Yeah Imo tanking is highly overrated as a successful means to building a roster, most of the pieces acquired never live up to expectations,have significant injury histories add a topping of hype and even for those that do, without a solid blend of vets that are good solid rotation players no team that has tanked for years but has no good vets has ever won anything.NBA will always be about star players so tanking in that sense is attractive.
There is no perfect formula though. Would Irving, Wiggins, Dion be a big 3? Throw in the misses on TT(4th pick over Kawhi and Klay) and Bennett (good god) and tanking isn't a perfect science.
Ideally you get some good players and also high picks. I think the Cavs are trying to do this with locking up Love and then having Cedi and Sexton develop.
There is just no clear way.
1) Warriors- Drafted amazingly well with Steph at 7 and Klay at 11 and Draymond at 33 or whatever. KD bullshit aside... they drafted a great team that fit perfectly even without KD.
2) Celtics- Destroyed the Nets with horrible trades and then were able to simultaneously add stars via trade and FA while drafting them.
3) 76ers tanked for years.
4) Raptors-drafted ok, made some trades, then pounced on a top 3 player in the league-look like the team to beat in the East early on.
5) Rockets-traded for Harden, traded for Paul. Big spenders.
Scouting and drafting well are keys to team building while maintaining a crew of solid veterans and then fa or trade acquisition of high caliber players finish the deal. Sound familiar? Cavs are doing it right this time. Not only because tanking ruins the development of the good young players meanwhile tanking also ensures vets all leave the team.
Maybe if the Cavs hadn't made the deadline deal for Hood,JC and Nance, maybe if Sexton wan't the best pg in the draft that fell in their lap and maybe if Cedi Osman wasn't the steal of the 2015 draft etc then a full tank and blown up rebuild would make sense.
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