Actually wasn't until the middle part of the year that they started talking about cap space for next year. For a long time it was all about this summer.
No! Just no! I'm not doing it again! You know how hot it was in all those tanks with my crew always bit***** about everything?
I think LVBD was kidding, but in all honesty it could happen. If we strike out on literally everyone this summer and are forced to just bring back what we have. There's a decent chance we're in the fight for the 8th seed, but say we get a couple more injuries again. We could end up looking at a lottery pick! At least we have our picks now though.
Just a reminder that starting next year, the lottery odds have been changed. Top 3 picks all have a 14% chance at #1 now, which means the other positions lower in the lottery will have slightly higher odds. Example: Last year we were at #10 and 6 games ahead of #9. But between #9 and #6 was only a 2 game difference. Last year, if let’s say in the last month we decided to hardcore tank to get to #6, we would have had a 5.3% chance to get the #1 pick. That’s nearly 20% less odds than the team with the worst record. This year if the standings were similar and tanked our way to the #6 spot, we’d have a 9% chance at the #1 pick. That’s only 5% lower than each team in the top 3. So basically, we don’t really have to “tank” in the sense that it’s a season long endeavour to try to get the worst record. It might be feasible to gun for the playoffs, and then initiate a late-season tank if playoffs are out of the question, and still set ourselves up with pretty nice lottery odds.
more importantly: finishing dead last no longer guarantees you a top-4 pick. this should help some things. the more pure lottery, the less incentive to lose each game. anyway, if we're in that position again, i stand by statement: pink slips.
We have far too much talent to tank at this point. Honestly, Plan B is probably resign Randle, continue to try and move Deng and resign Lopez to a big one-year deal. Next offseason, Deng will be easier to move as an expiring and unloading him should give us enough room to go for Kawhi and another max guy. My guess though is if we strike out, we'll have another chance at Lebron NEXT offseason as he will be signing another 1+1 in Cleveland if we don't get him.
This. How dare you guys even bring it up. That’s not plan b. Magic and Rob weren’t brought in to tank.
Tanking is like Plan Z and it won’t come down to that. But yes, if we strike out on all free agents and are a fringe playoff team again, once eliminated from playoff contention it would be a valid contingency plan to tank in certain circumstances. If we’re eliminated from playoffs with 10 games left, and we’ve already done a good job showcasing our winning culture and youth development, it wouldn’t hurt to sit out some guys in that final stretch. Assuming the standings were so close that we could increase our lottery odds by several percentage points with just a few more losses. If that’s not the case, let’s say we’re in the 13th spot and would have to lose 10 straight games just to rise up to 11th in the tanking standings, then yeah it’s not worth it.
I was...I'm going into the summer with positive thinking. I think last year we did a really good job of improvising. Our first contract offer was to Iggy; then George Hill, and we ended up with KCP, and I was happy about that. I think we'll be fine.
