Tank Standings Thread

[NoPropsneeded]

James is a beast.

King of the NBA

King of all time.

I'd have to say overall yes. But i don't think he'll be regarded as the best to ever play unless he passes MJ's 6 championships or at least gets close to 6

[stooley]

I'd have to say overall yes. But i don't think he'll be regarded as the best to ever play unless he passes MJ's 6 championships or at least gets close to 6

4 puts him there i think. he had to drudge through 8 years of terrible cleveland management.

[NoPropsneeded]

4 puts him there i think. he had to drudge through 8 years of terrible cleveland management.

I'd think so. Man what really stings is that Vinsanity used to be compared to MJ. At one point he was one of the best players in the entire league. If only that dumbass wasn't so fuckin lazy, we could've had one of the best players of all time on our team.

[OldSkoolCool]

Lol, Magic was nowhere near LeBron defensively. You have a really bad habit of making things up.

He was actually a liability guarding opposing point guards because he didn't have anything in the realm of LeBron's level of athleticism and lateral quickness. He was average defending players his size.

LeBron on the other hand has the ability to lockdown players at 4 out of 5 positions, hell sometimes he can even guard centers.

Because of the fact that at 23 I'm not old enough to have seen a ton of his games (just some repeats on NBA TV canada) I am kind of relying on basketball reference DRAT for this one. In which case he is nearly as good as LeBron bouncing around that 100 mark.

Also remember that Magic also played positions 1-5...so I don't see how I would be "making it up"

[Masai Ujiri]

Because of the fact that at 23 I'm not old enough to have seen a ton of his games (just some repeats on NBA TV canada) I am kind of relying on basketball reference DRAT for this one. In which case he is nearly as good as LeBron bouncing around that 100 mark.

Also remember that Magic also played positions 1-5...so I don't see how I would be "making it up"

Yeah I'm younger than you, but I've watched a ton of classic Lakers games when Magic was playing, and also read up on him. You can't use dRTG to judge an individual player's defense because it's primarily a team statistic. (If you're on a good defensive team, you'll have a good dRTG as long as you play a lot).

Yeah he played 1-5, that doesn't mean he defended them all well.

[stretch]

I'd have to say overall yes. But i don't think he'll be regarded as the best to ever play unless he passes MJ's 6 championships or at least gets close to 6

Tommie Heinsohn has MJ beat. He won 8 championships as a player, two as a coach.

[stretch]

Dr. J, Pat Riley, and Isaiah Thomas say Kareem was the best. Kareem is the NBA's all time leading scorer. He won 6 championships. Hell, Robert Horry won 7 rings.

[dzoni71]

So you're saying we should wait and see, the deadline is the only thing that takes Lowry off of the trade scene.

What I am saying is that it is very unlikely MU will receive an offer for Lowry before the deadline that would justify breaking up the team. The only realistic way I see Lowry gone before the deadline if Raps start losing.

[JawsGT]

yeah his job seems to have gotten harder that's for sure

I would say his job has gotten easier.

[Machine]

I would say his job has gotten easier.

There's a million reasons why I disagree but they've been discussed in numerous threads and I'm lazy.

[mcHAPPY]

There's a million reasons why I disagree but they've been discussed in numerous threads and I'm lazy.

I think there is only one reason why his job his likely harder right now: LOWRY.

[TheGloveinRapsUniform]

I think there is only one reason why his job his likely harder right now: LOWRY.

A poster on the Raptors FB page is saying that tanking is impossible now, that for the raps to even get into the lottery, they have to win max 9 games till the end of the season.

Matt, can you confirm? Or somebody who's into stats and stuff

[S.R.]

Last year to drop from middle of the pack to dead lost the Magic lost 4 out of 5 games post-Christmas after playing .500 ball up to that point.

You have to go on a severe run to move multiples positions in the standings in (basically) half a season, ex. 3 out of 4 or 4 out of 5. They "we're only X number of games ahead/behind" is very misleading. This is always true, but there is minimal movement in the standings after Christmas (1-3 spots for 90% of teams). Last year the top 8 EC teams at Christmas were the 8 playoff teams at season's end, even though teams 9 and 10 were only a couple games behind the whole time.

It's not impossible, but it's highly, highly unlikely. For the Raps to lose 3 out of 4 games to ensure a top 5 pick, they'd have to unload a lot more than Lowry, imho. I don't think it's worth it anymore. The risk/reward has completely changed post-trade. There are too many good young players on solid contracts that you'd have to dump now to take a shot at maybe getting a top 5 pick (might not even get it) and then maybe landing a player who not only replaces those dumped, but improves the roster. The odds have changed, and I think it's better now to move forward with the current assets.

Playing the Wizards was a sobering reminder - three trips to the lottery, three solid (at the time) top 5 picks, some marquee signings/trades (as marquee as possible for Washington) and....they're worse than the Raps.

The tanking "step back" made plenty of sense and the odds were better while Rudy was here. The landscape's much different now.

[Machine]

I think there is only one reason why his job his likely harder right now: LOWRY.

Lowry is definitely the biggest issue. Also there is no clear direction after this year regardless of how well we do and who knows, we may just end up in the middle of the pack or a first round exit which is basically the same thing. Next year if we lose lowry for nothing we're basically in the same position as we were at the beginning of this year except tanking is less enticing because we've already missed out on the loaded draft class. We still have shitty contracts to get rid of if we're going to make a real splash in free agency and those contracts are more of a problem now because we aren't tanking to get talent on a cheap rookie contract. His job would have been much easier if the raptors hadn't started balling out of their minds in my opinion.

[Nilanka]

A poster on the Raptors FB page is saying that tanking is impossible now, that for the raps to even get into the lottery, they have to win max 9 games till the end of the season.

Matt, can you confirm? Or somebody who's into stats and stuff

Going by the current standings, Detroit is the 8th seed with a 0.412 winning percentage. Extrapolating that percentage for a full season, we can say that ~34 wins is required to make the playoffs. The Raps need another 18 wins to reach 34. Anything less than 18 more wins, and we're in the lottery.

The numbers above are not written in stone. Just meant to be a guide to show that the "9 more wins" doesn't seem to make any sense.