Sleepy51 wrote:In a word, yes. Strategic tanking extended the Spurs dominance to almost two decades. If it’s good enough for them it’s good enough for us.
Enjoy the year without us in the mix. Maybe your fav team can get a participation trophy while we’re chillin?
Pop's first 8 or so years as GM he did not do anything impressive as a GM. Ellie was a good signing.
Then he got Bowen, Ginobili, Parker and Stephen Jackson before the 2nd championship.
The only guys from this first championship that were on the second championship were Robinson, Duncan and Malik Rose. The first champions were not a great team but the NBA contenders were weak that year.
When Robinson and Sean Eliot got injured that left the Spurs with Avery Johnson, Viny Del Negro and 37 year Dominique Wilkins as their best players. Tanking should have been easy but the Spurs only managed to get the 3rd worst record that year. The draft only had 3 good players in the top 10. The good players were Duncan, McGrady and Billups. Billups took a long time to develop. McGrady was drafted out of high school at the 9 spot right after Adonal Foyle at 8.
Spurs needed some lottery luck to get Duncan.
To tank properly Steph and Draymond need to not play. Then the Warriors need lottery luck to beat the other tankers. Duncan was a sure thing a year before his draft. I have not hear anybody in the 2020 draft hyped yet.