Sixers front office is very sharp. They didn't even entertain extension talks with him to the point that he was offended. If there was a trade to be made for him I am sure they'll make it. If any of those dumb GMs want to pay him they can always S&T him.

It's a different thing (for bad GMs) to offer an FA a contract and to trade a guy.

Lost in this discussion is the assumption that these top guys are going to be top 5 guys. What happens in say Wiggins turns out to basically be Melo or that level which is historically speaking far more likely than getting a franchise altering talent of which there have been about 5 in the last 25 years (Shaq, Durant, Howard, Bron, Durant, though you could argue Kobe, Garnett, Dirk as well)? You're going to need a lot of parts around him either way. I know it's been said a bunch, but the problem with trying to replicate OKC is how INSANELY lucky they got basically 4 times in a row with durant, RWB, Harden and Ibaka. And they still ****ed it up.

The mistake being made is that there is some "blueprint" to building a championship team when really it's be some combination of being lucky (being bad a lotto fortunate in years where the can't miss guy doesn't miss), being good (which is usually more a function of not ****ing it up than it is affirmatively "doing" something), or be the Lakers (with a South Beach corollary)

Good post. Assani is generally wrong on this.

Grunch, but assume a lot of ppl have pointed out the 2014 draft has several superstar caliber players. So this might be the best year ever to build from the draft.

Obviously developing assets to flip is one viable way to build, much better IMO than tanking.

I didn't mean 100% through the draft. I consider a team like LA and Dallas to have built through the draft, as their undisputed best player was a guy they drafted(or traded for on draft day).


I agree with this(except for the strawman "press a button" part)



He should do whatever he feels like. I would never tell him what he "should" do. But when fans consider the narrative of "Kobe cares about winning sooooooooooo much", they now have to realize that he chose more money over a better chance of winning. That isn't to say that 99.99% of all people wouldn't make the same decision....but then again some people seemed to want to claim that Kobe was in the upper .001% of WIM, so you might think he'd sign a minimum contract and say "f*ck money, rings are all that matter."

you need multiple very-good-to-great players to win the title, some of whom are underpaid. these assets are very difficult to acquire, and the draft is by far the most readily available resource to obtain them. obviously, you can happen to draft well with non-top 5 and get several of these players (Pacers trading for Hibbs/drafting PG, Warriors drafting Curry/Klay/Barnes), then build around that, but that strategy requires tons of luck as well.

idk what there even is to "debate", really. tanking -> titles isn't ironclad, but it's really ****ing hard to win an NBA title, and obtaining the level of player/asset that is dramatically denser in the top 3-5 is a massive step towards contention.

you could even say that all heat championships were built through the draft since wade has spent his entire career in miami and did the recruiting of bosh and labron

edit: bottomline, it's a very big ****ing deal to have a high pick and pick someone who turns out to be a boss. of course sometimes you have a less than desirable location and they whine their way out like dwight, but they still had a chance to trade him and get some value for him.

While agree that OKC's blueprint is akin to winning the lotto, I don't think teams like Philly/Phoenix are in the same predicament as Seattle was the year they got KD.

Both teams are decent, probably 35-45 win teams played optimally, but most importantly they should get better over time just because they are so young. . Seattle had no real talent on their team and was a 20 game winner with no real chance at getting better without help from the draft. I think they are closer to SA with David Robinson than Seattle the year they got KD. They only really have to get lucky once to field a team that contends for a long time. Because they are so close and the draft is so deep at the top, I think it's definitely worth the risk for Seattle and Phoenix to try and get a high pick.

That's assuming they don't sell off their team, which they shouldn't and probably won't. All it's going to take is some sub-optimal lineups out there for short stretches imo.

Luckily for Philadelphia, they will have 2 high picks, and they won't need to trade Spencer Hawes to keep them.

This too. It would be bad for Philly to trade anyone except maybe ET, who they probably can't get much for right now, and arguably could get more out of via S&T next year.

unless you can organically make your team worse, then im fully on the team of everyone saying "just try your hardest and see what happens!"

i think perhaps the suns should trade dragic just because it doesn't seem likely that dragic/bledsoe is the actual backcourt they want to have when they're competing for rangz (in theory). also, dragic might start to decline in a few years during peak for everyone else on their roster.

so something like dragic to the bulls makes sense-- what'll they get out of it? i have no clue, but obv the bulls won't ship them that CHA pick... maybe something like tony snell and some salary i guess.

I mean there is making your team worse in the short run. Would Giannis be worse than whoever Milwaukee is trotting out RIGHT NOW? Almost certainly, but getting him that exposure will have benefits down the road either in terms of his development or them knowing he can't play and moving on. That's why Philly, Phoenix and Boston are "tanking" the "right" way - they aren't playing Richard Jefferson and Marvin Williams 70 minutes a night in order to lose, they are still accomplishing things during games.

lakers/celtics are in massive markets that have the potential to acquire elite players via fa. celtics also moved a nice lotto pick to get their big 3 together anyway. don't think saying the heat won w/o building through the draft is the right way to look at it. the cavs had a contender built due to binking lebron, but squandered it, allowing the heat to get him due to his friendship w/wade. teams can't expect to replicate these scenarios. the mavs acquired important people via free agency, but they drafted dirk

you don't have to acquire every piece via the draft to assemble a contender or even just a very good team, but the odds of acquiring the main piece through some other avenue are quite low. a lot of that is b/c the odds landing a player that dynamic are fairly low in the first place, but that's exactly why it's difficult to obtain such players if you didn't draft them. teams aren't exactly just giving them away, lolthunder notwithstanding

Toronto needs to decide whether they are full on tanking or not. This half measure **** will come back to haunt them.

I see Mil, Sac, and Utah sucking too much to not be in the top 5 (worst records) so that basically leaves us with a bunch of competing tankers in the East like Toronto, Orlando, Philly, Boston, Philly, maybe the Wiz, maybe Cleveland...luckily for Toronto they are all in similar situations now. I am hoping NY and NJ will bounce back as they don't have picks so obv why bother just not going for it all.

Masai's had his evaluation period...and this is the same team as last year post Gay trade with a few differences. Good enough to get the 6-8 seed and also volatile enough to get the 9-10 range too. That's exactly where I don't want to be. Masai needs to make a decision and stick with it.

ET is weak, the GM should have leaked that he is looking to trade him and just watched that team self-destruct.

agree

A few things I will bet on:
1. He will opt out
2. He will get a large contract

Philly can't press a button to make the playoffs cause they have no buttons to press besides give up a young player to get better.

If they're not gonna resign Turner then he'd be a great person to do that.

This is a really good post, the whole discussion is ridiculous.

its the east. its impossible to tank properly when 2 projected 50ish win teams are at the bottom of the conference.

plus philly really just isn't that good. They're pretty bad and will finish bad regardless. They just won't be quite as bad as the bucks or jazz. They're in the next tier of bad.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...bargnan01.html

Bargnani isn't actually having that bad of a year.

Waiters being shopped, evidently the Knicks are interested.

One time!

Waiters for Shump would be perhaps the Mike Brownest trade imaginable, and a Waiters/Smiff backcourt would the Knaxiest

Lol at you.