JJZFL

We’re not good enough to keep it close if we don’t play our best.

LOL

So far we’re totally outclassed tonight.

I don’t know what you’re talking about. How about responding to my post instead of the personal attacks? And again I disagree with you that we’re better off losing these next twenty games. The young players will develop better in a climate of success.

Brick also describes that last three point attempt by Cole Anthony.

What's the point of tanking if not to get the best pick in the lottery? Even if you have the very worst record, your chance of not getting the #1 pick is about 90%. We've seen that tanking has a price. It's not nearly as easy as you imply to just turn it off after a year.

I'm happy to be an idiot, then. Why would we demoralize our players and coaches, and set the stage poorly for next season by losing a bunch of games, when it hardly even matters given the way the lottery is structured now? It doesn't make any sense at all to me. I'd much rather this team get into the habit of scratching and clawing for every possible win. I'm not a fan of what Presti is doing. You dig a huge hole for yourself when you create a terrible team. You had better have very good luck in the draft, which is more unlikely now than ever given the way the lottery is structured. If you don't hit the superstar in the draft you're setting yourself up for potentially many years of futility. Just look at us. I'd much prefer to develop our team by getting everything we can out of what we have now, and of course adding more as options arise in the future. I do not want to count on a draft pick to magically reverse the team's direction.

I agree with all those points.

I agree with these two posts. +1 to each. Seems like we are mostly in agreement. As has been mentioned, the way the lottery works now, you have at least a 50-50 shot at landing outside the top 4 no matter how bad you are. So we can’t count on getting anything great there. We’re going to need to figure out how to win mostly by developing what we have now, along with hopefully some additional decent rookies and whatever other moves they make.

I completely agree with you. I don’t see this as a replay of 10 years ago at all. And I like a lot of the recent moves. Agree with Crisby on that. But I’m hypersensitive to suggestions to “embrace” tanking. In my view, that approach led us to 10 years of futility. Let’s maximize what we have now and develop them properly by trying our hardest to play well and win every single game. If that involves playing some veterans I’m all in favor of whatever our best combinations are.

FWIW, if we do wind up drafting two first rounders, it actually wouldn’t surprise me if they do something else with that second rounder.

I just don’t see them improving and growing. I see them looking worse. Goal should be to try to maximize whatever potential they have currently rather than go reeling into the summer break with a whole bunch of losses. We’ve seen that movie before. I do not agree with “embracing” a tank. Constant losing is demoralizing no matter who the coach is. I agree with you that what we do now can set the stage for what this team looks like next year. I don’t agree that the way to success and good development is letting the young players make a bunch of mistakes. You have to keep some veterans in the mix and try to get the most out of this team now. I have no issues with letting Birch go. I don’t think he was helping us much at this point anyway. You said the FO was making brilliant moves. I assumed that brilliant moves could be interpreted as meaning they were being successful as a FO. As I said 10 years ago, the ultimate measure of success from my standpoint is not how well they tank, but how good a team ultimately results. People were also saying Hennigan was brilliant when he made the team terrible.

Wish I knew that the key to being a successful FO is putting a team out that looks bad and loses a lot of games. I would be wildly successful at that.

Cliff would say that putting mostly young guys out there to get clobbered on a regular basis does in fact cause more harm than good to their development.

That’s what I want also. But having Ross take all the shots at the end of games, especially difficult 1v2’s, isn’t going to help with anyones growth.

He doesn’t always shoot 10-15. But they always over utilize him to the detriment of the other players on the floor.

China can’t be more aggressive on offense when Ross takes all the shots.

That perception that Ross is the only one who can score is the whole problem in a nutshell. The other guys can all score if given a chance. 1v5 basketball rarely works. The other guys will stagnate if they just stand around out there while Ross takes all the shots. I want to see the team develop its potential and I didn’t see that last night.

We don’t want the Bulls finishing that low. Too much chance we lose the pick.

Agree. And it makes the other four players on the floor worse.

I think you’re right. We look horrible again tonight. And it’s not like we’re playing world beaters. Washington is 18-32. Indiana is 23-27. And these teams are making us look really bad.

5-19 from three for us. Partly a reflection of our shooting but also a reflection of poor ball movement leading to terrible shots. I’ve seen at least three desperate last second threes that had no chance.

Ok. Sorry, misinterpreted what you said. My bad.

Ball movement for us is incredibly bad tonight

MCW is totally out of control. Even Cliff as much as he like MCW may not be happy with that