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I'm kind of sick of hearing the chants for "TANK!" less than 40 games into this season. I don't know where people go this idea that a few draft picks is this magical potion of success that immediately nabs your team a championship. If it worked that way, all of the bottom-feeders from the past decade would be contenders now. News flash: they're not. You can trust the process all you want, but after 5 years of lottery drafts, the Sixers are still among the worst teams in the league. Is the future bright? Sure. Embiid seems like a legit star, and who knows what Simmons ceiling is. Yet, how many years did they fail at the draft? How did they create this jam of big guys? How are they going to pay all of these super-talented bigs after a few years of their stock increasing?
You have a CHANCE to get the #1 draft pick, but even with the worst record in the league, it isn't a sure thing. Even then, you have to hope they develop into a superstar, and not an Anthony Bennett. Even then, a better player might show up at #30 like Jimmy Butler. The draft is a big bucket of RNG.
So let's look at few of the boards from the last 10 nba drafts, because god damn, I have nothing to do right now and hearing all of our diehard fans give up on a team less than halfway into the season, again, really drives me up the wall.
2006 1. Andrea Bargnani, Italy Toronto 2. LaMarcus Aldridge, Texas Chicago 3. Adam Morrison, Gonzaga Charlotte 4. Tyrus Thomas, Louisiana State Portland 5. Sheldon Williams, Duke Atlanta 6. Brandon Roy, Washington Minnesota 7. Randy Foye, Villanova Boston 8. Rudy Gay, Connecticut Houston 9. Patrick O'Bryant, Bradley Golden State 10. Mouhamed Sene, Verviers-Pepinster (Belgium) Seattle 11. J.J. Redick, Duke Orlando 12. Hilton Armstrong, Connecticut New Orleans/Oklahoma City 13. Thabo Sefolosha, Switzerland Philadelphia 14. Ronnie Brewer, Arkansas Utah
Check out the lottery picks of this year. Rating on a scale of 1-10 in terms of talent, the Bulls managed about an 8 with Lamarcus, Rudy Gay is a serviceable 6, and Thabo might be a 4 on a good day. Oh, none of these players stayed with their teams. And Toronto most certainly did not turn into a contender thanks to Andrea. For the record, Rondo was picked 21, Kyle Lowry at 24, and Millsap at 47.
2007: 1. Greg Oden, Ohio State Portland 2. Kevin Durant, Texas Seattle 3. Al Horford, Florida Atlanta 4. Michael Conley, Ohio State Memphis 5. Jeff Green, Florida Boston 6. Yi Jianlian, China Milwaukee 7. Corey Brewer, Florida Minnesota 8. Brandan Wright, North Carolina Charlotte 9. Joakim Noah, Florida Chicago 10. Spencer Hawes, Washington Sacramento 11. Acie Law IV, Texas A&M Atlanta 12. Thaddeus Young, Georgia Tech Philadelphia 13. Julian Wright, Kansas New Orleans 14. Al Thornton, Florida State L.A. Clippers
I'm sorry, Portland. You didn't know. Shining example of how being the worst team in the league, and winning the lottery at that, doesn't really equate to instant success. Seattle/OKC got the leftovers and after 5 or 6 years, turned into a contender before all the drama went down. Horford turned out to be a great find for an Atlanta team that barely squeaked into the top 3, but he didn't bring them the glory they sought.
2008 1. Derrick Rose, Memphis Chicago 2. Michael Beasley, Kansas State Miami 3. O.J. Mayo, USC Minnesota 4. Russell Westbrook, UCLA Seattle 5. Kevin Love, UCLA Memphis 6. Danilo Gallinari, Armani Jeans Milano (Italy) New York 7. Eric Gordon, Indiana L.A. Clippers 8. Joe Alexander, West Virginia Milwaukee 9. D.J. Augustin, Texas Charlotte 10. Brook Lopez, Stanford New Jersey 11. Jerryd Bayless, Arizona Indiana 12. Jason Thompson, Rider Sacramento 13. Brandon Rush, Kansas Portland 14. Anthony Randolph, LSU Golden State
This was the year people shouted "Rigged!" The boy from Chicago got picked by a team who had a 1% chance of earning the #1 pick. This is another example of the tanking method letting teams down.
2009: 1. Blake Griffin, Oklahoma L.A. Clippers 2. Hasheem Thabeet, Connecticut Memphis 3. James Harden, Arizona State Oklahoma City 4. Tyreke Evans, Memphis Sacramento 5. Ricky Rubio, Regal FC Barcelona Minnesota 6. Jonny Flynn, Syracuse Minnesota 7. Stephen Curry, Davidson Golden State 8. Jordan Hill, Arizona New York 9. DeMar DeRozan, USC Toronto 10. Brandon Jennings, Lottomatica Roma Milwaukee 11. Terrence Williams, Louisville New Jersey 12. Gerald Henderson, Duke Charlotte 13. Tyler Hansbrough, North Carolina Indiana 14. Earl Clark, Louisville Phoenix
Blake Griffin ate all the hype for breakfast and then got injured. It took a trade for Chris Paul and a lucky late pick from Deandre Jordan to make the DECADES of Clippers tanking finally pay off(In the form of several round 2 eliminations.) This is actually a draft that goes against my argument, because the OKC Thunder were one of the exceptions to the counter-tank rule. They somehow struck gold, ending up with Durant, Westbrook, and Harden in 3 consecutive drafts, despite none of those being the overall pick. They won the lottery multiple times, and then poor trades and a championship-hungry superstar ended what should have been a dynasty.
The teams that DID have the worst record that year ended up striking out, or were lucky enough to have a GM capable of intelligent decisions(The Heat had the worst record in the NBA, blew up their roster, and won the Lebron James Sweepstakes. We know what happens next.)
All right, I'm half way through the draft boards and ready for a new approach to make my point. Let's instead look at the last 5 years of "tanking" for a few teams and what that earned them.
Sixers Round 1 picks since 2010: #2 pick Evan Turner, #11 Michael Carter Williams, #17 Nikola Vucevic, #15 Maurice Harkless, #1 Ben Simmons, #3 Joel Embiid, #10 Elfrid Peyton, #24 Timothe Luwawu, #26 Furkman Korkaz(??). #3 Jahlil Okafor.
Those are some solid names. 6-7 years of tanking ended up netting them, finally, one all-star in Joel Embiid. I hope he works out, I really do, and if he stays healthy, he will be a force. Also Ben Simmons could be fun to watch. I definitely bought into the hype with him. But look at the 5 years of heartbreak and failure before finally getting some solid tools(Verdict still out on Simmons.) The guys that did blossom into solid players were traded for veterans and additional picks that didn't work out for the team, and after all that, they're still 11-25.
Brooklyn Nets: Hah. This team's office makes ours look like the Spurs. They traded away nearly a decade of hope for a group of Vets way past their prime, and they paid dearly for it. The Celtics, a team with a GM who deserves the Nobel Prize in Trading, are thankful for that. To those complaining about Phil's decision to sign Rose and Noah ... it could have been worse.
Cleveland - They got Kyrie Irving and it still didn't save them. Anthony Bennett was a bad decision obviously. Dion Waiters was a failure. If not for Lebron James wanting to return home, and the Wiggins trade actually working out in Cleveland's favor, those 4 years of lottery picks would have left Cleveland at the bottom.
Sacramento - They finally got Cousins(With a #5 pick.) Still been 10 seasons without a playoff experience. Do you really want to be 10 years for the Knicks to make the playoffs? I sure as shit don't.
Washington - Luck was in their favor. Despite having a 10% chance, they won the #1 draft and got John Wall. They also pulled off Otto Porter and Bradley Beal in the years to come. However, the Wizards never really tanked. They were a mid-level team who barely missed or made the playoffs, like the Knicks, and managed to find a few good pieces in the process. That said, they're still a .500 team, 6 years into Wall's career.
Timberwolves - They traded their superstar for two #1 picks(Wiggins, Bennett), lucked out with Lavine at #13, and took Ricky Rubio ahead of Demar Derozan and Steph Curry. However, they did manage to net Karl-Anthony Towns. It took almost a decade of losing seasons before people woke up and said, "Finally, the Timberwolves season looks bright." And indeed it does.
To summarize: Tanking is a gamble that rarely pays off. It's called a Lottery for a reason: very few teams actually win the jackpot. It is completely possible to build a team through a draft. The Golden State Warriors did that, and they did it without a single top-5 pick. The Spurs are another example of home-grown, drafted talent. Then again, I'm convinced the Spurs could draft a middle-school bench player, and he'd end up a top 10 player.
Either way, we only have two options.
We tank, pray that our top 5-10 pick becomes a superstar to pair with KP, and ride out these 3 years we're stuck with Melo and Noah.
Or, we compete what we have. We build KP into the monster he's becoming. We give this team a chance to show us what they did at the beginning of the season, when we were the #3 team in the East and Madison Square Garden was our "Fortress." Because let's be honest, bitching and whining isn't going to erase Melo's NTC, nor is it going to shed Noah's contract.
So why not compete, see what this team can do when they develop some better chemistry? Enjoy the amazing feeling of watching the Knicks win instead of making ourselves numb to the mediocrity of the next few tanking seasons. I want to enjoy basketball now, not in five years. I want KP to stay a Knick, to fight like Ewing fought, not become so disgruntled with the organization and hateful media that he looks to sign somewhere else once his time here is up. I want to see Melo find his motivation, see that, shit, maybe this team finally has a chance to make some noise. He only has a few years left in him and he knows that, and if he can find that extra gear, the man can do some damage. I want to see Derrick Rose, even if its just this one season, show us some of that game that made the league love him back in his early days with the Bulls. The dude has come back from an injury that very few players has, and while he isn't NEARLY as effective as he once was, he's a man who can score at will when he sets his mind to the task.
So fuck it, I hope we win. I hope we sneak in with a low seed, get underestimated, and upset a contender. Is it likely? Probably not. But what's the point of being a fan when you have nothing to hope for?