Just really can't let the Suns (actually Nets) get in front of us for the lotto and likely the draft. Definitely can't let the 9th and 10th seeds in the East get in front of us. Even though we're even with the Suns in wins... we just can't win another game. No one can tell me that any of these last three games actually mean anything to the development of any of our players. Sit Shaedon, sit Tou and keep on sitting everyone that's been sitting. Let Banton try to show out because he's a free agent, figure out how valuable guys like Rupes, Kris and Bari are going forward. Just don't fucking win and hope the Suns win 1 of their last 4 games. Wins have only been self harm and now it would just be ridiculous. With that said, they'll probably still play both Shae and Tou and if they do they'll beat the Jazz and possibly end up in a tie for the 10-12 picks with the Bulls and Heat. SMH. Just can't believe that this was the season where ownership or management lost their stomach for tanking
Suns lost and now both Suns and Blazers have identical 35-44 records remaining Phoenix games: Oklahoma City Thunder San Antonio Spurs @ Sacramento Kings even if the Blazers lose their final three they may end up tied with Phoenix, although odds are the Suns can beat the Spurs...maybe if they are tied, Portland's chances of a top-4 pick drop from 20.2% to 17.2% if Portland drops from 9th to 10th, their chances drop from from 20.2% to 13.9% Portland only has a 1 game lead on Miami & Chicago if Portland ends up tied for 10th seed with one of them, their chances drop from 20.2% to 11.6% if Portland drops from 9th to 11th, their chances drop from 20.2% to 9.6%
You should add twelfth in their too because if we drop behind Phoenix, Miami and Chicago that's where we'll be. Assuming both Miami and Chicago miss the playoffs. We've really bungled this situation. There was absolutely no reason that Tou played in that last game... we shouldn't have even had Shae in there. We had control of that 9th lotto spot and now we have to depend on the Suns winning a game in order to take sole possession of ninth back. We're playing like someone else owns the unconditional rights to our pick and the Suns are playing like they have the rights to theirs. Fucking ridiculous.
Thanks for keeping up on this. Great info for those of us that don't know all of the minutia of the cba and draft lottery details.
going from 9th to 12th is going from a 20.2% chance to a 7.2% chance. Put another way, that's going from a 1-in-5 chance to a 1-in-14 chance as this season was starting, in some thread here, I said I had a suspicion that somehow the Blazer flowchart of Jody-->Bert-->Joe-->Chauncey would somehow manage to land on some of the worst outcomes for this season. Those outcomes were * keeping all of the high priced veterans....check! * always starting those veterans....check! * no activity at the trade deadline....check! * the veterans adding 10-12 meaningless wins....check! * not tanking into a strong draft this year after tanking into a weak one last season....check! * ending up in the bottom half of the lottery, maybe not even top-10....check incoming, maybe, probably * misinterpreting the outcomes and simply rebooting the GM, Coach, and Roster next season....in process now, having watched the team all season, even if the Blazers had done what they should have done and dumped Simons-Ayton-Grant-Timelord for whatever they could have got, paving the way for Avdija-Sharpe-Camara-Scoot-Clingan, I'm not sure the Blazers would be in a significantly better boat than they are; at least in the lottery and the near term. They might be the 8th seed ahead of the Spurs; maybe even the 7th seed ahead of the Raptors. But that's probably the apex of their lottery odds.
Well, going by WS/48 - playing Grant over Deni / Tou was a tanking move. Playing DA over DC was also a tanking move. Playing Simons over Sharpe / Scoot was not - because even if they might be the future - they are still less efficient and conductive to winning than Simons per this stat. So, the big issue with playing the vets was only Simons over Sharpe / Scoot simply because he is better than them (winning wise) so far.
Can we pleaaaase lose tonight? Finishing behind Phoenix in the lotto standings is absolutely unacceptable
however, Simons-Ayton-Grant-Timelord combined for 10 winshares. Having watched the games I'd say some timely hot shooting by Simons-Grant-Ayton generated 3 or 4 more wins. So, maybe 13-14 wins from those vets now, replacement players acquired in trades would have probably generated 1-2 wins. Also, Camara led the Blazers in minutes/game at a shade under 33; Sharpe averaged 31; Deni averaged 30. So there wasn't much room for significantly more win shares with that trio. Again, maybe 1 or 2 more winshares. Scoot and Clingan might have, with extra minutes, generated another 1-2 winshares....at most so if you subtract 13-14 wins generated by the vets and then add back 3-6 wins by the youth and replacement players, that lands somewhere in the 5-10 fewer wins realm. Say the Blazers have 26-29 wins. That would put them ahead of the Spurs for 8th and maybe ahead of the Raptors for 7th. Probably not ahead of the Nets for 6th pure speculation obviously and the foundation is an assumption that actual wins in a specific situation would closely track winshares generally. Maybe a faulty assumption
I think pure speculation is correct. We can also assume that some of the time given to the vets (Grant / DA) would have gone to the young players that performed better and could have also accelerated their development. So, who knows...
Celtics missed the playoffs a total of 3 times in the past 24 years. I think the narrative of Ainge building through tanking is a bit overblown.
He was able to trade an abundance of assets for draft picks. We don't have that luxury, unfortunately. "Self respect" with regards to winning games isn't a consideration in rebuilding a team for Ainge. As we can see in Utah. *Edit* To break it down a bit more, Ainge took over Boston 2-3yrs after they had missed the playoffs 6 years in a row. And then he missed the playoffs two more times and traded a lot of those draft assets to build a super team and won a title and competed hard for several years. He then converted many of those assets into great draft assets which he used to build the current version we see today. Largely built around two two top 3 picks and a top 6 pick in a stretch of at least 6 consecutive years of pulling high level players from the draft. Now, if you have a bunch of draft picks in your back pocket, you can afford to gamble on your own being late lotto or just missing out. The Celtics had 2 first rounders in each of 2012, 2014, and 2015. And 3 first rounders in each of 2016, 2019 and 2020. That's how you build championship caliber teams. Like OKC is doing. Utah. San Antonio. Even Philadelphia. You take as many bites as possible as high in the draft as possible. However you can get that done. Then you hope you've got enough by the time your young guys are too good to lose enough to be in the lotto.
