In the words of Olshey,, no NBA player wants to lose to bring in his own replacement..they play to win and keep their spots. I think every player on the roster cares.
About 9/10th of the players wouldn't be "bringing in a replacement" since it's most likely not their position getting "replaced". so that seems kinda silly. GM speak, for sure. Again, though, it's fun either way, so who really cares?
In the end, the chances are better than good that you guys get the draft pick, but until the fat lady sings, I want them to go down fighting tooth and nail
Ok, we'll change it. You meet Kingspeed and 5 beautiful women friends of his. You think he's dreamy and you just have to experiment. No shame in that if that's what you want. But, you realize you don't like guys and want one of his friends. Now they don't want you anymore. Still happy that you got laid?
Not really. Because the East is so much better than the west this year, the 9th seed in the west will probably end up picking in the 9-11 range. It would be trivial for this team to hit the skids during their rough patch and end up with the 6-7th pick.
You're right about not getting the 14th pick and the most likely being in the 9-11 range. I have a hard time seeing the Blazers dropping below the Nuggets, Bucks and Pelicans to get the 6th pick, but it's not out of the realm of the possible. Fourth pick is pretty damned unlikely in any realistic look at the final order.
Currently there are 6 teams in the East.( 8-13) who are within a game of Portland. I think we can all agree that we should root for them all to finish ahead of us. That way if we finish in 9th in the West, it would give us the 10th best chance in the lottery. 10 has to be better than 15. In the mean time we can remain divided on where we want to finish in the west.
The title to the thread is Playoffs vs. No. 4 Pick. If the Blazers had a realistic shot at the No. 4 pick, which could pretty easily bounce up to the No. 1 pick via the lottery, I'd be more inclined to be in the tanker camp. For all of the reasons I've mentioned before, tanking to get a No. 9 to No. 11 pick isn't likely to to move the needle enough to be worth the exercise.
Plus I am not convinced that the other teams in the East really are that much better. If they are then that means theoretically they should have a tougher schedule the rest of the way.Because they play each other. We know our schedule is tough, but have we analyzed everyone else's? Same with the West. How hard of a schedule does Utah and Sac have in March/April?
What would really piss me off would be for the Blazers to intentionally tank because they want the pick and don't want to play the Warriors in the first round, and then have the Warriors lose Curry and Green to injuries.
By the way, I'm not trying to be a dick. But I thought my last anal ogy would be one you could get behind.
Yeah, your analogy really went off the rails for me on that one. Eric is cute and all, but I'm just not wired that way.
Doesn't matter. Added is added. Now we're back to wild ass guesses. Call it Playoffs vs. Pick, if it makes you happier. The pick is still guaranteed added value. Trying to say the same of making the playoffs is 100% wishful thinking.
Yes, it matters, because the pick and the team's development aren't independent of one another. In fact, they are interrelated. We keep the pick with a worse record. We keep it with a better record. These aren't "wild-ass guesses"; these are facts. A logical analysis of the situation takes all the facts into account. You however are free to ignore the reality of the situation; that's your prerogative.
Kris Dunn is #4 in both DraftExpress and NBADraft.net. He is MILES ahead of the guys at #14 people have never even heard of. Obviously #4 part has changed (as mentioned in a following post) but at the time posted, they were 1/2 a game from the #4 spot.
Realistically Dunn wouldn't be an option for this team as we have two really good similar players. Simmons, Ingram and Brown are the only right away impact players we would want. Dragan and Skal could be others but idk too much about them.
