JJZFL

No. We went out there trying to compete and win every game. There was no talk of benching people or playing weird rotations to lose on purpose. We had plenty of veterans. We competed every game and just barely missed the playoffs. This was the opposite of tanking.

We didn’t tank for any of them. Tanking started with Hennigan. Before that we were always trying to put the best team we could on the floor

All young players seem like they have unlimited potential. I remember some of the very same sentiments 7-8 years ago when Gordon and Fourier and Harris were young. Players got better elsewhere after leaving the Magic because they had better teams to play with, and sometimes better coaching. You cannot fall into the trap of not making moves to better the team because of fear that one or another player that you trade away will become a star. That is a recipe for stagnation. There is no reason to believe that the current group of young players (excluding our draft picks, since we don’t know who they will be) will amount to something great or even good. All options need to be on the table if something good presents itself.

No. I compared CTMagicUK’s description of Bouknight to Bacon. I know nothing about these players beyond what I read here, in general college basketball don’t interest me much.

Agree completely

Thank you. I haven’t followed any of this, but that sounds exactly the opposite of how I want to see us play.

Does not matter who us brilliant fans want (personally think super brilliant is a more apt description). We have a professional front office who will have all kinds of knowledge that we don’t have. They could not care less what gets said here. They make the picks, and either get the credit or take the heat based on the results.

Why does this make me think of Dwayne Bacon (shudders)?

Absolutely. I agree the offense has been very difficult to watch quite often. We would see stretches of good team basketball and then it would quickly revert to over dribbling and one on one chucking (particularly with Ross as you mention). Very frustrating. Going forward, I hope to see improvements there, and a winning attitude brought to every game. I don’t believe it’s something that can be turned on and off without hindering player development. Everything I’ve seen/heard about the new coach in the short time since he was announced has been very positive.

Reasonable. I don’t necessarily agree with the half season tank part but no point in rehashing it, it’s water under the bridge at this point, and I understand your point of view. Everything else I agree with.

I’m not at all sure I agree with that part of your comment. Many players benefit from practicing with and watching more established players early in their careers (see J J Reddick for example), rather than being thrown out there for extended minutes when they aren’t really ready and developing bad habits. I’d even argue that may be more the rule than the exception.

Great post, +1 from me. I really need to listen to the whole press conference from when they introduced Mosely, but absolutely everything I’ve seen and heard so far is very positive. Exciting even.

Do you think that is something we should be interested in, or are we better off with 5 & 8?

People's comments often make it sound as though tanking is a cost-free method of getting high draft picks. But tanking has many costs. First, as you point out, you are creating a very bad team that probably won't be all that good even if you get a good draft pick. Second, as you get blown out repeatedly, you are teaching your players to expect to lose. Third, the more you lose, the more the fans root for you to lose, because that next great star is always just around the corner in the next draft, which further reinforces the culture of losing. Fourth, it's very difficult if not impossible to develop your young players properly in such an atmosphere. Fifth, you are saying that you have no control at all over your destiny as a team, that all you can do is to stay as bad as possible until you finally hit it big in the draft lottery, because the only way you can create a winning team is by luck. It is a mistake, in my opinion, not to take the costs of tanking into account and only to consider the potential benefits.

Good points

I really like this answer, especially the part about playing with space and the pass. We have seen way too much one on one ball hogging leading to low percentage shots while the rest of the team stands around doing nothing. If he really means to put a stop to that, that’s a big step in the right direction from my standpoint.

Agree

Most of our guys getting the minutes at the end of last year are going to be on the team, and getting the minutes, this year. We will not have all that much change. Obviously we will have teo draft picks unless we make a move of some sort.

They haven't finished losing yet. Let's see how this plays out next year.

I’m not sure I like the idea of freelance offense, depending on what it means. I don’t want to see a lot of 1 on 1 and over dribbling and possibly forced shots. I’d like to see more passing to get open looks.

If it’s accurate, I’m glad we’ll have a coach well before the draft. I don’t know much about him. I hope it works out.

+1 from me. Completely agree, and made a similar point on a number of game threads in the past few months. Regarding Atkinson, since there was never any mention of us even interviewing him, and there was a general consensus that he should be a top contender, I have to assume he declined consideration for the position.

And also hopefully even before that a new coach who will likely elicit the same reactions :)

I don’t agree with your conclusion but your reasoning is clear and it’s a good discussion. In any event, there are now at least two posts that provide possible alternatives to what we did.

Of course there is an answer. I agreed with the moves we made. Right afterwards we made efforts to be competitive and we played very well on a tough West Coast road trip. After that, at some point a decision was made to go in a different direction, play a lot of development league players, and not be competitive. This was done to avoid winning “meaningless” games as you and others called for constantly. That is tanking. In my opinion it hindered the development of our team. Players hopefully will never “phone it in” but they develop a mindset where they expect to lose and don’t trust their teammates. All of this is conducive to more losing basketball in the future. Tanking can easily beget more losing and more tanking, unless you get extremely lucky in the draft, and even that is far from a guarantee of turning things around. To develop a team properly, you need to try to win every single game. The “heart and hustle” team is a good example of how that approach can create the right foundation for winning in the future.