What will it take for this team to be a contender again?

[Miklo]

I've never really been happy with the total rebuild plan - seems to me it fails as often as it works.

I mean, can anyone think of a championship contender (a team in the conference finals) that went from ground zero (think New York or New Jersey) to contender in the amount of time it would take to get a draft player going (i.e., about 3 years)?

Cleveland... That's all I can think of. And that took like 6 years. Boston sort of, but they just made a couple big trades, rather than big draft picks to do that

Yeah Cleveland is a good example and probably about the quickest you can go from bottom to top with that strategy.

I'd argue Boston had some crucial draft picks as well as trades actually when you think about it. Al Jeff being probably the most important pick in their turnaround, since he pulled in KG.

[Sun Scorched]

We need to upgrade the SF postion.

Let`s face it homies, Grant Hill is old. He is not¸ as strong as he was before - and he is one of those ``Get injured, R.I.P career`` type of guys.

I have to tell you, I have been fine with our SF position. Since Marion we've had a revitalized Hill and an MIP Dudley. I don't think I've watched a game where I walked away saying "Gosh we're only a SF away..."

For me it has been the SG position since Johnson left and the C position since forever.

Bell did a great job and was a fan favorite, but on our team and with as fluid an offense as we have, the ability of a SG to slash to the basket and finish is very important. Bell didn't have that.

Lopez's growth this season is nice. It's great to finally have a return on investment, so to speak. Outside of O'Neal take a look at the people we have played at Center for the last couple of seasons....

Amare Stoudemire
Robin Lopez
Boris Diaw
Kurt Thomas
Brian Skinner
Sean Marks
Pat Burke....

My point exaclty. Before O'Neal we were the WORST rebounding team in the league. We regularly shot over or close to 60% from the field and lost because we were outrebounded by 20. No secret there.

PG, SF and PF we have down. Give me a SG and a C with our current bench and we could make a legitimate run.

[Juicy Juice]

We have our Center in RoLo. If Amare stays put, then we'll have every position besides the 2 guard down.

Dragic/Nash at the point
starting SG/Barbosa at the 2
Clark/Dudley at the 3 (assuming Clark develops into the player we want him to be)
Stoudemire/Amundson at the 4
RoLo/Frye at the 5. If we can get another defensive/rebounding big man (Gortat) then we'd really be only a young shooting guard away from contending.

[b-ball forever]

RoLo's been better recently but I'm still not sold on him becoming a quality starting center for the future without Nash, unless we get CP3 or sth.

[DBrimstone]

We have our Center in RoLo. If Amare stays put, then we'll have every position besides the 2 guard down.

Dragic/Nash at the point
starting SG/Barbosa at the 2
Clark/Dudley at the 3 (assuming Clark develops into the player we want him to be)
Stoudemire/Amundson at the 4
RoLo/Frye at the 5. If we can get another defensive/rebounding big man (Gortat) then we'd really be only a young shooting guard away from contending.

Totally agree. Clark will take over the Grant Hill role after next season. Amare demands huge respect in the paint. We just need a 2 guard to suck people in on the perimeter. We have enough shooters to make that work. This sounds like a triangle offense to me. Weird.