Runnin - n - Gunnin

We In Here Talking About Tanking

Tanking has become a hot issue in the NBA in these last weeks of the season.  It happens every year, but has picked up recently with the Golden State Warriors’ front office moves.  Outside of at least half of the Warrior fan base, the team’s tanking ways are mostly looked down upon.  Yes, ideally tanking is terrible for sports, but let’s look at the Warriors’ situation from a fan’s point of view: mine. 

Here is why tanking in general is a horrible idea:

Teams are putting lower quality basketball on the court.  As a viewer and a fan paying for seats at a game or paying for NBA league pass broadband for certain teams, what would you want to watch?  Great offense and/or defense as well as some wins.  When teams tank, the front office essentially tweaks the team’s roster in order to gain losses instead of wins, leading to better chances of gaining a higher draft pick.  These tweaks usually mean sitting better players and starting worse ones, meaning worse basketball being played.  Who wants to pay for that?

With the way that the draft is set up, teams are essentially rewarded for losing, getting better chances at a higher draft pick. This eventually leads to pointless games in the waning weeks of the season where teams have any real motivation to fight (win).  More bad basketball.

Here is why the Golden State Warriors should tank:

I’ve written before about the Warriors’ Top-7 protected draft pick that currently belongs to Utah, so I won’t get into much detail about that situation.  What I will say is that as their record currently stands, the Warriors have the 8th worst record in the NBA, trailing both the New Jersey Nets and the Toronto Raptors by 2 losses.  If the Warriors lose all of their remaining 6 games and both the Nets and Raptors win at least one more each, they would have the 6th worst record, giving them a 95.9% chance of keeping their draft pick, as opposed to 75% if the 7th worst, and 10% if the 8th worst.

The Warriors also have good pieces to eventually becoming a Playoff team, and a role playing rookie wouldn’t hurt either.  Right now the Warriors have decent core: Stephen Curry, a point guard who can pass as well shoot.  David Lee, a big man that can rebound, score, as well as pass.  Andrew Bogut, a top 5 defensive center that can also pass.  Klay Thompson, great rookie who has flourished since Monta’s departure and has shown that he can do more than just shoot the ball.  Yes, a high draft pick doesn’t necessarily mean the Warriors will get a rookie that will make an immediate impact, but they could essentially get a very good role player at a decent price (a 7th pick would have a salary around 3 million his first year).  I’ll get into who I would like to see the Warriors draft once the NBA lottery is settled.

Here’s how the Warriors essentially aren’t tanking, in spite of the signs:

Trading Monta Ellis for an injured Andrew Bogut looks like tank move, but essentially it’s an improvement for the Warriors in the long run.  The undersized, defenseless Curry and Monta backcourt wasn’t helping the team, so the front office kept the player with higher upside.  Meanwhile, Andrew Bogut, when healthy, is a Top 5 center in the league, leading the NBA in blocks last season with 2.6 per game, and can help hide David Lee’s defensive deficiencies.  The Warriors haven’t had a great center since… who, Robert Parish?  Yes, there is a risk in investing in a player who is injured, but in this league it is difficult to trade small for big.  The Warriors were able to do that.

Shutting down both Stephen Curry and Andrew Bogut for the rest of the year is more about health issues than tanking issues.  Curry’s ankle has been a problem all season and it will be more beneficial in the long run to get it 100% healthy than to rush him back on the court.  Bogut’s ankle has the same issue, except that his injury isn’t chronic, which actually bodes better in the long run.  Shutting down both David Lee and Richard Jefferson for the rest of the season, though, are definitely tanking moves, having only 6 games left of the season where wins are useless.

Starting rookies Klay Thompson, Charles Jenkins, Jeremy Tyler, and Mickell Gladness definitely won’t give the team wins, but it will definitely help their individual development.  Developing young players during practice is a lot different from developing young players in actual games.  Development comes faster when actually given minutes against top NBA players in their positions.  I would much rather watch the young players grow on the court in losses than rot on the bench in meaningless wins.  Klay already looks like a great starting caliber shooting guard and Jenkins has shown that he can be a decent back-up point guard, while both Tyler and Gladness have shown potential to be good rotation big men (though I personally don’t believe in them just yet).  

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And there it is, my thoughts on the Warriors’ impending tank.  In principle, I do dislike tanking because I would rather see great basketball on my favorite team’s court, but what else is there to do for the rest of this season?  As a fan, I want the Warriors to win a championship, and to eventually get there, they may have to bottom out in a season or two.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

Here’s the thing though, why is national sports media making a big deal of the Warriors’ tanking effort (when they’re actually doing it correctly) and not any of the other teams with worse records, especially the Charlotte Bobcats?  Granted, the Bobcats are just a terrible team and just can’t win either way, but why is no one criticizing them for not doing anything in the past year and a half to help improve their team? 

Assessing the Warriors’ Draft Lottery Chances Post-Trade Deadline

I’ve mentioned this once before, but the Golden State Warriors’ draft pick is currently held by the Utah Jazz.  Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how you look at the situation), the draft pick is top 7 protected.  In this case, if the Warriors happen to get a pick between 1 and 7 after the NBA lottery, they will keep the draft pick for this year.  

The Golden State Warriors need to have between the 1st and 4th worst records to ensure their draft pick stays, or between 5th and 7th worst in order to still have a very good chance of keeping their pick.  If the Warriors end up somewhere between 8th and 14th, the chance of keeping the pick drops dramatically (if 8th, they would have a 10% chance of keeping their pick, as opposed to almost 75% if they were 7th).  

From the beginning of the season, the Warriors’ chances to keep that pick haven’t looked good.  The Warriors have been a mediocre, late lottery type of team, and with the NBA’s weighted lottery the chances of the team leaving draft purgatory are slim.  Thankfully, this season’s trades have shaken up things a bit and we may find some shifts in draft placement come lottery time.  Let’s see how the Warriors’ chances have changed.

Currently the Warriors sit with the 11th worst record in the NBA, but now have a chance to drop in the standings, thus bringing them closer to a lottery pick.  The Warriors traded their best offensive weapon in Monta Ellis and their top defensive player in Ekpe Udoh.  The best player in that trade, Andrew Bogut, is injured for the remainder of the season and the Warriors have shut down Stephen Curry indefinitely, waiting until his ankle is 100% healthy.  With their best two players out of commission, expect the Warriors to lose a lot more.

Now let’s look into the teams that are currently in their way:

• The Charlotte Bobcats and the New Orleans Hornets are currently the two worst teams in their respective conferences and neither team made any mid-season trades.  I don’t expect either of these teams to lose their standings.
• The Washington Wizards traded away Nick Young and JaVale McGee, getting back Nene (and Brian Cook, but he’s a non-factor) and opening minutes for Jordan Crawford.  Barring another injury, Nene paired up with John Wall should help the Wizards win more games, but they dug themselves too deep earlier in the season, and will most likely end up somewhere in the bottom 5 of the league.
• The Sacramento Kings also didn’t made any moves by the trade deadline and also trail the Warriors by 5.5 games.  They’ve had stretches where they played very well, but they also have a tough remaining schedule.  It’ll be a fun fight for the bottom of the Pacific Division. 
• The Toronto Raptors’ new head coach Dwane Casey has the team competing, but still find themselves underachieving (which may be attributed to Andrea Bargani’s struggles with injuries).  They also traded an offensive spark in Leandro Barbosa for a 2nd round pick, so I expect this team to continue underachieving.  We’re all just waiting for Jonas Valanciunas to debut in the NBA anyway.  They are currently 5.5 games behind the Warriors.
• The New Jersey Nets can actually go for a playoff push, as unlikely as that can be.  They are currently 4.5 games behind the 8th seed Bucks and they actually improved their roster.  In an attempt to keep Deron Williams happy, the Nets traded two injured players with expiring contracts for Gerald Wallace. He’s a huge upgrade for their Small Forward position, giving them a few more wins.  Granted, they are still 5 games behind the Warriors, so leapfrogging ahead of them in the standings is still unlikely.
• The Detroit Pistons didn’t make any moves this season, but they have been playing surprisingly well lately.  They have won 4 out of their last 5 games, including wins to the Lakers and the Hawks.  Save for a back-to-back-to-back, their remaining schedule isn’t particularly terrible, and being 3.5 games behind the Warriors they have a shot to leap ahead in the overall standings.  The tricky part is that they’ve played 3 more games than the Warriors so far, all three being losses.
• The Cleveland Cavaliers traded away Ramon Sessions and Christian Eyenga to the Lakers for a draft pick and scrub players Luke Walton and Jason Kapono.  Though this trade looks like it will make the Cavs worse, I believe they can steal a few more wins.  Even though their remaining schedule is tough (9 sets of back-to-backs) Kyrie Irving has and will continue to carry the team all season, especially with more minutes now that Sessions is gone.  They are currently 2.5 games behind the Warriors, but I expect that to switch by the end of the season.
• The New York Knicks and the Milwaukee Bucks both have the same record at 19-24, just a half of a game behind the Warriors.  One of these teams will make the playoffs while the other will have a low lottery pick.  There should be no problems here, both teams will end up with better records than the Warriors… Especially the Bucks who now have Monta and Ekpe.
• The Portland Trailblazers currently have a half game lead on the Warriors in the total standings right now, but they recently blew up their roster and started rebuilding.  I see the Blazers and the Warriors fighting for higher draft positioning as the season continues, but because the Blazers kept their best player LaMarcus Aldridge as well as a stud like Nicolas Batum, I expect them to lose fewer games.

Overall, I expect the Warriors to have the ability to actually drop down to the 6th-7th worst record in the NBA, ensuring at least a 75% chance that they keep their 2012 draft pick.  Knowing the Warriors and their luck, though, they’ll probably win a few games that they should lose or a team with a better record will get lucky in the lottery, and eventually end up with the 8th pick, thus forfeiting it to the Utah Jazz.  

Nonetheless, everything will lie in the heart of the ping pong balls.  We will just have to wait and see what happens next.