JJZFL

That’s always the argument. We should either be even worse than we were, or worse for a longer period of time. Don’t get a superstar after five years? You need to tank for 10. Win 22 games and don’t get the top pick? You need to lose even more. The argument can never be fully disproven, because you can always be worse unless you go 0-82. Thats what the tanking argument comes down to. The team is just never bad enough.

I agree with you.

What? And give up Vuch??

No argument. I was talking in my above post about the first 3 years of Hennigan's tenure. We weren't trying to tank since then, but it turns out it's harder to "turn off" then people thought. Regarding your point about winning games at the end of the season, what would you differently? You can't tell the players or coaches to try to lose.

It was no accident that we traded every half decent veteran and hired an incompetent coach. Sucking on purpose is tanking. You may be one of the few people in the world who believes we weren't trying to tank for several years.

Well we have our work cut out for us tonight. Just be patient and play one possession at a time. We can still come back.

Can’t be competitive because you might accidentally win.

Tankists will be happy with this one. We’re getting annihilated.

I agree with some of this. If we do everything we can to improve the team, and due to circumstances beyond our control, wind up with an excellent draft pick, of course no one is going to refuse that. I would not forego trying to develop our current players for the remaining 20 games or so in order to possibly get a higher draft pick, but it may be moot. We may lose no matter what we try to do or don't do. I disagree completely with the one thing you say we can all agree on. Of course we tanked. That was Hennigan's entire strategy. He traded every veteran and put out a squad of mostly mediocre young players. He hired the worst, least experienced, coach he could find. For his first three years, we had the worst record of any team in the NBA. If that isn't tanking, I don't know what is.

Sit Vuch. See what we have when we put out a team that plays hard. Get whatever draft pick you get and make the most of it. Make a trade or two. In short, what any normal team would do, with hopefully more success than we've demonstrated in the past (of course we had a 30 y.o. GM with zero experience).

Regarding items 1 & 3 above, since we agree on item 4. We have zero respect now. The root of that is the decision to tank back in 2011. High risk strategy, with the possible outcome of our being terrible for many years if it didn't go well. It didn't. Every year I hear the same thing about losing on purpose so that we can get a high draft pick. That pick is not guaranteed no matter how terrible we are. Even if we get a high pick, it's far from a sure thing that it will be our salvation. People were saying that if only we got Wiggins we would be world beaters, which doesn't seem too likely in hindsight, even if we'd gotten him. Again, it's the "Shaq Syndrome". People think we can only be good if the past repeats itself and we draft a hall of famer. The only thing that's guaranteed with the tanking strategy is that we'll be terrible. I'm tired of it. Let's try to improve incrementally instead of swinging for the fences every year. The fact that others have made shrewd moves to improve their teams without necessarily tanking themselves, which is what you're saying in item 3 above, strongly supports my argument. Let us be the ones making the shrewd moves to improve instead of pursuing a strategy based on being as bad as possible.

So they finally make the playoffs after being a laughingstock for umpteen years and you seize on them to prove your point? What about all the other teams in the playoffs? And don’t forget Philly had considerable luck in the draft, which can’t be counted on. Lots needs to go right for this strategy to avoid disaster, and even then you’re making your fan base suffer through years of futility. Amazing how far some people in this forum are willing to go to try and recreate the past. There simply isn’t going to be a Shaq for us to draft very often. Let’s move on from trying to do that again, to strategies that actually have a decent chance of working.

You’re willing to sacrifice developing our players so we can keep losing. Following this logic will keep us terrible for many more years.

He’s had very little value for a long time. And while our team surely lacks talent, we played better without Vuch.

We’re pretty certain how bad we are with Vuch. Very large sample size there (6 years) and I think we agree about that. 14 games may not be definitive but combined with the fact that most thought the team looked a lot better (subjective) and a significantly improved w-l for those 14 games, about 1/6 of an NBA season, doesn’t it seem worthwhile to at least explore it a bit more and see if there’s really something there? What have we got to lose?

Again w-l was better with him out so his numbers apparently don’t translate to the team being better. Or to wins. When have we won a lot of games in the past six years with Vuch starting at the 5 and getting big minutes?

I'm sorry? How the team plays when a player is in has no bearing on whether someone gets PT? If that's true, it explains a lot of our problems. Last I checked, basketball wasn't an individual sport.

I don’t get it either. You can see the team getting worse each game that he’s back. And on defense: how many times each game do we see an opposing player going to the rim within 5-6 feet of Vuch and he just stands there and watches it happen? Doesn’t even take a step in that direction? That has to suck the morale out of the rest of the team who are actually trying.

Completely agree.

Individually, yes. But the team plays better with the other two, especially Birch. And ultimately that’s what matters. And no one cares how quickly you type.

Birch brought a lot more than I thought he would but the over-riding point here isn't Birch. The over-riding point is how bad we look using the Vuch-Biyombo rotation. We are probably better off with almost anyone else. Remember, it's not the individual stats that ultimately matter, it's how the team performs as a whole.

He was consistent for quite a few games when he was getting a reasonable number of touches. But I come back again to the 17 assists. No one can score if they don’t touch the ball, and it wasn’t moving last night.

Hezonja was much more of an offensive presence in those games without Vuch, and overall the ball moved much better. Can’t really credit Fournier for that, as he almost never passed the ball to Hezonja. 17 assists last night altogether for the Magic. That’s not just due to Fournier and Gordon being out.

I dunno. Before the All-Star break, we had Vuch, Gordon, and Isaac all out. We won a number of those games, and in general looked a heck of a lot better than we did last night. I think the detrimental impact of Vuch's return is being substantially underestimated. He's like a giant sponge sucking the energy out of everyone else on the floor.

I think you’re on to something. We’re so bad that getting a high draft pick won’t make much difference. The tankers should be happy because with this crappy group they may get to see more tanking for another 5 years. If you think Doncic or Ayton will magically turn this around you’re deluding yourself. Tankers should remember the old saying about being careful what you wish for.