious run.

[Green-Bananas]

If Brooklyn is at 17 wins at the end of March, and the Lakers still at 20 wins, I won't worry, but I'll start paying attention.

Expect Lopez to be shut down for April again like last year -- they don't want him getting hurt in the last few games, preventing a trade this summer.  Brooklyn still has 10 games left against teams fighting for the playoffs and positioning.  Even if they win all 5 of their games against tankers, they have to win at least 2 games against teams trying to win to even tie the Lakers, assuming the Lakers continue to lose out.  That the Suns are mentioned in this thread is absurd.  You really think the Nets are going to suddenly play .600 ball at the end of the season, which is a 50-win pace over the full year?

Salt, aren't the Suns the third worst team in the standings? What benefit is there for
them to win against the Nets? To let one of Philly or Orlando overtake them? Its that close.

No one here is implying that the Nets are any better then they were, a month ago. Or on a
50 win pace. We are just saying it's odd that all they bottom feeders happen to playing the
Nets to close out the season, and they all need loses to solidify there best lottery odds.
That's all.

The Playoff teams (Celt's for one) can make this a mute point. Let's hope they do

The Suns can tank all they want, but they can't give back the games they've already won.  They currently have 9 more wins than the Nets.  That means, to catch the Suns, the Nets need to win 9 of their final 15 games, which is a .600 winning percentage.  The Nets have some winnable games ahead, but they are still playing 10 of their final 15 games against teams currently in the playoff position or within two spots of playoff position.  Detroit isn't tanking.  They're not a great team, but they're better than the Nets, and they're still trying to win.  Same with Dallas (if you believe otherwise, just ask Washington.)  Same with Chicago (for now).  There is no reason to believe the Nets will win 60% of their final games and catch the Suns. Worrying about them is irrational.

Even "tanking" teams at the end of the year still have players on the court that are trying to win.  Those guys want playing time next year, or even a contract next year.  Sure, the Suns and Lakers coaches may not put all their best players on the court, but the guys out there are going to try -- why lose on purpose, giving a team a better draft pick who's going to come steal your job?  The same is true with Orlando and Philly.  The guys on the court still want to win, same as the Nets players.  There are no guaranteed wins left on the Nets calendar, and there are many games that they are very likely to lose.

There's really no reason to worry about this, and there's certainly no reason to start yet another thread about it.

Salt, I misunderstood what you said in the last post about not worrying about the Suns.
I was talking about the one game between the Nets and Suns. Not the Nets catching up
with the Suns in the standings. Sorry, my bad.
 

[smokeablount]

This team has motivation to Win, all these teams I listed above have hardly any motivation at all at this point.

Ok so let me get this straight: The Brooklyn Nets, who own the worst record in the league by a large margin have more motivation to win, than the Pistons or Bulls, who are fighting for a playoff spot or the celtics who are trying to secure homecourt advantage in the 2nd round.

Yeah, sure, sounds logical!

Brooklyn absolutely has motivation to beat the Celtics, what's their incentive to lose out? Make a rival that much better for that much longer? And do you think tonight is a guarantee with IT out? Especially if Nets are playing hard like they have been?
Bulls season is over now that Wade is done, I predict that team will be in full on rebuild mode and Butler WILL become available this off season. What is more important to them a slim chance at a 8th seed or a good draft spot?
You are correct about the Pistons, they are just one of the most inconsistent teams in the NBA, along with the Hawks. I think a streaky Nets team who wants to screw the Celtics can give both of these teams some serious run.

Bet us some TPs on it!

[footey]

Confident Lakers will lose out. It's very easy to do that. Let the players play and ignore their defense.

Can Brooklyn go 7-8? Of course they can. They are finally healthy, and actually are much better than their record.

If we win tonight, I will feel better.

If we lose, there will be a lot of panic on this board.

[BitterJim]

This team has motivation to Win, all these teams I listed above have hardly any motivation at all at this point.

Ok so let me get this straight: The Brooklyn Nets, who own the worst record in the league by a large margin have more motivation to win, than the Pistons or Bulls, who are fighting for a playoff spot or the celtics who are trying to secure homecourt advantage in the 2nd round.

Yeah, sure, sounds logical!

Brooklyn absolutely has motivation to beat the Celtics, what's their incentive to lose out? Make a rival that much better for that much longer? And do you think tonight is a guarantee with IT out? Especially if Nets are playing hard like they have been?
Bulls season is over now that Wade is done, I predict that team will be in full on rebuild mode and Butler WILL become available this off season. What is more important to them a slim chance at a 8th seed or a good draft spot?
You are correct about the Pistons, they are just one of the most inconsistent teams in the NBA, along with the Hawks. I think a streaky Nets team who wants to screw the Celtics can give both of these teams some serious run.

Nobody is arguing that Brooklyn doesn't have motivation. Every team has motivation, even if the front office wants to tank. Players are still playing their best, either for their pride (no one likes losing games) or to help set them up for future contracts (some for this summer). Players don;t tank, front offices do.

And Brooklyn's been trying to win games all year.  They've lost so many games because wanting to win isn't enough, you need talent, too.  Yes, Lin will help, but they're still a bad team with him. Assuming that he puts the 13 win Nets over the hump enough to go 0.500 against playoff (or near-playoff) teams in the next couple of weeks doesn't make any sense.  If they had that kind of talent on the roster, they would be fighting for a playoff spot instead of trying desperately to not be the worst team in the league (and wouldn't be just 7-16 with Lin)

Obviously, anything can happen, but it makes no sense to worry right now.  If they rattle off enough wins to put the Lakers within a couple games of last place, then go ahead and worry.  But right now you shouldn't be worried about them any more than you should be worried about the Celtics dropping to 5th and losing home court advantage in the first round

[Darío SpanishFan]

This team has motivation to Win, all these teams I listed above have hardly any motivation at all at this point.

Ok so let me get this straight: The Brooklyn Nets, who own the worst record in the league by a large margin have more motivation to win, than the Pistons or Bulls, who are fighting for a playoff spot or the celtics who are trying to secure homecourt advantage in the 2nd round.

Yeah, sure, sounds logical!

Brooklyn absolutely has motivation to beat the Celtics, what's their incentive to lose out?

Not having motivation to lose doesn't mean you have more motivation to win than another team.

[The One]

FiveThirtyEight predicts that the Lakers will end with SIX more wins than Brooklyn.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2017-nba-predictions/


Basketball Reference has the Nets as having a 99.6% chance of having the worst year end record.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/friv/proj_draft.html


Not going to worry about it.

[oldtype]

Did this magical "motivation" to beat the Celtics not exist when we beat them in our first two meetings?

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Why worry about it? We can't control it. The Nets could've ended the season with a total of 0 wins and there still would be no guarantee we'd get the No. 1 pick (or even No. 2 or No. 3). It's all in how the pingpong balls bounce.

[chilidawg]

Yet another Nervous Nancy Thread. (YANNT)

[Csfan1984]

There is still a lottery to be played so the results up to the NBA....

[footey]

Why worry about it? We can't control it. The Nets could've ended the season with a total of 0 wins and there still would be no guarantee we'd get the No. 1 pick (or even No. 2 or No. 3). It's all in how the pingpong balls bounce.

Well, I appreciate your counsel as my therapist, advising to let go of the things we can't control. Good to know.

It matters because (i) our odds of getting top pick increase significantly, (ii) our odds of getting a top 2 or top 3 pick increase significantly, (iii) we would be guaranteed no worse than a top 4 pick. If we finished 2nd in record, we would only be guaranteed a top 5 pick. That is significant because the consensus seems to be building that there are 4 high quality players in this draft (Fultz, Ball, Jackson and Tatum) and a sharp drop to the 5th pick (Isaacs??).

[jbpats]

Yet another Nervous Nancy Thread. (YANNT)

This was my topic and in my OP I did say odds still favor Brooklyn ending up with the worst record. The fact that they are playing arguably their best ball of the season right now, albeit still not great ball, is what's concerning to me.. combined with the fact a lot of teams are entering tank mode right now, something of which Brooklyn has no motivation to do.