Tank Watch: The Losing Is the Whole Plan

The team name states the thesis before the roster gets a word in. Haliburton and Kessler went to alecb5 for Chet Holmgren, Tyler Herro, and alecb5's 2028 first. Herro and Neemias Queta got flipped to Nighthawk2334 for Nikola Jović, Tre Johnson, and two more picks. Trey Murphy went to goochshot for goochshot's 2026 and 2027 firsts. What sits in Sleeper now is Holmgren and Jalen Williams standing watch over a rookie nursery: Darryn Peterson, Kingston Flemings, Morez Johnson, Dailyn Swain, Labaron Philon, with Tre Johnson and Thomas Sorber stashed on IR for later.

The sharp objection writes itself: this isn't a tank, it's the best young core in the league arriving two years early, and Holmgren next to J-Dub next to Peterson is a contender's spine still in the box. Fair. Here is the grudging part. Of the four franchises down here, matticus is the only one whose losing clearly buys something. He holds his own 2027 first, goochshot's 2027 first, alecb5's 2028 first, and 44Colt's 2029 first. That is a war chest. He will be bad in 2026, and he built it that way on purpose.

Receipt: went 10-11 last year, a perfectly respectable middle, then chose the basement anyway. He sent Ja Morant and Jalen Green to BigSuge and took back three picks. He drafted AJ Dybantsa and Darius Acuff, and he already rosters Cooper Flagg and Dylan Harper. This is a youth movement with an asset board bolted to it: 44Colt's 2027 first, 44Colt's 2028 first, and brodiedean8's 2028 first, all on top of his own.

The complication is the furniture he didn't move. Joel Embiid, Rudy Gobert, and Zion Williamson are still here, good enough to steal games he'd rather lose. Embiid has reportedly never played more than 68 games in a season (as of 2026-07-29), so the tank may end up protecting itself. Verdict: Committed Tanker, and the rare one positioned to be both bad and right.

The branding says future. The roster says play-in. lilsweet96 sold the loud pieces, Kyrie Irving and Darius Garland to BigSuge, Scottie Barnes and Paolo Banchero and Kon Knueppel to goochshot, and rebuilt around Victor Wembanyama. Noble. Now look at what came back and stayed put: Domantas Sabonis, Jarrett Allen, De'Aaron Fox, Mikal Bridges. That is a competent, forgettable ninth-place roster wearing a rebuild costume.

The trap of pretending to tank is you eat the losses without earning the pick. Wembanyama makes them watchable. Sabonis and Fox make them mediocre. Nobody on this roster makes them a lottery lock or a contender. Verdict: Pretending to Tank. Pick a lane, because the middle is where seasons go to die unnoticed.

Here is the one man at the bottom of last year's ledger who told the tank to get lost. BigSuge went 6-15, the worst returning record in the league, and every incentive whispered bottom out and collect. He spent instead. He shipped his own 2027 first, plus Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Matas Buzelis, to lilsweet96 in the Kyrie Irving and Darius Garland deal. He sent his 2026 first and a 2027 second to Natebarrett5 for Ja Morant and Jalen Green. His starting five now reads like an All-Star ballot with a wing of the hospital attached: Anthony Davis, Kevin Durant, Jayson Tatum, Kyrie, Morant, LaMelo Ball off the pine.

I do not love it. Those are older, breakable stars, and if the knees give out he is 6-15 again with no lottery ticket to cushion the fall. But he is the only franchise in this column refusing to lose by design, and after watching three teams sprint each other to the floor, I will hand one GM credit for running the other way. Verdict, on paper: Just Bad. In spirit: not guilty.

The race to the bottom buys the top of the 2027 rookie draft, the next Flagg, the next Dybantsa, whichever prospect the losing earns. Now the cruelty. The three teams tanking toward that pick already cornered the 2027 first-round market between them. lilsweet96 holds three 2027 firsts, his own plus alecb5's plus BigSuge's. matticus and Natebarrett5 hold two apiece. The only man who cannot win his own tank is BigSuge, because the 2027 first he'd be losing for already belongs to lilsweet96. He didn't refuse to tank out of pride. He refused because he already sold the prize.