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The Spurs and their fans knew this fact 25 years ago.
I don’t want to jinx anything. I hope Wemby is awesome, but I’m keeping my expectations low. I was all in on tanking. And I’d have been happy with a top 3 pick even if we didn’t get the first pick. That said, I’m not counting our rings. You never know what a player will be until he proves it in the NBA. And we will definitely need to manage the rest of our assets before we can get to contender status. But if Wemby is great, then we have tons of pieces to surround him with top talent.
The Spurs and their fans knew this fact 25 years ago.
you are right ... I want Jokic to win it all but if its the Heat or even Celtics it is fine as well. Hopefully the Warriors are done now ...You forgot Dubs out too, closing their window of tieing Timmy’s ring count. Good times indeed
This is the 4th tanking year for Detroit, with the following breakdown:
- 2020:
- Pick: 7th (record tied for 4th worst, 1 game removed from 2nd worst)
- Took: Kyllian Hayes (passed on Haliburton, Vassell, Desmond Bane, Tyrese Maxey, Jaden McDaniels)
- 2021:
- Pick: 1st (2nd worst record)
- Took: Cunningham (passed on Mobley, Franz Wagner, Scottie Barnes, Josh Giddey. There was a rumor OKC was offering SGA for #1, don't know if true)
- 2022:
- Pick: 5th (3rd worst record)
- Took: Ivey (alternatives: Sochan, Sharpe, Mathurin, Walker Kessler, Jalen Williams)
- 2023:
- Pick: 5th (worst record)
- Likely available: Cam Whitmore, Taylor Hendricks, Anthony Black, Thompsons (I'd avoid them)
Though they could have had a little bit extra luck, I'd say overall it wasn't their tanking strategy that failed, but rather very poor execution.
In the past 3 drafts (picks (7, 1, 5) they came away with Hayes (colossal bust), Cunningham (clearly not best available) and Ivey (more flashy than effective, though I'd have made the same mistake in their shoes).
However, they could have come away with Haliburton, Mobley (or SGA?) and Mathurin/Sochan. Throw in Cam Whitmore (my choice for them) and they'd be a pretty well rounded and compe ive team, with lots of talent.
Point being, no amount of tanking will suffice if you don't pick wisely, and their choices were definitely suboptimal.
.43% of the time, it works every time.
Meh….Spurs fans just need to thank the lottery gods and move humbly along.
If we’d of come up 4th or 5th it would have delayed the rebuild considerably. Tanking can work, and you need some luck in your favor.
A long way to go for relevance though, even as fortunate as this turned out for the Spurs.
Maybe they could have been better but even Haliburton/Mobley/Sochan/Cam lacks that superstar power that brings you over the top (Jokic, giannis, Luka, prime Steph...) And you find yourself with a bunch of prospects who don't really make a team in a wrong environment to develop like SA actually this year or Houston... Reason why I'd really like SA to bring some vet presence next year, at PG ideally.
Tanking really works if you can luck into a (potential) generational player. Other than that, you heavily depends on scouting, making the right choices and probably luck too... If you remove Wemby this year, SA would have found themselves with Scoot, Miller, Amen, Cam..., not game changers/franchise players to add tho the current roster if you ask me, and probalby tanking another year or two.
I just thought of another anti tanking idea for the league: the team with the worst record gets no ping pong balls at all and picks 14th. The 2nd/3rd/4th best teams get 140 combos, 5th gets 125, etc.
That would make teams fight like to stay out of last. Maybe exempt a team from getting this punishment two years in a row by hitting the 2nd worst team with this if the last place team is the same as the year before.
This admittedly isn't very well thought out. What glaring flaws am I missing?
I reluctantly joined the tank-wagon as it became apparent there was no better course.
I still did not believe it would end up with us getting the first pick. I expected us to get screwed and end up with a lower pick. I really did not think the lottery gods would bless us again...but they did.
I also do believe there is still a lot of work to be done. This is a great first step, but hopefully fans and posters will pump the brakes on any championship expectations the next year or two just because we have Wemby.
That said...should be a of a lot easier to sell tickets now. I'm sure the sales agents in the ticket office were yelling and screaming just like I was.
Last edited by Dex; 05-21-2023 at 07:27 PM.
It would definitely create some compe ion for people trying to outright tank to earn the worst record, but teams would still find a way to jockey for position for the 2nd worst spot and then the team who ends up last would be royally screwed. That would suck to suffer a terrible, terrible season (whether intentionally or by cir stance) and your reward is the 14th pick)
, I still feel kinda bad for Detroit fans who had to endure last season and ended up with #5 (but I'll get over it, because it had to happen for us to get Wemby)
they should do a mini 4 team tourney single elim, winner gets first, second, 3rd and 4rth go by record. would show who is fake tanking.
We've come a long way. Been a rough several years.
I like this idea but I'm sure there would be ways to cheat this.
Most of this comes down to luck . . .
Hayes: I wouldn't have selected him even at the time, but there was a school of thought that he was higher ceiling/lower floor and that Haliburton was lower ceiling/higher floor. For a team just starting a re-build, the logic was sound.
Cunningham: I probably would have went Mobley, but with the obsession with big wing/forward sized initiators, the former was universally considered #1 and it's still too early to rule out his being a top 2 player in the draft.
Ivey: Considered a virtual no brainer as an ideal theoretical fit next to Cunningham and was considered the consensus #4. Obviously way too early to draw conclusions.
In the end, the most likely outcome is that they blew a 7th pick. It happens. Teams have done far worse. They're still likely to come away with two cornerstone players, it's just a question of what their ceiling is.
I don’t think this is the right structure, because sometimes happens and a team just has a really terrible year. I do think, however, the league needs a way to punish chronic tankers. Though it was explicitly so, the outcome for Detroit this year is the kind of outcome I would try to structure it around. If you finish in the Bottom 4 for 3 consecutive years, you automatically get the worst draft position possible given your ranking (for Detroit, that happens to be #5). In this hypothetical structure, the Rockets would have been automatically been punished with #6.
I think that is the cleanest, easiest way to do it.
I seem to recall Cade being the overwhelming consensus #1 that year, am I remember right?
Honestly, a core of Cade, Ivey, Cam and Duren sounds pretty exciting. Kind of reminds of me of the 2003-05 Pistons that won a chip and then took us to 7. No clear cut superstar.
Or won the coin toss?
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