FanPost

That T Word



I'm tired of people using that word tanking. All I've been hearing is tank tank tank tank tank. It's the most overused word in the NBA. It doesn't even guarantee success. People say that it's bad to make the playoffs and not be a contender but most people in the playoffs aren't contenders. Also tanking isn't even a guarantee of success. The Hawks "tanked" for half a decade and the only good pick we got out of that was Al and maybe Marvin "Coulda had Chris Paul" Williams.We got our best picks, Josh Smith and Teaguey, in the late-teens of the draft. Those are the picks you get when you make the playoffs. The main way we improved was through non-organic ways like free-agency and trading(Joe Johnson, Jamal Crawford and the Bibbster).
There are only a couple of teams in the past decade that have been able to organically build their way to a championship contender through the draft. OKC and their three straight top-three picks and Indiana. With INdiana their highest pick was #10(Paul George) and they were even able to snag a key player from the second round(the 8th Grader). Boston built through that 2008 trade, Mavs had Dirk , San Antonio had their 3, Heat had the Big 3 and Memphis had Gasol, Z-Bo and drafted Conley. Those are all the teams other than OKC and Indiana that made the conference finals since 2011. Out of those teams, Conley was the only player that was drafted in the top-10 after 2000 and is was still on the team he was drafted by. If we go back even farther we'll see that from 2004, Cleveland, Orlando,Utah , Denver and Miami were the only four teams that got to the conference finals with their top-5 picks(in drafts 2000 and later). While Detroit( Darko doesn't count), Phoenix, Boston, Dallas, San Antonio, LA have built through free agency and the established stars on their team. Some teams have been tanking for years with no results,see: Toronto(2 playoff appearances since 2004) Minnesota(0 playoffs apps since 2004) Sacramento(0 playoff apps since 2004) Charlotte(2 pa since 2004) New York(3 pa since 2004) Cleveland(0 pa post-Lebron(despite being in the top-5 in the past 3 drafts)). So the message is if you want to make the conference finals or better, tanking is very risky and it could end of giving a franchise a losing culture for years to come.

About These Hawks

I'm also really tired of people that don't watch the Hawks bash the Hawks. People are always saying they suck, ,they have no heart they need to tank, blahh blahh blahhh( I'm talking to you Knicks fans and national media). Most of these people probably don't watch the Hawks. This Hawks team has the most heart I have ever seen (I'm still a teen). In past years, if a Hawks team was down by fifteen or more, they would pack it in for the night. This Hawks team keeps playing hard all the time and it makes me proud to be a Hawks. And Knicks fans, if we suck what does that mean for the Knicks?

A FanPost expresses the opinion of the community member who wrote it and not that of the blog management.