And the winner is...???

[Kim Malo]

At 03:51 PM 12/28/2006, Ryan, Patrick S Maj RES USAFR 439 MSG wrote:
>The second is a total tank job - heck even potentially trading El Capitan -
>to maximize that "MAY" word in the Oden/Noah sweepstakes. Are the top 3
>picks good enough to be game changers a la Duncan (wherein the third pick
>WAS NOT for another 7 years or so worthy of MVP and Title consideration)?

Seems to me the one thing we should have learned - and clearly 
haven't - from the ML years are the problems with tanking. There is 
no guarantee you get your desired player (and Oden may not even come 
out). There is no guarantee that your desired player is The Answer to 
the degree you're planning on their being - how many 'can't miss' 
players do, or become serviceable but hardly saviors Raefs of the 
world. Big men are especially tricky to judge because of the degree 
of difference level in night to night competition and speed of the 
game. And finally, it's a whole lot easier to start the idea that 
losing is an acceptable thing - whatever reason you give to justify 
it and however temporary you plan on its being - than it is to stop 
it. We're still trying to stop letting that mentality take over the 
franchise under ML. While teams like the Clippers can give grad level 
seminars on how losing mostly begats... more losing.

Besides which, as I've said before, I really find this whole shopping 
as the answer to everything mentality antipathetic. Don't forget that 
whomever we get if we tank, it's still going to be the same coach, 
the same teammates for the most part, the same offense, defense, 
rotational issues...  Sometimes it makes better sense to try to make 
what you have better before just automatically looking for the 
solution in trying to swap it for a different model.
Kim