The Tankathon Thread (since that's apparently what this is now)
- Thread starter Tetsujin
- Start date
Yeah, I'm all in. I've been watching some Hartenstein film the last few weeks and it all checks out. I almost don't care about the fit; I see an extremely talented 23 year old UFA that would make our defense drastically better, is an advanced stats monster and I think has a hidden elite passing skill for a big man. And he's randomly started busting out some 3pt attempts the last 6 games (6-12 the last 6 games). If that's a skill he develops further this off-season? Ohh boy, he's a $15mil/season talent.
I'd gladly give him the full MLE. In the same vein as Vandy last off-season and a few other VERY easy to see breakout guys, he's going to be a gem and a valuable core rotation/starter for somebody. Some may think it's an overpay, but the way he's produced this season? Not really. I'd say MLE is still a reasonably good value for the potential upside here. And besides, we're the Kings; I'd rather take a somewhat flier on Hartensten being a hidden gem of an above average player than overspend for the CoJo/Ariza/ZBO types or just give smaller contracts to non-needle movers like Harkless/Len.
I'd gladly give him the full MLE. In the same vein as Vandy last off-season and a few other VERY easy to see breakout guys, he's going to be a gem and a valuable core rotation/starter for somebody. Some may think it's an overpay, but the way he's produced this season? Not really. I'd say MLE is still a reasonably good value for the potential upside here. And besides, we're the Kings; I'd rather take a somewhat flier on Hartensten being a hidden gem of an above average player than overspend for the CoJo/Ariza/ZBO types or just give smaller contracts to non-needle movers like Harkless/Len.
I really don't like your FO vote answer. 
I hate it, actually.
Only because I could honestly see teams figuring out a way to conspire and rig the system in their favor or at minimum, just keep big players out of markets they don't like. All you'd have to do is consistently rank the Sacramentos 4 or 5 at the end of every year and we'd never get a top pick.
I either think it should be 100% randomized or it should weigh 3-5 years rather than 1 season. But if you really wanted to have an objective "this team is bad" - why not just take total # of losses since a team's last playoff appearance? Conceivably this would mean teams would have to be 3-4 years worth of bad and would likely seek to rebuild via conventional means?
I hate it, actually.Only because I could honestly see teams figuring out a way to conspire and rig the system in their favor or at minimum, just keep big players out of markets they don't like. All you'd have to do is consistently rank the Sacramentos 4 or 5 at the end of every year and we'd never get a top pick.
I either think it should be 100% randomized or it should weigh 3-5 years rather than 1 season. But if you really wanted to have an objective "this team is bad" - why not just take total # of losses since a team's last playoff appearance? Conceivably this would mean teams would have to be 3-4 years worth of bad and would likely seek to rebuild via conventional means?
I really don't like your FO vote answer. I hate it, actually.
Only because I could honestly see teams figuring out a way to conspire and rig the system in their favor or at minimum, just keep big players out of markets they don't like. All you'd have to do is consistently rank the Sacramentos 4 or 5 at the end of every year and we'd never get a top pick.
I either think it should be 100% randomized or it should weigh 3-5 years rather than 1 season. But if you really wanted to have an objective "this team is bad" - why not just take total # of losses since a team's last playoff appearance? Conceivably this would mean teams would have to be 3-4 years worth of bad and would likely seek to rebuild via conventional means?
I hate it, actually.Only because I could honestly see teams figuring out a way to conspire and rig the system in their favor or at minimum, just keep big players out of markets they don't like. All you'd have to do is consistently rank the Sacramentos 4 or 5 at the end of every year and we'd never get a top pick.
I either think it should be 100% randomized or it should weigh 3-5 years rather than 1 season. But if you really wanted to have an objective "this team is bad" - why not just take total # of losses since a team's last playoff appearance? Conceivably this would mean teams would have to be 3-4 years worth of bad and would likely seek to rebuild via conventional means?
I really don't like your FO vote answer. I hate it, actually.
Only because I could honestly see teams figuring out a way to conspire and rig the system in their favor or at minimum, just keep big players out of markets they don't like. All you'd have to do is consistently rank the Sacramentos 4 or 5 at the end of every year and we'd never get a top pick.
I either think it should be 100% randomized or it should weigh 3-5 years rather than 1 season. But if you really wanted to have an objective "this team is bad" - why not just take total # of losses since a team's last playoff appearance? Conceivably this would mean teams would have to be 3-4 years worth of bad and would likely seek to rebuild via conventional means?
I hate it, actually.Only because I could honestly see teams figuring out a way to conspire and rig the system in their favor or at minimum, just keep big players out of markets they don't like. All you'd have to do is consistently rank the Sacramentos 4 or 5 at the end of every year and we'd never get a top pick.
I either think it should be 100% randomized or it should weigh 3-5 years rather than 1 season. But if you really wanted to have an objective "this team is bad" - why not just take total # of losses since a team's last playoff appearance? Conceivably this would mean teams would have to be 3-4 years worth of bad and would likely seek to rebuild via conventional means?
I still like the idea of deciding it by win% after you’ve been eliminated from the playoffs (would also remove the play-in).
Once team X is eliminated from making the playoffs, team X then can start to accumulate “points.” You get a point for every game you win from that point on. So teams that are eliminated from the playoffs with 20 games remaining, have the chance to get 20 points vs teams that are eliminated from the playoffs with 2 games remaining only have the chance to get a max of 2 points.
This scenario would ensure teams are putting their best players out there to end the season and you may also get teams that have a slow start and make a win now trade at the deadline to help them pickup more points when they are eliminated from the playoffs.
Admittedly, this could shift the tanking to be more in the middle of the season vs the end of the season, but you’re likely not going to have as many teams actively tanking that early into the season as playoff chances are still alive.
I just like the idea that you could have a game at the end of the season that decides the #1 pick by who wins the game. That would be intriguing to watch.
Once team X is eliminated from making the playoffs, team X then can start to accumulate “points.” You get a point for every game you win from that point on. So teams that are eliminated from the playoffs with 20 games remaining, have the chance to get 20 points vs teams that are eliminated from the playoffs with 2 games remaining only have the chance to get a max of 2 points.
This scenario would ensure teams are putting their best players out there to end the season and you may also get teams that have a slow start and make a win now trade at the deadline to help them pickup more points when they are eliminated from the playoffs.
Admittedly, this could shift the tanking to be more in the middle of the season vs the end of the season, but you’re likely not going to have as many teams actively tanking that early into the season as playoff chances are still alive.
I just like the idea that you could have a game at the end of the season that decides the #1 pick by who wins the game. That would be intriguing to watch.
Just switch back to the making the odds the same for each team. Makes the lottery more entertaining, and eliminates the incentive to tank completely. Sure, every now and then a borderline playoff team will luck out with a prime pick, but that’s not the worst thing for parity, and I think that’s still a less bad option than the others.
Shoot, maybe there is a way to combine several of these ideas. Do it like they do the all-star selections, with various inputs that would prevent any one item completely overriding the others. For instance, give equal weight (for the following admittedly brief sample list that I didn't go back and review all the options in detail for, that would be 20% each) to:
If you are the Lakers, which sneak into the lottery this year despite having LeBron and AD, and due to your stupid signing of Westbrook, you should score high (bad lottery position) on numbers 3, 4, and maybe 5, effectively eliminating you from getting a top pick.
Obviously you can play with the number of inputs (5 above, but could be whatever number someone wants to go with), expected outputs for various cases or situations, odds for the lottery-based portions, etc. But maybe something like that can bridge the gap between everyone wanting one or the other.
But don't let fans vote, by any means!
- random selection of all non-playoff teams
- straight inverse record or a lottery-based selection weighting towards worst record
- Captain's idea of GM selection
- 5 year (±) weighted selection (with the requisite late lottery "positioning" if you hit on a top 2 pick the previous year, or whatever)
- whatever other somewhat reasonable system someone comes up with if/as necessary
If you are the Lakers, which sneak into the lottery this year despite having LeBron and AD, and due to your stupid signing of Westbrook, you should score high (bad lottery position) on numbers 3, 4, and maybe 5, effectively eliminating you from getting a top pick.
Obviously you can play with the number of inputs (5 above, but could be whatever number someone wants to go with), expected outputs for various cases or situations, odds for the lottery-based portions, etc. But maybe something like that can bridge the gap between everyone wanting one or the other.
But don't let fans vote, by any means!
If there was some kind of way to have it so when a team moves up, they swap places with the team that they steal the spot from, and you picked top 6, it might kill a lot of the incentive? This would also alleviate those nightmare scenarios where teams picking like 6-7-8 currently fall back 2-3 spots by making those spots the safest spots in the lottery. If you were in the 5 or 6 spot you might be incentivized to win up to 7 or 8 just to erase any chance of falling to 14.
To me if you get a lottery pick (top 5/top 10) you should not be able to able to get a a top 15 pick for the next 1-3 years (can trade for them/trade them away at draft night) and that would allow some of the middling teams to move up and instead of consistently being stuck in the middle and stuck in not good or bad enough.
The NBA should imo reward the middle of the pack teams more to make a push and give them that one potential elite talent to make a run rather than always trying to bring trash teams (e.g Kings/OKC/Cavs 3 #1 picks/ Twolves 3 #1 picks) up, reward a organization for getting the most out of the team they have rather than punishing them.
The NBA should imo reward the middle of the pack teams more to make a push and give them that one potential elite talent to make a run rather than always trying to bring trash teams (e.g Kings/OKC/Cavs 3 #1 picks/ Twolves 3 #1 picks) up, reward a organization for getting the most out of the team they have rather than punishing them.
Yeah this is a version I like the most. If you get a top 5 pick, you're removed from the lottery the next season and the highest draft spot you can be is 6. Really gives those middling teams a great chance at an elite talent to put them over the edge and drastically reduces teams incentive to purposefully tank if the best they can do is pick 6.
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Which is why you can trade the pick on draft night before you make your draft and still be eligible next season, even in bad draft years a middling team would be dying to trade something for a #1-#5 pick to have a cheap contract with elite potential.
It just seems idiotic to me to consistently help the bottom who are trying to basically sabotage their W-L while ignoring the middle/upper middle and eventually forcing them to go to the bottom destroying the quality of the product e.g (Hawks with Horford/Milsap/Korver/Carroll/Teauge or Portland with a squad of few years ago/Even current Dallas squad imo).
It just seems idiotic to me to consistently help the bottom who are trying to basically sabotage their W-L while ignoring the middle/upper middle and eventually forcing them to go to the bottom destroying the quality of the product e.g (Hawks with Horford/Milsap/Korver/Carroll/Teauge or Portland with a squad of few years ago/Even current Dallas squad imo).