Sim #15 (100-110)

[Kittles]

Preemptive defense of Charlotte in case: tank penalty looking like it has unintended consequence of being an Eastern Conference tax

Making 1 trade, including the offseason, right before the trade deadline and only re-signing your own FA's is far from being an Eastern Conference tax. The whole purpose of the tank reset rule is to spur action. Which is why the penalty is your pick dropping not losing it entirely.

I just don't think there should be a scenario where a team with 36-38 wins should get a full tank reset due to playoff membership (will happen three times in six years) while another team with 36-38 wins should get multiple penalties. That also has cascading effects on the stronger conference (right now, it's East, could be West in the future) by forcing more of its teams to try harder. More about even application of a critical rule, than it is about debating the merits of how hard teams tried.

[Jordo]

Preemptive defense of Charlotte in case: tank penalty looking like it has unintended consequence of being an Eastern Conference tax

Making 1 trade, including the offseason, right before the trade deadline and only re-signing your own FA's is far from being an Eastern Conference tax. The whole purpose of the tank reset rule is to spur action. Which is why the penalty is your pick dropping not losing it entirely.

Merv out here admitting the east is soft

[Hoff]

Preemptive defense of Charlotte in case: tank penalty looking like it has unintended consequence of being an Eastern Conference tax

Making 1 trade, including the offseason, right before the trade deadline and only re-signing your own FA's is far from being an Eastern Conference tax. The whole purpose of the tank reset rule is to spur action. Which is why the penalty is your pick dropping not losing it entirely.

I just don't think there should be a scenario where a team with 36-38 wins should get a full tank reset due to playoff membership (will happen three times in six years) while another team with 36-38 wins should get multiple penalties. That also has cascading effects on the stronger conference (right now, it's East, could be West in the future) by forcing more of its teams to try harder. More about even application of a critical rule, than it is about debating the merits of how hard teams tried.

I don't think the tank penalty is harsh enough. A simple additional trade here and there, which takes maybe an extra 15 mins out of a week, isn’t too difficult on top of already having 3+ seasons to do something!

[Merv]

Preemptive defense of Charlotte in case: tank penalty looking like it has unintended consequence of being an Eastern Conference tax

Making 1 trade, including the offseason, right before the trade deadline and only re-signing your own FA's is far from being an Eastern Conference tax. The whole purpose of the tank reset rule is to spur action. Which is why the penalty is your pick dropping not losing it entirely.

I just don't think there should be a scenario where a team with 36-38 wins should get a full tank reset due to playoff membership (will happen three times in six years) while another team with 36-38 wins should get multiple penalties. That also has cascading effects on the stronger conference (right now, it's East, could be West in the future) by forcing more of its teams to try harder. More about even application of a critical rule, than it is about debating the merits of how hard teams tried.

The Bullets won 42 games while actively selling and trying to tank. I don’t think the East is some kind of crazy gauntlet. It has the 3 most overt tankers, the Bulls are running Dash as PG while waiting for Beckham, and the Bucks faced this exact same predicament to a result of 52 wins with a sim remaining in the same division.

You could also say the teams in the west didn’t have to make the extra move to win 41 because they saw what the landscape looked like. Why wouldn’t we say the tank rule is too harsh on Quady? Because he has a few more losses?

[GX.]

Preemptive defense of Charlotte in case: tank penalty looking like it has unintended consequence of being an Eastern Conference tax

The bucks just shatter this entire theory as a whole. Didn’t even have their pick last year and still flipped it no problem. It just takes a little effort but it is not difficult

[GX.]

The east loves sucking off the east

[Kittles]

This is not an East vs West debate! Pretend the conferences are flipped; it's just about equal application so one team with 37 wins doesn't get an entirely different experience from another team with 37 wins.

[GX.]

Simple solution, put in a little more effort and you will win more games

[Kittles]

I think a reform like "41 wins to reset tank clock, playoffs with <41 wins to remain on tank clock without incurring penalty" would be something that satisfies the above points. I don't really care about things being more punitive (it's hard to win here, injuries happen, etc.) but at least to me it seems like a big deal to have things more standardized.

[Kittles]

The east loves sucking off the east

The West is just telling on itself by making this an argument about conference strength. Could easily run into this situation with the conferences flipped!

(Though, it is relevant that the West has one fewer team.)

TL;DR think it's too consequential to have playoff membership as a condition for resetting tank clock. Can buy one team three extra tank years, and run another team into penalties. I think we're all mostly arguing the same thing.