In general we gotta invest a lot in scouting. Getting a high pick is just a means to have a higher hit rate on a star, and we've seen teams walk away with disappointing results despite getting a top pick. We've seen year after year that stars are available to us, and it's not like we've been way off track either (plenty of people thought we were gonna take Mitchell, Booker was apparently SVG's second choice after SJ).

Tanking makes it so much easier because you have so many options, but it's not impossible to build an incredible team without a full blown tank which Gores doesn't seem interested in. If the FO can't sell the idea to him then we need to focus on those couple of guys who slip to the late lottery every single year