Cavaliers Thread: We Somehow Both Don't and Do Suck

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

Just now, Bonanza23 said:

I actually disagree. It still benefits teams to tank, that way you can only drop so far. Teams still majorly tanked despite the new rules, including the Cavs. 

I’m not normally one to say the lottery is fixed but this year it seemed really fixed. What’s his name sent a message to teams to not tank. But I guarantee you it won’t stop it. 

I think it’s more important to just acquire hella assets, specifically from poorly run franchises, and hope they gift you a top pick.

 

[Bonanza23]

2 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I think it’s more important to just acquire hella assets, specifically from poorly run franchises, and hope they gift you a top pick.

 

I do agree with that. It’s hope we got kyrie. 

[buno67]

6 hours ago, Bonanza23 said:

I actually disagree. It still benefits teams to tank, that way you can only drop so far. Teams still majorly tanked despite the new rules, including the Cavs. 

I’m not normally one to say the lottery is fixed but this year it seemed really fixed. What’s his name sent a message to teams to not tank. But I guarantee you it won’t stop it. 

Is winning 19 games to have one of the worse records to secure just at least the 5th overall really worth it tho? Is it worth it when you see two teams win 30+ games jump ahead of you in the lottery. Why not just try and develop the team you have and pray you land a top lottery pick. Better than tanking and winning less than 20 games and praying you land a top lottery spot. 

[Rod Johnson]

54 minutes ago, buno67 said:

Is winning 19 games to have one of the worse records to secure just at least the 5th overall really worth it tho? Is it worth it when you see two teams win 30+ games jump ahead of you in the lottery. Why not just try and develop the team you have and pray you land a top lottery pick. Better than tanking and winning less than 20 games and praying you land a top lottery spot. 

Yeah I agree it's not worth it to go full tank anymore, but the worst thing you can do is be a non-contending playoff team.  Having the 9th or 10th best record in the conference is probably light years better than being the 7th or 8th, and only a little worse than being in the bottom 5.  The worst teams most likely pick is right around their protected floor anyways.

Unfortunately I can easily see us taking the bait to force our way into the playoffs if Love is relatively healthy.  If he's not we are guaranteed a lottery pick anyways, and we might as well go balls to the wall.

[Bonanza23]

1 hour ago, buno67 said:

Is winning 19 games to have one of the worse records to secure just at least the 5th overall really worth it tho? Is it worth it when you see two teams win 30+ games jump ahead of you in the lottery. Why not just try and develop the team you have and pray you land a top lottery pick. Better than tanking and winning less than 20 games and praying you land a top lottery spot. 

Yes I’d rather secure a top 5 pick. It is pure luck those teams jumped errrr got forced ahead. Come on LA really jumped that far by pure chance? Looks like commish wanted to send a message. I’m usually not one who believes in conspiracies but this one is a little obvious. 

[buno67]

4 hours ago, Bonanza23 said:

Yes I’d rather secure a top 5 pick. It is pure luck those teams jumped errrr got forced ahead. Come on LA really jumped that far by pure chance? Looks like commish wanted to send a message. I’m usually not one who believes in conspiracies but this one is a little obvious. 

Not when they re worked the lottery odds to stop tanking. Pelicans and Lakers both improved 6 spots

rather see growth and development of the team that tanking to Win 18 games

[Bonanza23]

1 hour ago, buno67 said:

Not when they re worked the lottery odds to stop tanking. Pelicans and Lakers both improved 6 spots

rather see growth and development of the team that tanking to Win 18 games

Tell that to the teams that tanked this year knowing the new odds. Including our own Cavaliers. And we picked 5th instead of what could have been 6-14. 

Yeah don’t care about growth when we’re in talent acquisition phase. If these guys are so mentally weak where tanking is a detriment to them, then I’d jettison their butt. Being good enough to just make the playoffs is the worst place to be for a team like Cleveland. We’re not attracting the good FAs to come here. We have to build through the draft, make wise trades and sign washed up role players to make it. Getting the 10th spot and hoping the lottery odds brings you up to top five is worthless thinking. Those odds are not something I’m going to bet on. 

[BleedTheClock]

8 hours ago, buno67 said:

Is winning 19 games to have one of the worse records to secure just at least the 5th overall really worth it tho?

As opposed to winning 27 games and still missing the playoffs? Yeah it is worth it. The lottery wasn't in our favor this year, but losing the most games still gives you the best chance to land the best player. The difference between landing the 5th best player and landing the 15th best player (which would be our ceiling even if we tried all-out) is astronomical. I'd rather try to hit gold in the high lottery than be middling.

You're acting like we tanked and avoided being a good team on purpose. The Cavs suck. They were never going to be good. If you're below average, it's best to completely suck than be slightly below the median.

I don't honestly even think we tanked. Our roster sucks.

[Rod Johnson]

8 hours ago, BleedTheClock said:

As opposed to winning 27 games and still missing the playoffs? Yeah it is worth it. The lottery wasn't in our favor this year, but losing the most games still gives you the best chance to land the best player. The difference between landing the 5th best player and landing the 15th best player (which would be our ceiling even if we tried all-out) is astronomical. I'd rather try to hit gold in the high lottery than be middling.

You're acting like we tanked and avoided being a good team on purpose. The Cavs suck. They were never going to be good. If you're below average, it's best to completely suck than be slightly below the median.

I don't honestly even think we tanked. Our roster sucks.

You are, as almost everybody in Cleveland and fans of the worst teams this year, conflating having the "best" chance of getting the top pick with having a "good" chance of getting the top pick.  We could be the worst team in the league for 10 years and get the top pick ~1.5 times on average and a top 4 pick only 5/10 times.

And that's on average, it wouldn't be absurd for the worst team to never get the top pick for 20 years.

These odds make it pretty much a crapshoot.  I would trade winning some games and building confidence for marginally better chance in the lottery every time. As long as you miss the playoffs it barely matters.

We weren't even unlucky in the lottery this year, basically what happened was exactly what was supposed to happen.  I mean, heck, the Hawks won 29 games last year and we practically had the same odds of getting the 1st pick that they did.

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by Rod Johnson

[BleedTheClock]

25 minutes ago, Rod Johnson said:

These odds make it pretty much a crapshoot.  I would trade winning some games and building confidence for marginally better chance in the lottery every time. As long as you miss the playoffs it barely matters.

Definitely agree. I understand we may never land another UBERSTAR like LeBron tanking and we could maybe get one by having the 13th-14th worst record still, but the odds are still with the worst team.

And there's a difference between "tanking" and "sucking." I don't think people know the difference. Tanking is purposely throwing games. Sucking is not adding better talent on the team in order to create cap space. And I don't honestly think we tanked. LeBron JUST left us. He left us with a bunch of crappy players with bloated salaries. We literally had no way to pull ourselves out of the gutter this season.

Signing a bunch of solid players that eat up our cap space and get us to the 8th seed in the East is not something I want us to do. It's just not smart. I'd rather subscribe to the OKC Thunder/Philly 76ers strategy of building through top 5 draft picks rather than the Memphis Grizzlies strategy of signing veterans to bloated deals in order to be a 1st-2nd round exit every year.

 

We will know when it's time to make a push and dip our toes into free agency. That time is most certainly not now.

[cortes02]

Let me just say I'm shocked that the Lakers were able to dump 3 players onto Washington to create a Max cap slot.  I just don't see the benefit of Washington doing this.

Peace!!!

[BleedTheClock]

15 minutes ago, cortes02 said:

Let me just say I'm shocked that the Lakers were able to dump 3 players onto Washington to create a Max cap slot.  I just don't see the benefit of Washington doing this.

Peace!!!

Get young players for essentially nothing. These weren’t big salaries. 

[Rod Johnson]

18 minutes ago, BleedTheClock said:

Definitely agree. I understand we may never land another UBERSTAR like LeBron tanking and we could maybe get one by having the 13th-14th worst record still, but the odds are still with the worst team.

And there's a difference between "tanking" and "sucking." I don't think people know the difference. Tanking is purposely throwing games. Sucking is not adding better talent on the team in order to create cap space. And I don't honestly think we tanked. LeBron JUST left us. He left us with a bunch of crappy players with bloated salaries. We literally had no way to pull ourselves out of the gutter this season.

Signing a bunch of solid players that eat up our cap space and get us to the 8th seed in the East is not something I want us to do. It's just not smart. I'd rather subscribe to the OKC Thunder/Philly 76ers strategy of building through top 5 draft picks rather than the Memphis Grizzlies strategy of signing veterans to bloated deals in order to be a 1st-2nd round exit every year.

 

We will know when it's time to make a push and dip our toes into free agency. That time is most certainly not now.

Oh okay got ya got ya.  I think we will definitely suck enough this year to find ourselves in the lottery again.  Only way I think we could possibly make the playoffs is if Love plays over 65 games, which seems unlikely.

We won't be a good free agent destination until our homegrown guys are borderline contending, that's years down the road.  Definitely agree we shouldn't overpay for mediocrity.

[BleedTheClock]

24 minutes ago, Rod Johnson said:

We won't be a good free agent destination until our homegrown guys are borderline contending, that's years down the road.

100%. We need to suck for a few years or dwell in “meh” for the long term. It’s not like we’re gonna sign Durant and Kawhi; we would be signing DeAndre Jordan and Emmanuel Mudiay (assuming we even had $$$$ to spend, which we don’t). 

[buno67]

1 hour ago, BleedTheClock said:

Definitely agree. I understand we may never land another UBERSTAR like LeBron tanking and we could maybe get one by having the 13th-14th worst record still, but the odds are still with the worst team.

And there's a difference between "tanking" and "sucking." I don't think people know the difference. Tanking is purposely throwing games. Sucking is not adding better talent on the team in order to create cap space. And I don't honestly think we tanked. LeBron JUST left us. He left us with a bunch of crappy players with bloated salaries. We literally had no way to pull ourselves out of the gutter this season.

Signing a bunch of solid players that eat up our cap space and get us to the 8th seed in the East is not something I want us to do. It's just not smart. I'd rather subscribe to the OKC Thunder/Philly 76ers strategy of building through top 5 draft picks rather than the Memphis Grizzlies strategy of signing veterans to bloated deals in order to be a 1st-2nd round exit every year.

 

We will know when it's time to make a push and dip our toes into free agency. That time is most certainly not now.

I’m not saying they need to sign a bunch of guys and try and compete for the 8th spot. I just don’t want a full on tank. I have no problem sucking because of youth and inexperience. I just don’t want to tank and the team doesn’t even want to try and win games. Want them to start building a core and let them grow and have success. don’t put road blocks infront of them to have a worse record. 

There is no incentive to truly rank or truly suck because the odds of the lottery don’t favor that.

we tanked for years with Irving and it wasn’t going to pay off. We let bad habits and what not form. I don’t want Garland and Sexton a potential core developing bad habits. Literally need to treat this team like the Blazers.  They turned it around with a core of Dame CJ and LA. Let’s do that with Sexton Garland and Love. 

Indont want to see them try and be a 40+ win team. But don’t try and be a 20 wins or less kind of team. Ride the youth but try and get a guy or two who could have a future like Capella.