Well I agree with you... I want the playoffs... I hate losing...

If the Draft wasn't run the way it was, I would agree with both of you. But the Pistons have no chance of making the playoffs, and better players are invariably found at better draft positions vastly more often than not. I would love to cheer for the Pistons to win every game, but that would just be an effort in disappointment. The fact is, if you are rooting for the Pistons to win right now, you are rooting for a tougher road back to respectability. That may not be the right "philosophy" but it is the actual circumstances of the sport.

Tanking doesn't guarantee we get Anthony Davis. But, it could easily be the difference between another stud and the precipitous dropoff in talent that occurs in every draft. I try to root for players at this point, because it's the only thing I can feel good about. As a team, we aren't good, and rooting to win out gets me nowhere. I also can't really root for them to lose, because it is a despressing stance. However, if Monroe-Knight-Stuckey-Jerebko look good and continue to build faith that they can be consistently productive players long term, I can be happy regardless of the end score.

Not really the draft, at least not in my opinion, but the way the whole NBA works. Free agency is NBA sucks. Its different for NFL and MLB but the NBA to grab a name via free agency you better hope 2 of his friends come along or you won't land him.

everyoneneedsasmil said:

If the Draft wasn't run the way it was, I would agree with both of you. But the Pistons have no chance of making the playoffs, and better players are invariably found at better draft positions vastly more often than not...

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I don't get this. The NBA is the only league that doesn't reward teams with a better draft position strictly based on how badly they did. The way the NBA runs their draft actually makes it less important to tank than in any other league. If all you're saying is that the better players are picked earlier in the draft...well, yeah, but that doesn't have anything to do with the mechanics of the draft. It's just a comment on the talent pool that leaves college.

we will currently be picking around 8 but with a couple losses we could easily draft 5th or 6th. The difference is Drummond/Barnes type or Sullinger/Zeller/Jones/PJ3 if we pick later. Ill throw up if we lose all those games this year and end up with frikken Sullinger. Lose!

deathroh said:

I don't get this. The NBA is the only league that doesn't reward teams with a better draft position strictly based on how badly they did. The way the NBA runs their draft actually makes it less important to tank than in any other league. If all you're saying is that the better players are picked earlier in the draft...well, yeah, but that doesn't have anything to do with the mechanics of the draft. It's just a comment on the talent pool that leaves college.

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The lottery only affects the bottom 14 teams, and teams continue to draft in last to first order after the top three. Losing DIRECTLY affects where you will draft. Tanking works, simple as that. The lottery was hoped to fix tanking, but it doesn't. The entire idea of the draft is broken - because it specifically rewards worse performance. I get where you are coming from on that high road, wanting the team to compete to win even when no one is in the stands and neither winning nor losing affect their chances at the postseason. But it's an emotional choice only. Logic and history dictates that losing trumps winning once you are out of the the post-season race.

The only time losing doesn't help is if your front office sucks. And at that point, nothing matters, because your team will always be bad with only faint flashes of anything else.

everyoneneedsasmil said:

The lottery only affects the bottom 14 teams, and teams continue to draft in last to first order after the top three. Losing DIRECTLY affects where you will draft. Tanking works, simple as that. The lottery was hoped to fix tanking, but it doesn't. The entire idea of the draft is broken - because it specifically rewards worse performance. I get where you are coming from on that high road, wanting the team to compete to win even when no one is in the stands and neither winning nor losing affect their chances at the postseason. But it's an emotional choice only. Logic and history dictates that losing trumps winning once you are out of the the post-season race.

The only time losing doesn't help is if your front office sucks. And at that point, nothing matters, because your team will always be bad with only faint flashes of anything else.

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I understand how the lottery works. Fact is, it's the only draft among the major professional sports where you can have the worst record and not get the first pick (outside of trading it of course). I'm by no means saying it's perfect, or that losing more doesn't increase your chances of getting a better pick, I just don't understand why you'd bring up the way the draft is set up to support your point, when it's set up to be the least "tank-friendly" draft in professional sports. If you're just talking about all drafts in general, then I see your point, I took that to mean you were talking about this draft specifically.

But anyway, I just think rooting for your favorite team to lose is stupid. If you were guaranteed that your team would end up with the worst record, that they would get the #1 pick, and that the pick would be the best player in the draft...that's one thing. But obviously none of that is happening.

I hope the Pistons win as many games as possible, and end up selecting the best player available with whatever pick they get. If those two things happen, the organization will be successful. Rooting for anything else would be illogical.

Then there's the whole idea that what you root or hope for has no bearing on what actually happens, so why would you spend your time and energy hoping for bad things to happen rather than enjoying the games, but I doubt people are actually watching the games and getting pissed off every time Detroit scores a bucket. At least I'd hope not.

The reason why people want the Pistons to lose is because the NBA is a star-driven league. There's never been a team win a ship without one. You need star players to win a championship otherwise you'll end up on the mediocrity treadmill and perennially be a 4th to 8th seed like the Hawks.

The Pistons lack a star, and the draft is the only way to consistently get one.

scout said:

The reason why people want the Pistons to lose is because the NBA is a star-driven league. There's never been a team win a ship without one. You need star players to win a championship otherwise you'll end up on the mediocrity treadmill and perennially be a 4th to 8th seed like the Hawks.

The Pistons lack a star, and the draft is the only way to consistently get one.

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For your sake I'll just assume that you're a master at masking sarcasm.

deathroh said:

but I doubt people are actually watching the games and getting pissed off every time Detroit scores a bucket. At least I'd hope not.

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Theres no one watching the games cause the team sucks....no way itll get better unless its thru the draft. Joe D jacked this team up so bad with bad contracts that we wont be getting a prize FA anytime soon. Gotta hope for the best in the lottery.

mhughes0021 said:

Theres no one watching the games cause the team sucks....no way itll get better unless its thru the draft. Joe D jacked this team up so bad with bad contracts that we wont be getting a prize FA anytime soon. Gotta hope for the best in the lottery.

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I've watched quite a few games this year, the second half of the season has been pretty enjoyable outside of a few stinkers. But yeah, no doubt they need to hit in the draft, as they have the last two years picking 7 and 8.

The NBA being the "least tank friendly" draft of the major sports (debatable compared to Hockey, which keeps teams in the playoff race longer) does not imply that is is "not tank friendly." The NBA draft is still VERY tank friendly. Any draft that give a team a better pick for worse performance will encourage tanking. And you're right, that's not NBA specific. But the nature of the NBA (as scout pointed out) is that individual players have greater affect on wins and losses.

So, unlike the NFL where getting one elite player still doesn't make you a good team, NBA teams have much greater incentive to "shoot for the stars" in landing a franchise changing talent. It's not as much the draft's fault as it is the nature of the sport. The NBA draft may not be as tank friendly as others, but it is still in a team's best interest to tank.

I said originally that I don't actively root for the team to lose. But, I don't root for them to win either. The only way I can watch without becoming frustrated is to feel apathetic about the final score. I love to see player development and coaching acumen, and that's what I get from the games.

everyoneneedsasmil said:

It's not as much the draft's fault as it is the nature of the sport.

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So you agree that your first sentence in this thread doesn't make sense. That's all I was getting at.

Of course it's still tank-friendly, and of course individual players have a greater impact on a franchise...that's the way it goes when you only have 5 people in the game at one time. In the end though I believe luck and/or having a good gm plays a much bigger role in a team's draft success than their overall record. It will be a couple/few years before we know which position in the lottery was actually the best one. It still may be a little early to say this, but don't you think NJ wishes they were picking at #7 instead of #3 in 2010?

Just too many variables to give a fuck about how many ping pong balls they get.

I understand your stance though. And agree that player development and finally having a competent coach are the important things right now. Hopefully this is the offseason that allows Detroit to turn the corner and begin building in earnest.