LA LAKERS

As you may know our current record is 12-25 and with a point differential that's 26th we're heading back to the lottery. A ton of fans have stuck around for years, decades even, and aren't familiar with so much losing let alone the concept of being bad on purpose so here's some information to get you familiar with #theProcess.

• The Lakers owe a top-3 protected pick to Philly in 2017. If they keep it, they no longer will owe Orlando a 1st round pick. Instead it will become two 2nd round picks.

• Tanking can take on a variety of executions. There are Dumb Tanks which are unintentional, and leave the franchise in a worse overall 5-year position. There are smart tanks, like the Spurs getting Duncan.

• First part of this Tank would be trading Nick Young, Lou Williams, and Jose Calderon. Three expiring vets who could go to contenders and bring back salary relief, 1st and 2nd round picks, and roster spaces.

• The second degree of the tank would be giving up actual assets for a better future asset. Tarik Black is probably the guy who fits this. Larry Nance is probably untouchable. Deng and Mozgov are probably more tradable than /r/nba thinks. Their contracts look huge and they don't look all that productive, but GM's know that the average salary will be about 16M and as soon as the old CBA deals are gone these two definitely won't be the worst deals. But we'd be getting actual players back. Net value is probably zero.

• The third degree of the tank would be to play Zubac over Tarik and Robinson. He's not ready and he would lose us games.

The issue with tanking is usually damaging a team to be non-functional. Which destroys confidence in the good players that remain. Like the Sixers who refused to get a PG and it frustrated the hell out of Nerlens Noel and Jahlil who couldn't even get passes or lost games because their inept guards would turn it over in close games.

The spearhead of our tank is trading our starting SG, and 6th man when we already have their replacements (Ingram and Clarkson respectively). We even have Marcelo to fulfill José's 3rd string vet PG status should we get him to a contender.

Even Tarik would immediately be replaced by Zubac. These are moves that will happen regardless of if we trade these guys this season or wait until the summer.

Are there any negatives to tanking?

The only one to really worry about is swinging and missing. But even then, the trades should happen because it will soften the blow. If we get late mid to late 1sts we may be able to sneak down into the draft to get an athletic 7 footer like Noel. It definitely would be awful to hand the 4th pick to Philly, but it would be even worse if we did that and had no other 1sts to fall back on.

What about 2017 Free Agency?

There won't be many agents to target. Gordon Hayward would have to give up substantial money, leave a perfect fit in Utah and potential contender. There hasn't been any inkling that he wants to do that.

Nerlens Noel is a fit, but is an RFA, he'd have to have a major major desire and honestly would probably have to demand a trade to the Lakers already. Asking his team not to match probably won't work. It'd be easier less damning to demand a trade, and then through the agent+GM determine a good fit if he's that unhappy.

No other players really work without truly hastening the timeline and / or dropping our core.

Another argument is that you can't just line up young talent. While that's true, the point of tanking isn't to get a specific player it's to give yourself an asset. The #1 overall pick in the draft is extremely valuable, if your goal is to get Paul George, offering a combo of the #1 Overall, your newly freed up 2019 1st, and expiring deals that's an offer that Indiana can consider. If you have to dig into your core to get PG you'll need to replace those assets through either the draft, trades, or FA.

Free Agency is usually the biggest casualty of tanking. And that includes coaching. Not only because it's hard to get stars to come, you don't get ultra cheap veterans playing well for cheap. It's much better to have a rental of Nick Young when he's having a great year at 31 for a playoff run than worrying about him for multiple years or Mo Speights on a minimum over paying Deng $72M.