Official Wmc Thread: Um Those Too Many W's! Fix The Tank!

I know it's a board feature and approve of the C e l t i c s name automatically always being C-Bags. It was the asterisks later on 2nd quote that had me scratching my head.

 

This sets a bad precedent in that it rekindles memories of "winning" and may foster more of that kind of "attitude" on the team. Next thing you know it will be OK to "beat" the Clippers, then the Rockets, then the Cavaliers. Then pride starts creeping into the locker room in an insidious way and those clanks from Rob and Swaggy start finding the bottom of the net and the team starts building momentum and winning those games that can go either way. Jack starts coming back to games and it becomes a vicious "upward" spiral from there.

 

I could respect that. This tanking has got me all messed up. I was an emotional train wreck in the GD thread wanting to lose this game. I'll gladly admit that these last two season I have collectively lost my marbles with all this losing...this sucks.

 

I'm fine with it, we have to win a couple and might as well be against that green fungi from the northeast. Minni is refueled with Rubio and Martin back and now Garnett onboard bringing some vet leadership. We are in a good place to end up 3rd overall. NY will be hard to out-lose and Philly is Philly. But any other team in the league I think we will end up behind.

 

This win just means we will need to tank harder in the games against NY, Minny and Philly.

 

Well, there is no way we would lose every game we have left. We have set enough franchise lows to be honest an I wouldn't want to set any league records for losing streaks. I still can't see us cracking 20 wins which puts us on pace for a bottom five finish. I think we end up 3rd or 4th.

 

3rd I can rest easy. 4th I'm scared of if the two teams behind us get into the lottery

 

I still have us at 19 wins (1 Minny, 2 Philly, 1 Knicks and 1 random), next is on the 12.3 vs Knicks, but Minny really has a tough schedule ahead, if we lose both games to them than its 60-40 that we catch them, if we win one it will be difficult.
I went true the Philly schedule and i dont see more then 5 wins (if they win against us at home)...

 

Minny is our best bet for dropping to 3rd, which would greatly increase our chances of keeping the pick.

I woke up today still bothered by last night's game. It just didn't sit well with me. I understand that we are occasionally going to win even though it's obvious to everyone that wins hurt our pick.

What really got me was the way we won. JC, Black, Kelly, Sacre, etc all rode the bench during crunch time, yet these are the guys that are supposed to be part of the future. If that crew is playing and they win then fine, it's valuable experience for them.

Last night though it was Lin, Wes, Boozer etc. doing the heavy lifting and pushing us further away from keeping the pick. None of those guys are expected to be on the team next year and they are all playing just to get another contract in the league. The Lakers have nothing to gain by winning with that group, and a ton to lose.

I know that Byron wanted to beat the C Bags but developing the future is more important. Last year we all watched helplessly while Nick Young played himself into a new contract and ruined the Lakers tank, I just pray we don't have to watch Jeremy Lin do the same thing to us all over again.

It's Byron's job to build the future and that means giving the bulk of the minutes to players who are part of the long term plan regardless of how well the vets are playing.

 

Byron clearly wanted the win against the C Bags, hence not playing the young players. But I would feel a lot better if we won the game with JC, Black, Kelly, etc finishing the game than Lin, Boozer, etc. It gives them experience in the crunch time if they are ever needed to play them in the future.

 

Look at everyone's strength of schedule closing out the season:

http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2015/02/19/heat-thunder-could-benefit-from-easy-remaining-schedules/

 

This does not look good for the Lakers. It's absolutely crucial that they lose both games to the Wolves.

 

Remaing games between Tankathon teams:

Knicks:
3/12 @Lakers
3/19 T-wolves
3/20 @76ers
4/5 76ers
4/11 @Magic

76ers:
3/20 Knicks
3/22 @Lakers
3/30 Lakers
4/5 @Knicks

T-wolves:
3/19 @Knicks
3/25 Lakers
4/3 Magic
4/10 @Lakers

Magic:
4/3 @T-wolves
4/11 Knicks

I borrowed this...keep these dates in mind.

 

We need to lose every game, none of this "we lose every game but against clippers, rockets, Cavs, C Bags" thing. We probably won't catch philly and NY but we need the 3rd seed. I'd be really nervous if we stay at 4th.

 

I hope our guys won't start to play better after the trade deadline. You know how it is...

 

I'll be rooting for Philly to beat New York twice and the T-Pups to beat the Magic/Knicks.

Not catching New York, the least they could do is let the teams we can catch beat up on them so Philly/Minny pass us.