Post#593 » by milesfides » Fri Aug 15, 2014 7:24 am
Who's claiming to be a genius?
In fact, I'm actually arguing for something incredibly simple. If the greatest players win championships, we must get great players.
Ok, so a few of you guys agree on the approach. What's missing is that you guys refuse to take the logical step: getting the great players.
And it's fairly transparent why - it's difficult. But it always has been. A superstar in his prime changing teams has always been an anomaly. So the discussion of probability is purely irrelevant - one, because it's incalculable, second, it happens, but not out of random chance. That means it's worth discussing, and people here seem to refuse to discuss it.
So that's the contradiction here. There's maybe fewer than 10 players in the NBA who can really direct a team to championship contention. Almost all of them are incredibly difficult to get - because they are great players and everybody knows it.
But that's besides the point. I don't know how many times I have to argue this, if those who agree with me on the premise (great players win championships), it's absolutely worth discussing how to get them. Some would seem more likely than others, sure, but it's probably an inverse relationship between talent and availability. None of this is surprising, but it doesn't mean acquiring these players is a lost cause - in fact, what can be more important?
What's the point of farming talent and acquiring assets if you're unable to take the next step? Again, it's a lack of imagination (not genius), or logic, or courage to say, hey, this is the end game, and it might be intellectually stimulating to think of scenarios in which they may be available, whether due to historical precedent, economics, basketball reasons, or psychology. To me, I think that would be a rich discussion, because not all players are motivated by the same things equally.
Something JB said that really resonated with me was "the culture of this board." I have to say, a lot has changed. There used to be a lot of forward thinkers, people unafraid to say things that might be different, outlandish, a reach, or sometimes flat out wrong - proven a day later. There was a lot of crow being eaten, all in good fun. But the best of times here was when it wasn't a pissing contest, but the entire point of debate or discussion, which is to challenge each other and actually come up with ideas, not just our own, but collectively. That was magic.
I think that's what has always distinguished realgm from other fan boards - we're not just fans. We don't just react, and there's a lot of that here lately. Just a grim reality, and we deal. It's passive. And it's boring. That's pathetic, because the whole point of this forum was "fun." It's a fantasty. We're all pretend GM's. We're proactive, and win or lose, whatever the reality is, we always believe our ideas could have made a difference.
I'll say this, the past few years have been hard on the fanbase, the effects of which are very apparent on this forum. But when I joined realgm 10 years ago, those were some dark days. And yet, on this forum, it was a brilliant outlet, full of fellow fans who did some hardcore battling. It was the wild wild west back then, and people had to really fight, and sometimes we did fight each other, but in the end, despite the struggles of our team, we had solutions. At least we thought we did, most importantly, we enjoyed it.
I guess I'm a bit long in the tooth, I I just hope that there are some kids out there, reading these boards, who won't be afraid to say something different, something risky, something stupid, something crazy, who won't walk out of this bar because it has been taken over by beaten-down old men, full of defeat.
“OH! Caruso parachutes in! You cannot stop him - you can only hope to contain him!” -Kevin Harlan, LAL-GSW 4/4/19
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