The art and agony of the tank (split from game thread)

That system may hurt small markets the most who have a harder time luring FA's. Still in some respects I agree the race of the bottom dwellers gets old.

Minnesota drafted Dunn last year, don't think they give up on him so soon.

There is no reason to tank worse than philly. Philly gets the higher pick, so it is best to finish one game better than philly.

Regarding our picks I am not gonna stress about what I cannot control but one thing I can tell you is the way to put the tank into drive instead of reverse is DNP-REST one of Lawson or Collison (or both). Then you go decent stretches with Tyreke, Galloway or Temple as your PG. The team usually falls apart when these guys are running the show. This is how to mask collective will to win when you have no intention to do so.

This strategy was obviously not employed in Minnesota! But I still liked watching Thibs contort his face in agony as we dropped 123 points on them

The Kings have turned into a fairly competitive team when Lawson and Collison play. Its encouraging for next year with presumption one of these guys returns most likely Lawson. Papa G has shown he is a competent back-up center already and Willie has shown he can rebound better than anemic. More impressive is Buddy have definitive star potential. He has a sophisticated in-between game when he gets run off the three line. He floats up softly one foot (left or right) shots from 10 to 15 feet that 10-year vets don't have. He's an 18 PPG scorer next year. Skal has shown abilty to pick his spots and battle on the boards. I was impressed he did not back down from Blake Griffin at all.

One more thing on Willie. I set expectations for him to produce at 14/10 after the Boogie trade. He was 12/8 in March with most of his scores off athleticism and dunks and few off post moves or shooting. This is encouraging or discouraging depending on your perspective. I'll take the optimistic view. His modest PPG is bolstered by unselfish interior passing to 2 APG. This is share the wealth mentality is contagious.

None of these positives are diminished if we lose out. Tomorrow in particular versus Mavs we should be none too eager to play both PGs. They are both due for DNP-REST. Then just go out and compete and try to win. It is a form of tanking but one that does not cost you self-respect or league inquiry. I certainly feel that Tyreke and his ball hogging low efficient ways are an asset and they should be exploited to full 30 MPG advantage.

Odds are overwhelming you are correct but technically this incorrect. Say hypothetically the teams finish Knicks (29 wins) Wolves (30 wins) Kings (31 wins) 76ers (32 wins). Then Philly jumps to Top 3. In this case the Kings finish one game worse than Philly but ahead of Wolves and NYK. A better tank job would have scored us higher pick in event Philly gets lucky.

True, but highly unlikely.

Better odds that if your scenario played out, the kings would win the #1 pick in the lottery and then have to swap for philly # 6 pick. #kangz

And for Kings fans sanity, I think it best to finish one game better than philly!

I'd prefer a system like that too. If you know you're bad you can just develop your players and not worry about costing yourself draft capitol. Top 5 picks are worth so much in the NBA that it's only natural for teams to increase their odds if they're nowhere near a playoff spot. If the league wants tanking to go away they just have to remove the incentive. I wonder if you'd actually see teams intentionally lose games so as to have a 1 in 14 shot at a first overall pick instead of the 8 seed in the playoffs? In any case, it wouldn't be as rampant as it is now. It might put a stop to teams trading away everything so they can bottom out at 10 wins.

Finishing one game better than Philly, the same as Philly, or one game worse would all effectively be the same thing. But as it stands now we've let New York slip between us and Philly and we have a 50-50 chance of having Minnesota slip between us as well. Let's say Orlando wins 2 of their last 5 games and Philly keeps losing. Now Philly is 4th and we've let ourselves fall down to 7 or 8. I really like De'Aaron Fox. We might get him at 5, we're probably not going to get him at 7 or 8. Can't speak for anyone else, but that's why it's a big deal to me. I never just want a "high pick" in any draft -- I want certain players and the order teams are picking in is going to determine whether we have access to those players or not. There's other guys I like. Jonathan Isaac, Miles Bridges, Frank Ntilikina, Dennis Smith. We'll get one of these guys but I don't think any of them are as good defensively as Fox is.

Yes, but it's an embarrassment for some for the swap to occur at all.

Well, decision probably had to be then either way for us to keep our pick and get as much value without Cousins being an expiring.

True. Cousins would say that he wouldn't resign with whatever team trades for him, and who knows what we end up with? Probably a protected pick and filler. Or, you know, resign him.

There were other options. Maybe even sneaking in to the 8th spot and talking to Cousins about signing for less than the max in order to really strengthen the team.

Wouldn't that be tantamount to a whole "we aren't rewarding you for your loyalty" thing? And yknow how big he is on that.

It might have been just the opposite. Go to him with a good faith offer and a plan for how the Kings would build around him to give him the help he needed to get us to the playoffs and beyond.

Unfortunately, we'll never know now.

The one bright-spot in this draft is we don't get punished nearly as hard as we would in past years for picking 8 or 9 as opposed to 5. 4-11 talent wise is pretty damn close, where someone like Bridges (projected 10-12) can easily be the better player over Tatum (projected top 5)

But you're 100% right, it'd be nice to actually have options and get the guy we want rather than wait to see who falls to us.

Pretty good day for us overall. Only a Knicks win would have helped us more

We just need a couple more Detroit wins for the Pelicans to be locked into that 10 spot. The Hornets and Denver are now 3 games up on the Pelicans (currently 12 and 13) with the Pacers 4 games up on them ( currently 14). I feel pretty good about the Pelicans not being able to pass any of them with so few games left, which puts that picks floor at 11. And the Mavs picked up a game on the Pelicans today, and are just 0.5 games back.

Basically, we really, really, really, really, really, really need to lose tomorrow. Would help tremendously to get the Pelicans in the 9 spot and help us stay in contention for the 6 spot. Pick 6 and 9 sounds hell of a lot better than pick 8 and 11

And as has been brought up before, ultimately we need to draft well, and have some luck with who we draft as well. Pray it's a Kawhi/Klay and not a TRob

I would say Malachi, but it seems they prefer to take the "extremely cautious" approach with his hammy return. So, I think we need to bring in iCousins or Stockton (if available) and only use one of our two "ailing" PGs, and only when the wheels come off. But that doesn't seem like something Joerger would do, unfortunately.

Yes, but each year in the NBA adds two years to your life. So Ben is practically a Grandpa. And Willie is only middle-aged.

All our roster spots are full, so we can't bring anyone up.

As some have said, it is a shame the lottery system provdes ncentive for teams to lose. Just plain unnatural. I don't like it at all.

The Kings should experiment with an all Kids (or close to it) starting line up to secure the Lins the rest of this season.

PF: WCS
SF: Skal
C: Papa G
SG: Buddy
PG: Galloway

This way the Kids get the minutes and we can find out if Skal can play any at SF next year and if Galloway is worth anything at PG and we hopefully secure the Lins!

Only scheduled game today is Portland at Minnesota. Nurkic is out, which should help the Wolves chances. Go Wolves.

I'm not sure if Seth will play, out last game for some shoulder issue, but I would like to see Galloway get extended minutes against him. They liked Galloway in NO, I would like to see what he's got.

Bulls loss shifted [New Orleans] toward a bottom 10 finish. Several losses to Nuggets and Portland might help the Kings get an 8 or a 9 out of them which would be an incremental win.....The Mavericks winning yesterday also helps the Kings on both fronts. Other bottom feeders besides the Pelicans and Sixers winning is good news.

The FO 100% deserved this.. but I love the Kings too much. We fans don't deserve it

FO finds another way to screw us even more

That is indeed the most disturbing part of it. The complete lack of a longterm approach and foresight. Instead it has been years of constant overturn, hastened decisions and strategy shifting.

Lotto system is actually good. Every lotto team has a chance at the #1 pick, and there's no teams that have their spots guaranteed. Other teams are just smarter than the Kings. They know how to use the system to their advantage.

If we got rid of the lotto, do you think ANY nba prospects would actually come here? Kings are a dysfunctional mess and nothing is changing that narrative. I mean just look at last year. We had the 8th overall pick, and we seriously were only able to bring in 1...one top 30 player in for a workout. That's horrific...to say the least.

I think they really did intend to make a run at the 8th spot and keep DMC but there was a stipulation that DMC was to cut down on the techs and represent the Kings on and off the court. That didn't happen.

It's easy to say Kings should have traded DMC prior to the start of the season, but you also have to consider season ticket holders. How many people would have purchased tickets with the roster the Kings have now?

I don't believe that. I'm still quite convinced of my scapegoat theory, but we will never know.
But let's assume you are right - isn't that pretty naive? I mean DMC is in his 7th year. You pretty much know he is a hothead by now. Making plans for the future built on a drastic change of behaviour of a grown man, without enforcing the change by making some sort of psychological treatment mandatory to move forward, only to act suprised and panic when this change of behaviour doesn't happen? Not only that, but to really **** up things, you also sign one of the biggest misfits of the league as your locker room leader and role model?
Well ok - that's some well thought out plan right?