Jeff Van Gully wrote:Bill Pidto wrote:Minnesota finally has Towns, though. Watch how quickly they turn into a playoff team.
All you need is that one guy. Not to win a title, but to make your team relevant. Some teams are really unlucky or just make poor decisions in the draft, and it takes them many years to move the needle. The Knicks/Phil, on the the other hand, got lucky/scouted well and made the right choice to land Porzingis their first time in the lottery.
So I don't like hearing that tanking/drafting is proven to not work and that the Knicks should steer away from it. Because it's already working for them, and now they just have to add complimentary pieces and develop. If and when they add that second young star, they can have a realistic path to contention.
well, it's more the conversation becomes pro-tank in a way where nothing else can work. and that we now play a game of losing.
you nailed it. the draft IS an inexact science. think of what we are suggesting.
draft your own big three... or four... or five, given how this arms race is going. this entails being bad on purpose for like half a decade and hoping you get your picks right and hoping you have some kind of leg to stand on to encourage winning, when it's time.
or... you always play to win, strive to win, and try to hit on the picks. if the key to the rebuild is hitting on the picks, then we should augment that with incremental improvement year over year. people like to cite the warriors. they got better every year and hit on their picks. then kept on the upward trajectory.
the reason why we keep bringing up minnesota, philly, phoenix is because they don't win. the only one to do anything recently was phoenix. we have the coach they did when they popped off a bit. the situation kind of fell through on some personal schidt and the bottom fell right back out. maybe jeff knows a thing or two about incremental improvement and leading young men? i am confident our current FO knows a thing or two about selecting talent.
the part i can't reconcile is how setting the team up to lose leads to the promised land. thus, i can't reconcile rooting for losses piling up from onset. last year, when it was clear we weren't going to pull back up, i rooted for the L column like everyone else, but i didn't root for the players to be bum asses, if that makes sense.
and you can't have it both ways. they can't be bums who get you top 3 AND be championship pieces.
THIS
If we still suck 2/3 years from now are the players that we think are these amazing prospects really that damn great? Nope.
That's how you become stuck in the lotto.