Dont let the fact it all crumbled be your impetus for "this was the plan all along".
No. When Fizdale was hired a TANK was NOT the plan.
Teams do not announce that they plan to tank. I don't think the League would allow it.
We knew that KZ was out for likely 2/3rds of the year (turns out the entire year missed). Our opening day starting lineup featured two legit starters, Tim Jr. and Kant -- with neither good at defense. Put simply, having Tim as your #1 scoring option does not lead one to expect W's. Or Kant as your last line of defense.
I called 23 Wins and probably would have dropped to 20 if I knew KZ wouldn't suit up. Prior to the season I also noted the brutal schedule from Thanksgiving through to Jan 24 -- lots of Roadies, lots of Top Teams -- and said that our record would probably be so bad that we wouldn't bring KZ back until after the A-S game.
I think I guessed KZ games would play 20 games.
The roster was larded with rooks and reclamations.
I think Knix had the youngest team. Did anyone else have 4 rooks? And we played them all good minutes.
The rest of the early starting lineup:
- journeyman Lance started for stability and defense, and not to overly rush Knox.
- Frank, a non-scorer, at SG
- Burke, a small terrible defender at PG.
Revealing.
Then the bench:
Baker, Knox, Trier all played more than half the game (24+ mins). Zonja and Vonleh in the 16-19 range.
That's 2 rooks playing half the game from opening day.
Two reclamation projects with solid mins. Journeyman Baker with 27 mins.
G3 v. BOS almost identical with the exception of Knox blowing out his ankle after just 4 mins, replaced by Dotson, another rook, with 22 mins.
So Fizz was playing 10 man rotations. With 2 or 3 rooks (Knox, Trier, Dotson); 19 year old 2nd year Franc as an added honorary rook; 3 reclamations in Burke, Vonleh, Zonja (and soon enough Muddy); 2 bench journeymen in Lance and Baker; and 2 legit starters (Tim/Kant). Later Mitch would impress and be added to the mix. And then Kornet as well midseason.
All the ingredients were there to win very few games and get a high draft pick in the year our best player was injured. The tank was pretty obvious to me prior to the season. Sorry if the memo got to you late.