swarlesbarkley wrote:It also sounds like we agree on Vuc, too? With Vuc as our star, our ceiling is a .500 team and a shot at a 6-8 seed. That’s really all my argument has ever been. We’ll beat the bad teams most nights, and even though we’ll beat a good team every so often, we’ll lose to them most nights. During Vuc’s injury, we continued on that same path. We’re really waiting for one of our young guys to be a star who takes us to the next level. With Vuc as our star, best case scenario is he keeps us at the same level (previous highest win total was 35). I came into this season really excited because I thought that maybe we would stay on the same trajectory we were on the last quarter of last season. That 20+ game stretch was the most fun I’ve had watching the Magic since D12 and Vuc was a huge part of that. But it seems like that stretch was an anomaly and we’re still a .500 team (currently 2 games under). And I guess that’s all fine if the plan is to buy time (aka sell seats) until our young guys hit their peak and we can really contend – but I’m in the camp then that we should probably try to add more top level talent in the draft then.
I do want to acknowledge that I may have a huge blind spot when it comes to Vuc because I think the center position is the least important and most easily replaceable. I could be totally wrong on that but it seems like wings and guards rule the league and the center position is an afterthought and not the first offensive option on most contending teams (sans Embiid). I wish our star was on the wing but that’s not on Vuc.
I think we can definitely be successful with Vuc but it means that we’d need 2- 3 more guys to play at all star levels like Ross did last season since Vuc + Ross playing out of their minds last year got us to 42 wins. Depending on the timing of that hitting, that’s when his contract may become a part of the conversation.
My primary reason for supporting Vucevic is player development and asset management.
Vucevic isn't the ceiling, he's the key to maintaining a higher floor. That has tremendous implications to how young players develop and to squeezing out the best results with asset management.
The absolute best context and most proven method for developing young players to max out their growth is to keep them in a competitive stable context. Its why, and how, the best franchises continuously find and develop quality players...regardless of where they draft. In addition, most players in a competitive context (as in competing for playoffs as deep into season as possible) usually increase their trade value and their desirability.
Chasing talent in the top of the draft isn't as reliable a solution as you think it is. For every high pick anomaly star, there is a non-lottery anomaly star.
The reality of the prolonged "tank" mirage is that most of those franchises enter a bottom feeder treadmill for a half decade or more. That's even in the rare cases that a team gets lucky and finds a top level talent. It rarely ends with a true contender, much less a championship.
Proponents of this strategy consistently point to the stat that indicates that odds of adding an all-star increases the higher the pick. While that is true, what that data doesn't tell you is that when that anomaly does happen, those players usually don't reach the all-star level with the team that drafted him, and if they do its at the tail end of their tenure with that team.
On top of that, the actual number of wins and depth of playoff appearances in which that player actually carries that drafting team to is in the vast majority of cases very low.
What normally happens is that player movement and cap realities almost always derails it. In fact, usually its teams that weren't using that strategy that stroll in and poach those players and reap the benefits of those top level talents just as they enter their peak prime production age.
