Just kind of wanted to put this out there for everyone to see.
A lot of people keep mentioning how we only have 6 more wins than the 2nd last place team in the East, etc. Seems like a pretty small win differential to "overcome" right? Well unfortunately, basketball and sports in general don't really work like that. I'd assume a lot more people would have clued into this with the Leafs finishing just outside of the playoffs a few times, but I digress.
There are 22 games between now and the trade deadline of February 20th. For argument's sake, let's say Lowry is moved on January 31st, so after 14 games.
Now again for argument's sake, let's say the Raptors slow down their winning pace significantly and only win half of these games (despite playing an easier schedule). So we're 23-23.
We hear this talk from those people still advocating that we can tank constantly about finishing in the bottom 4 giving us a 99% chance at a top 6 pick. Ok then. Hell let's just talk bottom 6 then shall we?
The bottom 6 teams in the league currently are all on pace to win at most 27 games. Even if we assume the bottom 6 teams don't remain stable over the remainder of the season, statistics tell us that teams tend to play at about the same pace for most of the year (especially after being 30+ games in), so in all likelihood to be a bottom 6 team you will need <= 27 wins.
So that would mean if Lowry is dealt at the end of January (3 weeks before the trade deadline) we would need to go 4-32 over the final 36 games of the season to land in the bottom 6. That is nearly twice as bad of a winning percentage as our 4-19 start to last season. This isn't even taking into account the fact that the bottom teams will just start sitting out veterans in the last 10 games or so, causing their losing rates to pick up even further.
So in all likelihood this "tank" would result in a pick somewhere 8th-10th more realistically at best.
That is all.
A lot of people keep mentioning how we only have 6 more wins than the 2nd last place team in the East, etc. Seems like a pretty small win differential to "overcome" right? Well unfortunately, basketball and sports in general don't really work like that. I'd assume a lot more people would have clued into this with the Leafs finishing just outside of the playoffs a few times, but I digress.
There are 22 games between now and the trade deadline of February 20th. For argument's sake, let's say Lowry is moved on January 31st, so after 14 games.
Now again for argument's sake, let's say the Raptors slow down their winning pace significantly and only win half of these games (despite playing an easier schedule). So we're 23-23.
We hear this talk from those people still advocating that we can tank constantly about finishing in the bottom 4 giving us a 99% chance at a top 6 pick. Ok then. Hell let's just talk bottom 6 then shall we?
The bottom 6 teams in the league currently are all on pace to win at most 27 games. Even if we assume the bottom 6 teams don't remain stable over the remainder of the season, statistics tell us that teams tend to play at about the same pace for most of the year (especially after being 30+ games in), so in all likelihood to be a bottom 6 team you will need <= 27 wins.
So that would mean if Lowry is dealt at the end of January (3 weeks before the trade deadline) we would need to go 4-32 over the final 36 games of the season to land in the bottom 6. That is nearly twice as bad of a winning percentage as our 4-19 start to last season. This isn't even taking into account the fact that the bottom teams will just start sitting out veterans in the last 10 games or so, causing their losing rates to pick up even further.
So in all likelihood this "tank" would result in a pick somewhere 8th-10th more realistically at best.
That is all.
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