Tank?! Seriously?

Just wanted to post on the obsurd idea that rooting for the Warriors to lose every night has very little positive outcome. Below are three reasons why "trying to get a better draft pick" could just as easily screw things up much worse.

No Historical Basis

When was the last time you have heard of a team in the NBA that decided, around the all-star break, to just give up on the season, and then were rewarded during the off-season?

It's acts like this that can keep free agents away from the Bay, because who prefers to sign a contract with a team that promotes losing? (We have a hard enough time with our teams history as is!)

Some people have pointed out that Boston and Memphis both purposely tanked games to try and get Greg Oden/Kevin Durant, and both teams were left out of the lottery's top three despite having the two best chances for a spot.

via the hype at wordpress.com

In 2006, the Trail Blazers had the worst record, and they were also left out of the top three. In 2005, out of the three worst teams in the league (Atlanta, New Orleans, and Charlotte) only the Hawks had there ball bounce right, and they received the second pick; only, because of perceived team needs, they passed on both Chris Paul and Deron Williams.

The last time a team with the worst record won the lottery was 2004, and yes, they drafted Dwight Howard, but they won 21 games that year. The basic point of this is simply that the draft lottery, as well as the draft itself, is way too random and unpredictable to warrant deliberately losing games the season prior.

Weak Draft Class

To make matters worse, scouts all over the NBA have been saying for quite some time that this years draft class is looking to be very weak. The favorite to go number one overall all season so far, Blake Griffin from Oklahoma, was on many boards not even rated as high as Anthony Randolph in last years draft, before Griffin removed his name.

Courtesy of Funkyewok

Looking beyond, very few players stand out as difference makers. Ricky Rubio is highly touted, but there is still a significant chance that he wont declare this season due to issues with his Euro contract and buy-out problems. Greg Monroe is a high-potential PF with ball skills, but has hustle issues and even at Georgetown this season has had many games against good opponents when he disappears. He only managed 3 rebounds in 27 minutes against a small Tennessee lineup early on, and 4 rebounds in another loss to Marquette.

Hasheem Thabeet is a major shot blocker and large body, but also has disappeared against decent teams, and has very, very little skill on the offensive end. James Harden is a favorite of mine, but he is slightly undersized for a shooting guard (the same type of player that makes up half our roster) and isn't very atheletic to boot. Beyond that, there isn't any other players that are close to being sure things, or are even predicted to have a ceiling high enough to be an NBA starter.

Why would we continue to lose games on purpose if the end prize is just another player with holes in his game and isn't an all-star caliber player?

Warrior Brass screwed as is

Tanking games will also give rise to more issues than are already present in the front office. If we keep losing, Don Nelson's job may even be in some jeopardy, and I know that many readers here would like nothing better than a Nelson axing, but that only creates more losing.

Think about it this way. If Nelson is the head coach, we will spend all of this offseason and next season pushing to win a lot of games (aka, try to make the playoffs). Lenny Wilkins record on 1332 wins for a head coach is not that far away from Nelson current 1295, and you better believe Nelly will be motivated to not just reach that point but move well beyond it; he is a competitor and knows that if his win total is only a handful of games higher than Lenny's there will still be a lot of room for debate over who was a better coach.

Beyond that, if Nelly were to leave, that would make for a huge front office turnover. Mullin is already as good as gone with the way things have happened over the past year. When was the last time an NBA had that much turnover and was successful the following year?

Who would coach this team? Sidney Moncrief has greatly improved our team shooting (particularly from the line) and Keith Smart has begun to turn things around on the defensive end, but there is a reason neither even entered the conversation as so many head coaching positions opened up in the last year. And although I personally think Keith Smart will one day make a great head coach, hopefully for the Warriors, giving the reigns to someone else right now will only prolong the losing for another few years.

So, why tank?