Team Tank 2022-23

[F Gump]

Catching up to those early tankers and truly atrocious teams is never as easy as losing a few games, because the teams you are chasing are losing too.

And because there are so many bad teams in the East, Mavs have to get about where LAL is or lower, to be assured of a top 10 pick.

Here's the task now. They have to lose about 2/3 of their remaining games to have a solid shot at successfully getting that top 10 pick. Or to put it another way, they can only afford to win 9-10 games over the entire remainder of the season. When you see it in those terms, and know the PLAYERS are going to play to win, it's hard. You probably have to get Kidd's cooperation in setting lineups to make it work, unless you get lots of help from the injury monster with key players (like Luka).

Barely beating the bad teams in a home game, that's an indicator of who they are. But for purposes of tanking, a W is a W, and each one makes the possibility of a top 10 pick just a bit smaller.

Here's what I wrote above, but with an update --

"Here's the task now. They have to lose about 2/3 of their remaining games to have a solid shot at successfully getting that top 10 pick...[meaning] they can only afford to win  9-10  8-9 games over the entire remainder of the season. When you see it in those terms, and know the PLAYERS are going to play to win, it's hard. You probably have to get Kidd's cooperation in setting lineups to make it work, unless you get lots of help from the injury monster with key players (like Luka)."