Who is the Most Overrated Team in the East ..aka.. Why Boston Sux.

[A.I]

Who is the Most Overrated Team in the East ..aka.. Why Boston Sux.

Sure, but that's not the argument used. Based on that logic, we could stay at 20+ and get Masai to draft us some Kyle Lowry's, Draymond Green's, Nikola Jokic's, Jimmy Butler's, etc. Or just make a select few moves to stay competitive while selling some pieces to get into the middle of the first round in a couple drafts.

The entire argument is getting into the top 5 where the true game changers are more likely to be. The odds fall off pretty dramatically outside of that based on statistical models (frankly, outside the top 3).

Agreed, I was semi-joking. Masai is good at drafting, but if you want to tank, if you can’t get top 5, there is no point.

[DanH]

It isn't mediocre it's bad.

And if it is good it's because one of them turned into a star, which is fine. That's a team that wins 20-29 games.

29 games places them 9th in the lotto. Huzzah.

Come on, you have to admit there is middle ground that's more likely than either of your scenarios. None of them are probably enough of a star to get them to be a good team. But they as a group are too good to be a terrible team. More likely, some of them play pretty well, the team sucks but still wins more than the teams that have made a career out of well and truly sucking, and they end up in the low-30's in wins.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

Agreed, I was semi-joking. Masai is good at drafting, but if you want to tanking, if you can’t get top 5, there is no point.

We can get into the top 5.

Btw if the big plan is to tank not next year but the year after as DanH has argued, how do you figure THAT team could get a top 5 pick when OG/Wright/etc would've had an extra year of development?

[DanH]

Yes I would expect it to go negative. They aren't going to be able to win consistently against starters, especially with a crap bench of misfits and bad contracts behind them.

Keep in mind, bad contracts =/= bad players. They are almost always mediocre players. So just a regular run of the mill bench, just more expensive.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

29 games places them 9th in the lotto. Huzzah.

Come on, you have to admit there is middle ground that's more likely than either of your scenarios. None of them are probably enough of a star to get them to be a good team. But they as a group are too good to be a terrible team. More likely, some of them play pretty well, the team sucks but still wins more than the teams that have made a career out of well and truly sucking, and they end up in the low-30's in wins.

No they aren't.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

Keep in mind, bad contracts =/= bad players. They are almost always mediocre players. So just a regular run of the mill bench, just more expensive.

Didn't say they were bad players, I specifically said bad contracts for a reason.

[Mindlessness]

Yes I would expect it to go negative. They aren't going to be able to win consistently against starters, especially with a crap bench of misfits and bad contracts behind them.

Except they consistently kept and built leads against starters over the course of the season? I would not expect it to go negative, there's no evidence that they would considering those built/kept leads.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

Except they consistently kept and built leads against starters over the course of the season? I would not expect it to go negative, there's no evidence that they would considering those built/kept leads.

So I'd ask again if they can't tank properly in 2018-19, then how would they tank better in 2019-20 (DanH's "window").

[DanH]

We can get into the top 5.

Btw if the big plan is to tank not next year but the year after as DanH has argued, how do you figure THAT team could get a top 5 pick when OG/Wright/etc would've had an extra year of development?

Wait, so to be clear, your plan is to tank this coming year, then let the team become better with all that extra development? Or are you overselling this effect to make your point?

Guys like Wright and Poeltl may need to be outgoing in the process of tanking - or they may not. We'll have another year of them having a bigger role to decide who stays and who goes, if we take our proper time with the tear down. And we'll be better able to load up on fringe youth rather than expensive mediocre veterans who will artificially inflate the team's mediocrity.

Anyway, the point of taking your time is that dropping to the bottom of the standings is tricky, and leveraging your assets as you fall into as much value as possible is just as important as getting to the bottom.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

Wait, so to be clear, your plan is to tank this coming year, then let the team become better with all that extra development? Or are you overselling this effect to make your point?

Guys like Wright and Poeltl may need to be outgoing in the process of tanking - or they may not. We'll have another year of them having a bigger role to decide who stays and who goes, if we take our proper time with the tear down. And we'll be better able to load up on fringe youth rather than expensive mediocre veterans who will artificially inflate the team's mediocrity.

Anyway, the point of taking your time is that dropping to the bottom of the standings is tricky, and leveraging your assets as you fall into as much value as possible is just as important as getting to the bottom.

My point is the team would be bad REGARDLESS.

You're the one arguing they win 30-35 games next year w/o the best 5 players on the team this year. So how on earth does your 2019-20 rebuild timeline work then?

[MixxAOR]

I think if key players are removed. Tank is possible. Put Norm instead of FVV and that team is going to lose A LOT of games. Trade Miles and the team has no outside shooting practically.

[Mindlessness]

...The meaningful point in a rebuild is when you get the opportunity to draft a star, presumably (as is the point) with a top 5 or so pick.

If you think trading players away this year can get us to that point for next draft, more power to you. Live in your delusions and have a great time, but don't expect the rest of us to join you. It's not how it works. We can't get that bad that fast. It will take a couple years to get that bad no matter how fast we pull the trigger on deals, unless we don't care about getting value from those deals at all (which it appears you do care about, as you should). So we aren't delaying that at all. The bad year at earliest will be 19-20, after all of my proposed trades would occur.

A tank strategy starting now would follow some basic tenets: try to get bad by 2019-20.

- Use 2018 summer to move DeMar (attempt to acquire a superstar, probably fail; attempt to acquire a potential star; attempt to maximize draft asset return; attempt to cut salary while bringing in draft picks).

- Maximize trade value of Lowry, Ibaka, Valanciunas, Miles by trading them at peak value between now and deadline 2019 (ensure at least a couple are moved by summer 2019 to get bad enough for that season), which would almost certainly not be now. Take on salary that reaches only through 2020-21.

- Explore trade values of young players that will need to be paid before summer 2021 (Siakam, Poeltl, Wright) and move one or more if value is there and you don't think they are long term pieces.

- Use high draft picks in 2020 and 2021 to draft potential superstar pieces, ideally. Use other picks from deals in 19, 20 and 21 to add low cost role players to team.

- Use cap space to target a superstar free agent in 2021.

That gives you several windows to add superstar talent. You do your best to leverage DeMar's name and the variety of young pieces on the team now to get a superstar, either right away or as a swing at a potential guy. You do your best to leverage large expirings and the variety of young pieces on the team to get a potential superstar in exchange for taking on bad money. You get bad (at about the same time you would if you tried to dump talent faster), take a few swings in the draft. You leverage cap space to go after a star in free agency, hopefully with the help of all the talent you've acquired in the process.

...Tanking is not about being bad. It's about getting bad the right way - leveraging your assets to maximize return in the process of moving from good to bad, so that you aren't just relying on your own draft pick. Taking on long term salary and dooming the team to never reach a cap room status just handcuffs the team from making higher value deals than for the 24th pick in the first year of a rebuild. Trying to rush down may end up just lifting the floor of the team.

If the cap landscape was more friendly, and Ibaka had value, then this would be a good time to move him. But it is not, he is not, and the team would be better served trying to move him at the deadline or next summer. If the team wasn't so deep, there would be a clear path to being bad this season. They are, however, and there is no clear path to getting that bad, even assuming you can find takers for all 4 of the key veteran contributors on the team (which they almost certainly will not be able to find value for all of them)...

For the moment, the team has some quality trade assets that could be leveraged to try to get a star over the next two seasons. If you can use DeRozan as a centrepiece in a trade for a star (with some of our various youth assets moving with him), that should be the move. Then you have Lowry as a complementary piece and a roster with at least a little depth remaining to see what you can build around them. If not, you settle for the best "maybe" you can get for DeMar (whose value almost certainly peaks this summer) - something like Wiggins and picks makes sense - and then explore value for other guys.

But the next jump in potential superstar trades is the following summer, when the team will have massive expirings (Lowry, Serge and potentially JV if he opts in) to help leverage a deal for a star by offering significant salary relief to another team and exchanging them young, cheap talent along with that. And if that opportunity fails, again you leverage those expirings into the best "maybe" you can find, even if that is just picks, and if that's not there by the trade deadline, you let them expire and leverage the resulting cap space the same way that summer.

And THEN you get bad. Because you won't get truly bad much faster by trying to blow it all up now, and you'll end up with a bunch of low end prospects like we already have. And you'll have abandoned the other achievable route to a superstar just to blow your wad on some late first rounders and to move up 10 spots from 25th to 15th to get a slightly-less-low-end-but-not-by-much prospect.

That's the point of a rebuild. Chase every opportunity to get a star. Get into every bidding war, make your best bids, and if you fall short, THEN you sell for lesser assets. Settling for the first draft pick that comes your way is the cheap and dumb version of tanking and won't get you where you need to go any faster than doing it properly...

So how on earth does your 2019-20 rebuild timeline work then?

He's already explained it.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

He's already explained it.

My point was specifically related to the idea that it is impossible for Wright/OG/Siakam/Poeltl to get a top 5 pick in 2019. Yet somehow, a year later when they are better they will land that pick.

[Mindlessness]

My point was specifically related to the idea that it is impossible for Wright/OG/Siakam/Poeltl to get a top 5 pick in 2019. Yet somehow, a year later when they are better they will land that pick.

He's never said that, I'm not sure you've read his posts.

[planetmars]

I think if key players are removed. Tank is possible. Put Norm instead of FVV and that team is going to lose A LOT of games. Trade Miles and the team has no outside shooting practically.

Yeah.. I mean.. play Ibaka and Norm 48 minutes. Resign Bebe and have him become your #1 center. Trade and bring back Carroll and Bruno. Lots of ways to become shit.