Should Raptors purposely tank to get high draft pick?

[mcHAPPY]

By "land" it sounds like you are saying acquire a "NBA Star" and not develop one from your draft picks.

If that is so, check your NBA history.

Contending teams are built through the draft, trades and lastly free agency.

Duncan, Kobe, Michael were all drafted by the teams that they got their rings with.

Even the 2007-08 Celtics would never have won without Rondo, Pierce and Perkins all of whom I believe they drafted.

In fact as I recall and I could be wrong on this there have been very few NBA teams that have ever won a title without at least one star player on the team that they drafted. The 2003-04 Pistons might be one arguable exception, depending on whether or not you considered T. Prince a "star player" at the time.

What is to say that the Raptors could not or have not drafted that player?

I would agree with your assertion of how champsionship teams are made but while Pierece was drafted by the C's, Rondo was a draft day trade as another example of Sarver not wanting to pay guaranteed money to first round draft picks or pay luxury tax and Perkins was "Drafted by the Memphis Grizzlies in the 1st round (27th overall) in 2003 and then traded with Marcus Banks to the Boston Celtics for Troy Bell and Dahntay Jones." (From TSN.ca)

That raises an interesting question, at least to me: when a team trades for draft rights either by future first round pick/2nd round pick or with other current players, is it fair to say the team trading for the rights technically drafted them? If they are trying to get their rights then it would be safe to say if they could draft them, they would and they have put all the work in on scouting you would normally expect.

[Pizzaman]

Tanking is the most ridiculous thing any athlete or pro sports team could do purposely. It's no different than selling out like the White Sox did.
They get paid good money to perform and try to win, and that's what any good fan wants to see.

[Dan]

@Buddahfan: Reread my post. I said you need to land a star, and that it's usually through the draft if you want that superstar. So, I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with - I'm saying, most franchises turned themselves around with either a top 5 draft pick or by trading top 5 draft picks.

About the Clippers example - look, if you're run badly, you're gonna fail no matter what. But if you believe the Raps will be managed properly, the only realistic way to gain a superstar is to grab them through the draft. It's should be hard to disagree with that statement.

[Dan]

Tanking is the most ridiculous thing any athlete or pro sports team could do purposely. It's no different than selling out like the White Sox did.
They get paid good money to perform and try to win, and that's what any good fan wants to see.

No player would tank... that's ridiculous and not at all what I'm saying.

I'm saying I want to watch a young, inexperienced team play their asses off and be enjoyable to watch... but, if you want to see us compete for a title one day, you'd agree we probably need to draft an absolute stud. Even the clippers are gonna turn around once griffin/aminu/bledsoe/gordon age.

Unless you think the Raps are gonna sign Carmelo, of course... (sarcasm)

So what I mean by that is the players would try their best - but management would have the same vision and play young players that might lose games but develop for later, and allow us to possibly even finish lower.

[Pizzaman]

No player would tank... that's ridiculous and not at all what I'm saying.

I'm saying I want to watch a young, inexperienced team play their asses off and be enjoyable to watch... but, if you want to see us compete for a title one day, you'd agree we probably need to draft an absolute stud. Even the clippers are gonna turn around once griffin/aminu/bledsoe/gordon age.

Unless you think the Raps are gonna sign Carmelo, of course... (sarcasm)

So what I mean by that is the players would try their best - but management would have the same vision and play young players that might lose games but develop for later, and allow us to possibly even finish lower.

Dan I was not referring to you when I posted as I had not read any of these posts but just made a comment on tanking.
I agree with you on how to build a team and it should have been done a few years ago if we were not trying so hard to please Bosh.
That said I want them to play hard, develop their games and chemistry, while the coach gets better and better, and hopefully win some games while doing so.
I sincerely hope the Raps get a great draft pick or two yet there is no guarantee of first or second when you tank so I say do your best and see what happens.