montestewart wrote:dandridge 10 wrote:I find it ironic that payitforward is one of EG's biggest critics (most of it justified), yet he has the most optimism for this season. I'm not being critical, it just surprised me when I saw his prediction. Was his prediction in jest?
It surprised me too, payitforward, but you're a combination of enthusiastic fan optimism and loyal fan expectation that management could and should do better. Maybe I need to get a little more of the former.
Using last season WP48 numbers for all players on the roster (giving Beal a straw man average score), and projecting at least one possible spread of minutes, then assuming health sufficient to support those minutes, I came up with that shocking estimate.
Webster looked like a much better player than in the past, and had been saying that he was healthy for the first time in years, I thought and still think that his variance was more likely to be up then down. Ditto Singleton off his preseason (and given that last year was a tough one to be a rookie). And I thought we'd be keeping Mack not Pargo but had projected few enough minutes at that spot not to matter a whole bunch.
In retrospect, I underestimated the time it now looks like it'll take for Wall to come back -- meaning more minutes for Price/Pargo and therefore fewer wins for the team. And I fear that Nene too will be out for quite a while. His ability to come back, and to play at or near last year's level, is the single softest spot in the thinking behind my projection.
But from the responses above it seems I may not have communicated quite where I stand in re: the team. Even if we were to win 44 games I really don't care. I have no interest in us going back to the 40+ wins, one playoff series and out team that defines the best Ernie Grunfield can offer. And especially I don't want to do it based on veterans in the last 1/3 of their career -- meaning that this exalted number 44 wouldn't be easy to duplicate, would require us to get even more such veterans.
Screw mediocrity; I want to contend for a title. I'd rather fail at that effort than succeed at the current one. I detest the choices Ernie makes. I feel contempt for him, because he places the bar so low then gloats because he thinks he knows how to reach it.
Hence, I would have drafted Leonard (or maybe Motiejunas or somehow traded up for Valenciunas whom I loved) #6 in 2011. I would have drafted Faried (tho I also found Tobias Harris tempting) at #18. I would have traded McGee for some combo of expiring salary, and/or youth and/or picks. I would have paid off Rashard and signed Brand if possible, I would have landed Landry Fields or Kareem Rush as an FA, if the $$ made it at all possible I would have pursued Ilyasova, I would have used our #32 and 46 picks and signed an undrafted (e.g. Machado).
Perhaps you remember that I proposed (in jest because it would have been impossible to execute) a "radical trade-down strategy" for this year's draft that gave us I think it was 6 or 7 rookies. I was being humorous as I say, but that reflects my actual preference.
Hence, for me, 44 wins is not a happy prediction. It's back to the Ernie Grunfield BS era.