If the Tanks Succeed, then Victory Follows ····· · · · NBA Offseason 2026

Indiana Pacers
Washington Wizards
Brooklyn Nets
Chicago Bulls
Utah Jazz
Sacramento Kings
Memphis Grizzlies
New Orleans Pelicans
Dallas Mavericks

Welcome to the offseason.

Shams Charania @ShamsCharania

BREAKING: The Chicago Bulls have dismissed executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley, sources tell ESPN.

gotta give em a lil more time

fascinated to find out how they'll hire someone even worse

this draft is funny theres the consensus top 3 then its possible that 6 of the next 7 picks will be guards and what order theyll go in i dont think anyone knows

even though the atl pick isnt gonna be amazing for sa this year (probably #20) im kinda fascinated by what the sopurs will do bc theyve always committed to best player available and now that seems kinda stupid this year bc they really do not need another guard but desperately need a guy with size who can shoot and rebound, and there might be some options there at that pick if they keep it.

cameron carr could be nice for them hes not the big wing/pf that they really need but he is a wing who can shoot which they need, crazy athlete too

i could see it, spurs play a pretty small lineup anyway (usually two guards, two small wings, and a big), harrison barnes might be the only guy who is a true pf although that is almost exclusively where 6'6" carter bryant plays too

at some point theyre prob going to need to back the truck up for a big wing who can play the 4 rebound shoot and so forth, those guys are in demand

they may already have that guy in carter. he plays bigger than his height would suggest. super strong, very defensively active, and has put together a few pretty nice games in recent weeks. if he turns a corner and becomes a consistent day in day out guy, he’s gonna be a really really good role player for them.

yeah could be he is quite robust hes pretty raw tho and youd like him to be a lil bigger for the 4

the madison square surveillance state

On May 5, 2021, the Rangers were playing the Washington Capitals. The game started out nuts, with 14 players fighting in the first five minutes. But Eversole's crew was more concerned with policing the fans when the Capitals took a commanding lead into the third period.

“Just heard a sell the team. Any idea who screamed it,” Eversole asked a Signal group chat of MSG security staff reviewed by WIRED. Two minutes later, he added: “Now Dolan sucks. Where is it.”

https://www.wired.com/story/madison-square-garden-jim-dolan-surveillance-machine/

lol

MSG Entertainment declined to specifically comment on WIRED's reporting about Dolan and the activities of his security teams. A company spokesperson said in a statement that “this story is built on false, misleading and unverified allegations, including claims drawn from lawsuits filed by rapacious litigators. We categorically reject such reckless reporting and are actively evaluating our legal options against WIRED.”

embarrassing.

i'm sure we talked about this at the time but here's an article from a few years ago about MSG using facial recognition as a tool in their valiant mission to eliminate any mindcrimes against James Dolan happening on their property

WIRED exposing all the psy ops this week

i wonder if zohran & lina kahn will take an interest in this…

hornets shameful quarter

oops

no it's correct because the hornets will be in the offseason shortly

that is true

sad way to go out but one would think theyve got a nice shot at making the real playoffs next year

yeah we'll see, i think they're still a very high-variance team given their youth and style of play

think if they can stay healthy theyll prob be good ball and miller are kinda injury prone tho

i dont really understand miller as a player he puts up good numbers but he seems pretty passive a lot of the time, they dont really use him as a ball handler seems like hes mostly either hanging out in the corner or coming off of screens cutting etc, is he not good the with the ball

ball balls, miller mills

ha nice

the roles they were mfin born to play

billy donovan exiting the bulls, apparently being the most important person in their basketball op was not compelling enough

one could see how coaching the bulls might get tiring after a while

pretty funny for the guy who runs the bulls to be like "if a candidate doesn't think billy donovan is one of the best coaches in the nba then he isn't right for this job!" and then like a week later billy donovan quits. great franchise

kudos to the bulls for developing a new kind of worst team the always slightly below average worst team, it doesnt seem like a team thats slightly below average can be a worst team how can they compete with the wizards or kings who are frequently very bad but after a while of watching them put up 39 wins a year it starts to seem somehow worse than being really bad

pretty funny for the guy who runs the bulls to be like "if a candidate doesn't think billy donovan is one of the best coaches in the nba then he isn't right for this job!" and then like a week later billy donovan quits. great franchise

― slob wizard (J0rdan S.), Tuesday, April 21, 2026 1:21 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is it possible the guy who runs the Bulls was having difficulty finding candidates who thought Billy Donovan was one of the best coaches in the NBA so he went to Billy Donovan and suggested he quit before he was fired. I'm probably assigning to much logic to the guy who runs the Bulls.

kudos to the bulls for developing a new kind of worst team the always slightly below average worst team, it doesnt seem like a team thats slightly below average can be a worst team how can they compete with the wizards or kings who are frequently very bad but after a while of watching them put up 39 wins a year it starts to seem somehow worse than being really bad

This was m/l the warriors for a decade straight before curry’s first good year (‘13). It’s real painful to go through.

I think I’m becoming a big Darius Acuff Jr guy

not saying it cant work, jalen brunson, but taking a small guard who cant defend is just so dicey, trae young

these six guards who are going to go somewhere soon after the top three is kind of a crazy sitch which one of them is best which is worst who is to say

think im gonna go

mikel brown
kingston flemmings
labaron philon
keaton wagler
darius acuff
brayden burries

i have absolutely no confidence in this it could be perfectly wrong

think brown and flemmings are the only guys of the group who have legit nba size athleticism and creation ability, philon and wagler are unathletic and weak acuff is small and burries is prob more of a complimentary player in the league

not saying it cant work, jalen brunson, but taking a small guard who cant defend is just so dicey, trae young

― lag∞n, Thursday, April 23, 2026 4:14 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is bad real bad michael jackson

i will say that ultimately the teams have to decide who they like, size athleticism etc are all just heuristics so far as projecting being good at nba goes, for instance steph curry does not have elite nba physical gifts and yet he is still very good at basketball, and draft history is littered with athletic freak busts

^ all of which are good arguments against tanking as a surefire way to accelerate a rebuild. it only works as well as your scouting team and general manager's abilities allow. it also helps a lot if the owner doesn't get involved in making the final decision.

even if you have good decision makers a full teardown tank is pretty risky okc did it, celtics traded away their aging stars then started building towards being a winning team almost immediately, spurs just kinda had a bad team and then tanked for wemby, nugs didnt tank, minny was bad for a couple years dont remember what they did as far as tanking to get ant, cavs tanked for a few years post bron i think, indy tanked this year but didnt really tank to get their finals team last year

so the only top team that really did the full on multi year bottom out plan was the thunder, most of the others did some lesser spot tanking, denver drafted the best basketball player in the world at the end of the second round during a taco bell commercial

tbf cleve mightve been a full teardown and then they just moved their acquired assets for a quick return to form dont really remember the exact circumstances other than lebron wasnt on the team anymore

that last year of cleveland lebron was a bizarre roster https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/CLE/2018.html

cleveland thought they were setting themselves up for life post-lebron better than they had the first go around but they didn't count on kyrie being a weirdo and requesting a trade, then getting fleeced by danny ainge as one does when they actually traded him

OKC only bottomed out for a couple of seasons - they were in the 2020 playoffs, and back in the play-ins in 2023. They fast tracked their rebuild with the lopsided Clippers trade, but haven't had many high draft picks. Chet was #2, the next highest pick in their squad is Cason Wallace (#10).

In comparison, Rockets got four consecutive top 4 picks, while Spurs got three top 4 picks, including a generational big man at #1. Not sure why the Thunder are the poster boys for tanking...

because teams want to believe that they can just throw in the towel and not try to win and it will lead to becoming the thunder

so crazy it just might work

tho it is true the thunder rebuild was really more like the celtics than it was the process

Taylor Jenkins new Bux coach. Ja / Giannis pairing loading

two weeks til the season begins we're finally here

Amen!

xp Turner has never been an all-star. I get what you’re seeing but time will tell

I’m with jordan — no tanking incentive, medium floor, very low ceiling

arguing about whether the bucks will be very bad or merely bad were back baby

i personally think they will fall somewhere in the merely bad to very bad spectrum

the bucks could be a classic 'trap game' type of team that pulls off a couple of upset wins over very good teams, but that still wouldn't mean much over the course of 82 games.

i do not think much of this bucks team but am maybe open to the idea they have an ok floor...i just don't know where they're going to get any cheap wins from if most teams are trying.

celtics resting all their guys including their coach in their first preseason game, what are they resting from

mario hezonja is back in the usa

devin carter who the kings drafted 13th in 2024 draft is now on a training camp contract for the celtics

^ the most Kings draftee career arc possible

yeah lottery pick to waived in two years is some serious kingsing

i remember ppl kinda liking him. he had a pretty severe injury coming into the NBA iirc? that plus the kings org is a fatal combo

total freak had the biggest vert and fastest shuttle time in his draft class and has super long arms all this i learned from the celtics broadcast crew, idk how good he is as basketball he had a sick dunk tonight tho

i sort of lost track of him but i remember some positive reviews too. maybe he can get back on track in a good development system.

theyre playing cleveland and the celtics play by play guy offhandedly mentioned "the diff" even tho its not active tonight since its a celtics broadcast lol

celtics have a guy out their named aiden grey, its zoomer time in the nba baby

aiden
ayden
aidan
aydyn

aday mara 15-15 over 2 preseason games

devin carter who the kings drafted 13th in 2024 draft is now on a training camp contract for the celtics

― lag∞n, Thursday, October 8, 2026 7:50 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

update the kings also picked up his third year option before spending a second round pick to dump him on the hawks six months later who then waived him

the concept of player development and delayed gratification is completely lost on the kings (see also: trading haliburton, immediately firing the only coach they've had in the last 20 years who had actually started building something). i'm surprised there aren't more cases of their high profile lottery picks finding success as elsewhere. wait i guess it's because they also suck at drafting

guys the season starts in 11 days

i'm surprised there aren't more cases of their high profile lottery picks finding success as elsewhere. wait i guess it's because they also suck at drafting

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, October 9, 2026 11:28 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

neemias queta baby not a lottery pick but a kings castoff nonetheless heres to hoping the celtics go 2 for 2

good point, forgot ol neemi did some time in sactown

kings were like this guy sucks see you later man and the celtics were all we will send him to maine and teach him to ball

many such stories luke kornet and so forth

I'm surprised there aren't more cases of their high profile lottery picks finding success as elsewhere. wait i guess it's because they also suck at drafting

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, October 9, 2026 11:28 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

in fairness i think the hit rate on lottery picks who flame out in one place and wash up on some other team's roster is extremely low regardless of who we're talking about

yeah theyre usually given more than enough opportunity to show what they can do, markkanen was traded twice before he really started balling, tho he wasnt a bust just kinda not that satisfying

josh giddey maybe, im scrolling through the drafts now

davion mitchell drafted 9th by THE KINGS and traded twice before finding a role with the heat

davion is actually a good one

crazy as you go back to see stars mixed in with guys who have been out of the league for years

3 tatum
4 josh jackson
5 fox

i feel like some of these guys manage to hang around the fringes of rosters for something that could somewhat constitute a real career but it feels like the "success stories" are guys like dennis smith jr, maybe idk kris dunn or something like that at the peak. i don't think the track record is very strong. maybe the key is to be a guard who can play defense lol

cam whitmore denver nuggets 26-27 experiment will be a useful data point here

2013 is incredible anthony bennett at 1 top ten is a wasteland giannis at 15 and gobert 27

but yeah my research indicates that lottery picks who dont catch on with their teams have a low chance of doing much elsewhere and basically no chance of becoming stars, exception for guys who were significant pieces in trades where both teams knew they were good they werent just being dumped

devin carter cant shoot at any level after his weird shoulder injury he got before his rookie year. theres a chance that's a two year injury and he could round into the form he had his last year of college. worth a shot, of course. he plays hard, which cant really be taught, so its really if he can get his confidence/stroke back.

prob end up in the g league and if he cant shoot thatll be it

i feel like the entire nba just memory-holed anthony bennett. it's a historically horrendous draft no doubt but every other top 10 pick played 9+ seasons, at least were rotation players. bennett was traded after one season, cut by his second team after the next, was an end-of-the-bench scrub on a vet minimum by his third year in the league, done after that. no major injuries. like he was the #1 pick, and as soon as his career started it was immediately obvious he was not an nba player. how the hell did that shit happen

however if anyone wants to check up on him, you can catch him right now playing for Al-Najma of the Bahraini Premier League

its a whopper for sure

funny detail if he had declared instead of staying at ok st marcus smart prob wouldve been the 1 pick and no one would be thinking about anthony bennett ever

bennett was considered a reach even in that weak draft cleveland was looking for star potential in a group of guys who didnt seem like they had it, lol

prob shouldve just taken dipo

wonder what that draft wouldve looked like if giannis played ncaa like euros do these days, prob wouldve gone 1

I shared this video before, but I was at a 2018 Canada-China game where Bennett managed to get himself ejected from a non-competitive game with a completely unnecessary flagrant foul:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/8t7kv5/anthony_bennett_ejected_alongside_chinese_coach/

deni avdija washington wizards rd 1 pick 9

i dont think he counts blazers gave up a lot to get him

davion mitchell is maybe the best answer of current guys, he was def seen as a bust and is now gonna be starting for a likely east playoff team. shaun livingston is prob an OG of this discussion even if it was bcuz of injury.

markelle fultz was there for like a season or two. dante exum also had a somewhat respectable comeback from NBA irrelevancy. interesting we keep naming guards, maybe there’s something there in terms of feel for the game as a point guard developing later in some guys and if letting them eventually figure out how they can contribute as role players, if even for a few years