Signs Of Tanking?

[C-Low]

Outside media hates on Toronto plain and simple.. Everyone thinks we suck no matter what we do. If Rudy went to detroit/washington/atl people would be calling them Contenders. Dude comes to Toronto, and it's like "is rudy that good" lol.

[whiteBLUNTZ]

I fully agree with Xixak on this one, we have five lottery picks on this team right now and we just traded a first pick overall a month ago. I, like many of you have been with the Raptors from day one and the losing seasons in Toronto (all sports) are really adding up. We are not going to get Wiggins and have this thing turned around two years after that. We had Vince Carter and didn’t win much of anything really and I don’t know if Wiggins can really have the same impact at the begging as Vince did. I say shoot for the playoffs every single year. The best time for me being a Raptors fan was being in playoffs, ya they didn’t win but I’ll take a second round knockout every year rather than miss the playoffs with pipe dreams of a saviour. Losing so many games and then drafting Ross, Davis or whoever just doesn’t work. I don’t concern myself with things like salary cap, luxury tax or any of that crap because I have no say over it. To me just make the damn playoffs. Just draft better, scout better, sign better, play better whatever, do any one of those things and we make playoffs year after year. If you think we should tank, the only day that matters to you is draft day. Then maybe in a few years we are better. Win every game you can cause all I want is playoff basketball.

[Xixak]

Tanking doesn't work unless you get a GENERATIONAL talent. Period. And there isn't even one of those in every draft, and only 2 or 3 drafts have ever had more than 1.

The Raptors have already tanked before anyway:

2003: 4th pick Bosh
2004: 8th Pick Aruajo
2005: 7th pick villanueva 16th pick graham
2006: 1st pick bargnani

so 2 top 5 picks, 4 top 10 picks and a mid-rounder and ZERO playoff series wins to show for it.

B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but Wiggins, Parker and Randle could be a stars!

Newsflash the draft isn't rigged. Even if we get dead last (which is not happening btw, look at how bad PHX, ORL, SAC, UTA, etc are) there is a 75% chance we don't get the top pick. And the most likely outcome of tanking is landing a pick outside the top 3 (if you look at lottery odds the last place team has a 36% chance of picking 4th).

Tanking is just building your team based on luck. It makes sense if your team is already terrible and you have no established players. But you don't just trade established players away for picks which more than likely will yield INFERIOR players.

[Superjudge]

There's already a 4 lottery picks on this team:

Jonas Valanciunas - 5th -2011
Terrence Ross - 8th - 2012
Rudy Gay - 8th - 2006
DeMar DeRozan - 9th - 2009


So I just want an explanation for how tanking is guaranteed to yield better players than those. That's all.

I think mostly, tanking, and the idea of tanking is attached to the hope that you not only secure that high pick, but the idea that you might be able to acquire that special "mega star" type player that comes along once in a while. If it were just about the lottery, and a pick, I'm sure most would think less of it.

[Xixak]

Btw you can have success in the draft without tanking to a top 5 pick. Look at the 2011 draft for example. With the exception of Irving/JV, the top players were all drafted outside the top 10.

Klay - 11
Kawhi - 15
Vucevic - 16
Shumpert - 17
Faried - 22
Jimmy Butler - 30
Tobias - 19

[mcHAPPY]

Tanking doesn't work unless you get a GENERATIONAL talent. Period. And there isn't even one of those in every draft, and only 2 or 3 drafts have ever had more than 1.

The Raptors have already tanked before anyway:

2003: 4th pick Bosh
2004: 8th Pick Aruajo
2005: 7th pick villanueva 16th pick graham
2006: 1st pick bargnani

so 2 top 5 picks, 4 top 10 picks and a mid-rounder and ZERO playoff series wins to show for it.

B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but Wiggins, Parker and Randle could be a stars!

Newsflash the draft isn't rigged. Even if we get dead last (which is not happening btw, look at how bad PHX, ORL, SAC, UTA, etc are) there is a 75% chance we don't get the top pick. And the most likely outcome of tanking is landing a pick outside the top 3 (if you look at lottery odds the last place team has a 36% chance of picking 4th).

Tanking is just building your team based on luck. It makes sense if your team is already terrible and you have no established players. But you don't just trade established players away for picks which more than likely will yield INFERIOR players.

You do if management determines the ceiling of the team is 7/8 seed and first round exit while the goal of the organization is competing for championships yet they lack the means to get there with roster as currently constructed due to CBA.

[mcHAPPY]

Tanking doesn't work unless you get a GENERATIONAL talent. Period. And there isn't even one of those in every draft, and only 2 or 3 drafts have ever had more than 1.

The Raptors have already tanked before anyway:

2003: 4th pick Bosh
2004: 8th Pick Aruajo
2005: 7th pick villanueva 16th pick graham
2006: 1st pick bargnani

so 2 top 5 picks, 4 top 10 picks and a mid-rounder and ZERO playoff series wins to show for it.

B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but Wiggins, Parker and Randle could be a stars!

Newsflash the draft isn't rigged. Even if we get dead last (which is not happening btw, look at how bad PHX, ORL, SAC, UTA, etc are) there is a 75% chance we don't get the top pick. And the most likely outcome of tanking is landing a pick outside the top 3 (if you look at lottery odds the last place team has a 36% chance of picking 4th).

Tanking is just building your team based on luck. It makes sense if your team is already terrible and you have no established players. But you don't just trade established players away for picks which more than likely will yield INFERIOR players.

Basketball has clear winners every night --
except at the draft, which is all homework, politics and chance.

[ezz_bee]

Unfortunately, the raps are in a dilly of a pickle IMO. I'm not sure you can tank when Amir Johnson is on your team. And he's exactly the player you need once you've got your generational talent.

In order to challenge for top 10 worst record in the league we'd probably have to jettison at least lowry and gay. Even still the starting line up of

Buycks/Augustine
Derozan/Ross
Quincy Acy!/Novak
Amir/Hansbrough
JV/Gray

Might still be too talented/hardworking to really get the tanking job done.

The good news is that we probably aren't making the playoffs as currently constructed so we can at least pray for ping pong balls.

edit: either way, I'm happy to see how ujiri plays it.

[ezz_bee]

Btw you can have success in the draft without tanking to a top 5 pick. Look at the 2011 draft for example. With the exception of Irving/JV, the top players were all drafted outside the top 10.

Klay - 11
Kawhi - 15
Vucevic - 16
Shumpert - 17
Faried - 22
Jimmy Butler - 30
Tobias - 19

This is perhaps the best argument against Tim W.'s line that scouts are much better then in the past and the odds of getting good players outside the top ten is no longer likely.

EDIT: Although as of yet it doesn't seem like there were any sleepers in the 2012 draft (other than Quincy Acy as a Power 3!)

[Xixak]

This is perhaps the best argument against Tim W.'s line that scouts are much better then in the past and the odds of getting good players outside the top ten is no longer likely.

EDIT: Although as of yet it doesn't seem like there were any sleepers in the 2012 draft (other than Quincy Acy as a Power 3!)

For some reason Ujiri always seems to be the guy that finds them. Fournier was very good for the Nuggets when he finally got minutes late last season. Put up 12-3-2 on 50% FG, 35% 3PT and 93% from 3 in 23 minutes per game in April, about 18-5-4 per 36 if you care for per 36.

I think Lamb is also going to be very effective for OKC next year, and Sullinger should be a big contributor for Boston with KG gone.

[Arsenalist]

Well, Augustin, Buycks, and Daye won't exactly convince anyone that you're not tanking, even though they're products of being over the cap rather than a concerted tank effort.

[Craiger]

For some reason Ujiri always seems to be the guy that finds them. Fournier was very good for the Nuggets when he finally got minutes late last season. Put up 12-3-2 on 50% FG, 35% 3PT and 93% from 3 in 23 minutes per game in April, about 18-5-4 per 36 if you care for per 36.

I think Lamb is also going to be very effective for OKC next year, and Sullinger should be a big contributor for Boston with KG gone.

Masai has 2 1st round draft selections to his name. "Always" is a pretty relative term.

Faried has been very good, and Fournier looks promising but he also only has approx. 400 NBA minutes to his name - 25% of all those minutes came in the final 3 games of the year vs Por/Mil/Phoenix. I'm not sure we can read too much into that.

Ramon Sessions finished his rookie year with a real good April and in his last 3 games averaged 14pts on 60% shooting with 17 assists - 6 years later he is a quality journeyman back up.

That said I agree that:

Btw you can have success in the draft without tanking to a top 5 pick.

but its very rarely of the calibre Toronto is after.

If you've ever seen productivity/talent vs draft position charter, there is a very significant decline with draft.

Relative Value of Draft Position

[Xixak]

Masai has 2 1st round draft selections to his name. "Always" is a pretty relative term.

Faried has been very good, and Fournier looks promising but he also only has approx. 400 NBA minutes to his name - 25% of all those minutes came in the final 3 games of the year vs Por/Mil/Phoenix. I'm not sure we can read too much into that.

Ramon Sessions finished his rookie year with a real good April and in his last 3 games averaged 14pts on 60% shooting with 17 assists - 6 years later he is a quality journeyman back up.

That said I agree that:



but its very rarely of the calibre Toronto is after.

If you've ever seen productivity/talent vs draft position charter, there is a very significant decline with draft.

Relative Value of Draft Position

So we should throw away players to have a miniscule chance of getting one of those players?

[Letter N]

So we should throw away players to have a miniscule chance of getting one of those players?

Don't read into things too much. He's simply saying that as good and serviceable as all those guys listed by you none of them is a superstar in waiting, and none of them can carry a team. This team would be better with any of those guys, but we wouldn't be much closer to a championship.

[Craiger]

So we should throw away players to have a miniscule chance of getting one of those players?

Yep thats exactly what I recommended......