Resetting the 2019 NBA tank race

The 2019 NBA Draft lottery figures to be one of the most important nights in NBA history, with Duke phenom Zion Williamson available as the top prize.

Like the hologram hallway in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, teams can look out four months and, dreaming of glory, project Williamson into their future. The reality, however, is not every team at the bottom of the NBA standings planned on being here and are not actively trying to heighten their chances of landing Williamson.

Taking a snapshot of the bottom seven teams in the standings — the seven teams with no reasonable hope of the playoffs — as we get ready for the final 20 games of the NBA season shows the stakes for each of Williamson’s suitors and whether all of them are truly Cryin’ for Zion. While many believe Williamson is the best NBA prospect in at least seven years, franchises’ math doesn’t always compute that way.

Separate the process from the result — Atlanta is actively doubling down on its promising (and now winning) young core while the Cavaliers gut their team to bring about a better future. For some, a high draft pick is the prize, for others, the symbol of a lost season. So here are how things stack up for the worst teams in the league with a month and a half to go:

Washington Wizards: 24-36, No. 7 in reverse standings

Own all future first-round picks; maximum of $8.8 million in cap space this summer

There are a million concerns for a team paying John Wall nearly $50 million a few years from now, especially after the news Wall ruptured his Achilles tendon surfaced earlier this month and cast a black cloud over the entire organization. Washington is in a rough spot and this is a completely lost season amid John Wall and Bradley Beal’s primes.

Should they tank? Ideally, yes, but in the context of Beal’s ascension? No. In nine games in February, Beal is averaging 30.9 points, 7.1 assists and five rebounds in nearly 40 minutes per night, with a 64.8 true shooting percentage. Beal has been dramatically better each month of the year and altogether this is his best season at age 25. The Wizards can’t afford to inhibit Beal’s growth for the prospect of — at best — the fifth pick. They should just take a player at seven who will help them long-term and appreciate the growth from Beal along the way.

Will they tank? Maybe. One could imagine wholesale change in Washington this summer, from coach Scott Brooks to general manager Ernie Grunfeld and beyond. They can’t move on from Wall but they will likely take a look at every other option available to them. If they foresee high-level changes in the organization, the Wizards could sit Beal and other top players on the team sometime over the last few weeks of the year and gain some ground in the reverse standings.

Memphis Grizzlies: 23-38, No. 6 in reverse standings

Owe a future first-rounder to Boston; capped out this summer

Memphis went from 12-5 to 23-38, which for those counting at home means the Grizzlies are 11-33 in over the past three months. There were people propping up the Grizzlies as the perfect situation for a league trying to combat tanking and create better parity — the team that could lose for one season and emerge a year later back in the playoff picture. Nope. Memphis is back in the lottery race once again, looking to find a player to pair with Jaren Jackson Jr. long-term.

Should they tank? Yes, there is very little talent on this roster right now. Besides Jackson, last year’s No. 4 pick, the only guys Memphis should hitch its hopes to are Dillon Brooks, a young scorer who unfortunately missed basically the entire season with a ruptured ligament in his right toe. By trading Marc Gasol and fielding serious offers for Mike Conley at this year’s trade deadline, the Grizzlies made their intentions known and this summer will bring further change. The roster needs to change and tanking is the best way to maximize the chance of getting another great young player like Jackson.

Will they tank? They will try. We are already seeing raw young players such as Ivan Rabb, Bruno Caboclo, Tyler Dorsey and Jevon Carter get more playing time and the Grizzlies finally caved and brought injury risk Chandler Parsons back to the team to let him on the court and prove to the rest of the league’s suitors he can actually still play. The problem is between Conley, Avery Bradley, Delon Wright and other solid veteran players, Memphis just doesn’t have the type of roster we typically see for teams completely bottoming out.

Atlanta Hawks: 20-40, No. 5 in reverse standings

Own future first-rounders from Dallas and Cleveland and all their own; maximum of $41.7 million in cap space this summer

Atlanta is in prime position to add two more solid young building blocks this summer after trading down from the third pick in the 2018 draft. By allowing Dallas to move up and draft Luka Doncic, the Hawks snagged a valuable Mavericks pick. Now, after starting 6-23, the Hawks are 14-17 over the past two months and look ready to take flight.

Should they tank? The Hawks are already winning with young players, so no. Of their regular rotation, only Dewayne Dedmon is older than 26. Instead, Atlanta has played through John Collins, Trae Young, Taurean Prince and Kevin Huerter and it’s paid off. The Hawks take a ton of 3s, allow very few, move the ball, create turnovers and play well together. What more could you ask for from a young team under a first-year head coach? Things are going swimmingly in Atlanta.

Will they tank? We may see the Hawks pull the plug on someone like Kevin Huerter late in the year if lingering ankle issues threaten his health. But overall, it will be hard for the Hawks to tank. They are already very young but they play with discipline and chemistry, making it nearly impossible to lose on purpose. No, tanking at this point would be to throw caution to the wind and build bad habits. Atlanta is doing things the right way.

Chicago Bulls: 16-44, No. 4 in reverse standings

Own all future first-round picks; maximum of $19.1 million in cap space this summer

This Bulls season has been a farce. Chicago entered the season with a lame duck coach, as Fred Hoiberg was listed by Bovada as the third most-likely head man to be fired heading into the season. The team had an interesting group of young players who theoretically fit together pretty well and planned to play through them, but Hoiberg’s replacement lit that optimism on fire. Jim Boylen immediately became a punch line by treating his players like elementary P.E. students and losing their trust — the guys nearly mutinied. Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr., the team’s last two lottery picks, have had frustrating seasons and now Carter is sidelined the rest of the year. It’s been rough in the Windy City.

Should they tank? That depends. Chicago is at this weird point — similar to Atlanta — where the instinct may actually be to ride out the success driven by young talent and see what happens. The Bulls have won three in a row and five of their last nine, with Markkanen averaging 25.1 points, 12.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game over that stretch on a 61.1 true shooting percentage. The team’s trade deadline acquisition, Otto Porter Jr., has exploded from 3 since arriving in Chicago, shooting 52 percent from downtown. With that growth coming organically from young players, it’s tough to say the Bulls should take any sort of drastic step to snuff that out in the name of tanking.

Will they tank? If the past nine games are any indication, no. Vice President John Paxson said after last season he didn’t expect the Bulls to “be in that position again,” when it came to tanking. Certainly, making a coaching change a couple months into the season to someone who has carte blanche to wring basics out of a young roster is not a tanking move. Chicago is riding its young group with the hope of gaining real momentum and getting better. The only qualm is not buying out Robin Lopez (yet) to send him to a contender and allow younger centers to develop. Lopez is the kind of veteran presence who is typically an easy tanking no-no but the Bulls also don’t have another obvious option in the middle with Carter out.

Cleveland Cavaliers: 14-46, No. 3 in reverse standings

Own future first-rounders from Houston and Milwaukee; capped out this summer

Credit general manager Koby Altman for pivoting quickly after LeBron James’ departure. He was gifted the partially guaranteed contracts of J.R. Smith and Kyle Korver by his predecessor, David Griffin, but Altman himself did a great job the past nine months giving his team flexibility. Cleveland has added two first-rounders and two second-rounders since the start of the season by dealing Korver, George Hill and Alec Burks and taking on salary. It’s been a showcase of how to reset a franchise by Altman and the Cavs.

Should they tank? Of course. This is the first season post-LeBron and Cleveland is bereft of young talent. While Altman nailed everything since August 2017, he flubbed the Kyrie Irving trade with Boston. Cleveland only has Ante Zizic and Collin Sexton to show for that deal now despite having traded an MVP-caliber playmaker in his prime. Every move counts at this point, making it incredibly important that the Cavs earn as high a pick as possible this summer and find a player who pairs well with Sexton going forward.

Will they tank? That’s a tougher answer. Cleveland wants to lose, sure, but they are also reintegrating Kevin Love into the lineup to avoid a completely lost season for the man who just signed a big extension with the team in the offseason. Love on Saturday night scored 32 points and grabbed 12 rebounds as Cleveland beat Memphis, showing just how tricky it will be to out-tank the other teams in the cellar with a player as good as Love at the center of things. And in the game prior, Cleveland beat Phoenix thanks in large part to a big night from veteran point guard Matthew Dellavedova, who shredded the Suns in the pick-and-roll to the tune of 11 assists and just one turnover. In order to really tank, the Cavs may have to shut down some of their better players and it’s unclear at this point whether they would do so.

New York Knicks: 11-48, No. 2 in reverse standings

Own two future first-rounders from Dallas; maximum of $71.1 million in cap space this summer

This season for the Knicks will be defined in equal parts by their ability to finally tank successfully and the Kristaps Porzingis trade a week before the deadline, which, in allowing the Knicks to send out Tim Hardaway Jr. and Courtney Lee, opened up their summer aspirations by creating enough cap space to slide in another maximum-salary player. If New York emerges from July with two superstars, this season will have been a massive success. But all this losing and cashing in on assets ahead of schedule is a tough price to pay, especially if things don’t fall as the Knicks hoped.

Should they tank? Yes indeed, the Knicks need all the leverage they can get to eventually try to pull off a deal for Anthony Davis, pivot, and then start building around the stars they do acquire. If it’s Kevin Durant and no one else, maintaining flexibility to build out the roster around Durant is vital — landing, say, picks two and 32 in the draft would go a long way toward helping them do that.

Plus, New York is already too far away from the playoffs to give purpose to any other goal this year. The team traded its only meaningful veteran contributors in the Porzingis trade and is in the hole already. Tanking is, as it has been for too long in the Big Apple, the right call.

Will they tank? They already are. Here’s who the Knicks started on Sunday night: Dennis Smith Jr., Damyean Dotson, Lance Thomas, Kevin Knox and Noah Vonleh. Aside from Thomas and Jordan, no player in the regular rotation is older than 24. They certainly are trying to lose but the problem is the Knicks are getting lucky, winning two of their past three games coming out of the All-Star break.

That has set New York 2.5 games back from the top of the reverse standings as the Suns put together a historically frightening losing streak. The Knicks are doing their best to lose by giving an extremely young roster heavy minutes to grow their games but the Suns aren’t giving up any ground.

Phoenix Suns: 11-50, No. 1 in reverse standings

Own a future Milwaukee first-rounder; maximum of $15.6 million in cap space this summer

With veterans such as Trevor Ariza, Ryan Anderson and Jamal Crawford in place to start the season, the Suns were never trying to tank. They clubbed themselves into this hole, however, by refusing to resolve the question marks at point guard in time to save the season. A legitimate NBA team can’t enter the year with Isaiah Canaan and two rookies as its primary playmakers, particularly not in a system like that of coach Igor Kokoskov, which requires drive-and-kick ability as well as spot-up shooting from all except the big men. So the Suns screwed up the year they were supposed to push forward and are now on track for a record worse than last year’s, setting the mark for worst record in franchise history for the second consecutive season.

Should they tank? At this point, though, tanking is the right decision. More than anything, the Suns’ inability to improve as they thought has highlighted a lack of talent up and down the roster. A point guard would have helped but ignoring that one position doesn’t explain how a roster would be dead last in the NBA in 3-point shooting or why, at the end of this season, not one player from the 2016 draft class (in which Phoenix had three picks in the top 34) will be on the Suns’ roster. It also wouldn’t have snuffed out the rebounding issues, which have materialized with a bottom-five impact on the boards despite spending the No. 1 pick on a 7-1 mega athlete. The Suns need more good players. So yes, they should tank.

Will they tank? While this year’s draft, as noted above, is nothing to throw a party over after Williamson, there are plenty of players who can add to winning basketball. Phoenix needs a few more of those — to be used on the court in purple and orange or as an asset down the line.

If nothing else, the 2018-19 season showed the Suns just how far they are from flipping the switch and what it will take to even sniff real progress by the fall.