bigfoot wrote:bwgood77 wrote:bigfoot wrote:
Yes we were talking about star players ... go back and look at my original reply to AtheJ415
Right now I would say Chriss and Bender are much, much closer to being complete busts than they are to being stars. It's still highly questionable whether they will even be "solid" players in the mold of any that you have listed above. What really chaps me is the fact that we need stars ... not solid players. Chasing these high draft picks is supposed to net us "stars", so Bender and Chriss are busts as far as I am concerned in terms of star potential.
We have exactly one star in Booker and one solid player in Warren. We need another star, period. People who think Chriss or Bender will become star players if we just give them more time are sitting on the "Len" train again. They should show it this year or it is very, very unlikely they will pan out for us as even a "solid" player.
Well you twisted the conversation a bit. AtheJ was just saying that once they fill out they can play different positions and then Frank responded and you piggy backed with...
bigfoot wrote:
Agreed Frank ... right now I suspect once is probably never coming with these two. Again, history shows that high quality players progress significantly in their second year. Len was a whiff, Chriss and Bender are looking to be too. Cross our fingers that Jackson pans out but he's gonna be behind TJ Warren.
Then AtheJ mentioned even no more than 3 or 4 stars currently in the league would probably have passed your judgement by year two.
So I guess in your next response you took it from "high quality players" to "stars" to come up with lists....
No one has been saying these guys are going to be stars. If that is your expectation for them I can see why you are disappointed. There are few stars in this league. Maybe a couple per draft on average. You're lucky if you get one.
The discussion about these two have been primarily about whether or not they will turn into solid nba players.
If you're arguing that they are not going to be stars, I don't think anyone will take the stance that they will be stars. There are very few guys who come into this league that it's clear they will be a star by year two. Usually a #1 pick like LeBron, AD, Blake, Towns. Some of them people expect like Wiggins don't really become stars.
I don't think anyone ever had the expectations of these guys being stars, or any of our draftees for that matter. Scratch that, I guess you did, which is why you seem to be disappointed.
People forget how hard it is to come by stars. The Warriors may have quite a few now but they didn't for a couple of decades. Most teams are very lucky to have one. We may have ourselves one in Booker. We just need a few pieces around him. If he becomes a star and we can add another star or two in addition to that it would be phenomenal, but it's pretty rare to have a few stars on one team.
Sure you have a few teams now where stars are joining together but those are mostly 10-15 year vets. The best way to have continuity with stars is to use your picks wisely and build through the draft, like the Warriors did, and the Thunder before that, and the Spurs have done for years.
Anyway, back to the point. If you were thinking "stars" in your argument with Bender and Chriss, that isn't what I was thinking. I was thinking about people giving up on them entirely, which is what I've read from a few people, so I showed how many solid players scored less than 12 or less than 9 on those lists, a number of them actually are/were stars actually.
Its fine to try and cherry pick on a conversation in part of a Trade, Free Agent, Draft thread that has been ongoing for basically seven years. The reality though is pro-tank posters argue that we need top five picks because that gives us the best chance of obtaining an all-star player. The numbers as I recall from previous posts in this long-drawn out thread are a 2 out 5 chance of getting an all-star player with a top 5 pick. This is the pro-tankers ammunition against anybody who wants to see the Suns win games, make trades to improve our team, or sign free agents!!
The same old broken record of wouldn't it be glorious to get a top-5 pick in this loaded "generational" draft so that we have a legitimate all-star is the mantra that has been going on for too damn long. But hey, we have a 40% chance of drafting an all-star. Yet now when our high-end draft picks show little "star" aptitude we are supposed to sit back and let them take three-to-four years to develop. Don't worry ... be happy!! It's plain and simple that I am calling hogwash on Chriss and Bender being star players and Len is just another example of the fallacy of top draft picks and tanking. I'll throw down winning and mediocre seasons fighting for the eight seed to obtaining the likes of Marion, Amare, Booker, Nash, Majerle, and Dragic against fugly losing seasons with picks that net us Len, Bender, Chriss, and Jackson any damn day of the week.
So much wrong with basically all of this. Where to start? Let's see, the problem with the "wouldn't it be glorious to get a top 5 pick" argument that you are lamenting is that it hasn't actually been the argument here until this season. It is for this next draft because this next draft is 5 deep, but even then there are always degrees. In prior drafts it was "top 2", or "top 3", or better yet, "we need the 1st pick". The real problem with your logic in evaluating the tanker argument, and the real fallacy within it, is that you have lumped a few drafts that were weak at the top where we DIDN'T TANK WELL ENOUGH, thus getting guys like Bender (who I still believe will be a good player, but is and always was a long-term project) instead of guys like Ben Simmons. You then claim that getting a guy like Bender is what we all wanted by tanking (which it isn't. The tankers wanted the highest pick possible, which would have been Simmons, and a few wanted Ingram, but people only wanted Bender after we ended up at 4--he was never the target goal of the tank).
While people were excited about Bender, most here wanted Simmons or Ingram. The other top 5 picks we have had were Alex Len (in one of the worst drafts in the modern era, if not the worst), and Josh Jackson, who is still way too early to judge. Point being, you are using an unsuccessful tank as an argument against tanking, and pointing to picks in drafts that almost everyone here knew and have always known were 1 or 2 player drafts at the top with project-type players selected accordingly. The standard you hold guys to only really works for sure things. Sure things are taken #1, particularly in bad drafts. I cannot understand how you can both think our GM isn't managing the team well, that the coach hasn't been good, and that these long-term projects who were always long-term projects are bad, while also claiming we are close to a playoff team if only we make a couple other moves. It is baffling.
The other argument here is your insistence on a player being either a "complete bust" or a "star" and that somehow judging the success of a pick. Who here has ever really argued Bender being a budding star? His scouting report was of a do-it-all utility role player. He basically projected as a team guy who was an elite role player. While his skill set is unique at his size, he was never seen as a future star, and I'm confused as to why you lump a tanker argument into this sort of discussion while completely ignoring point 1 above, which is that we didn't tank as well as the tankers actually wanted. It's similar to holding us against the 76ers standard--they tanked to the 1st or 2nd pick repeatedly. We have not come close to that and it is a world of difference if the standard is getting a guy who shows star potential by less than mid way through year 2, which is apparently the standard you hold. There is an ocean of difference between a complete bust and a star. Chriss and Bender are very likely to fall into that ocean. Instead, you pick the ultra-convenient argument that they won't be a star, which is a straw man that you inject into damn near every thread. For the record I do think that either CAN become a star. It doesn't mean they will or that it is likely, but they have the raw athleticism / skill set to build upon to do it.
I am as pro tank as they come, and my argument has NEVER been that the draft is the way to build solely due to the odds of getting a star player. My argument is built on sustainability IF you get said star player, and I would only say that about odds of getting a star if we get a TOP pick, not top 5, but top. For instance, I would take the odds of a Luka Doncic being a star in this league and paying him on a rookie scale leading to us being contenders for the long run moreso than signing the Paul Milsap's of the world or trading for Marc Gasol and for some reason, the new fan favorite of George freaking Hill.
Tanking works if you do it right, if you to it to an extreme enough level, and if you are patient with it. It does not work if you half ass it, don't commit to it fully, and lose patience. Despite what you believe, we have only really tanked towards the end of last season. That was it. The rest of the time we half assed it and played vets insane minutes leading to the wins you seem to crave to get us to that awesome 25th best record in the league. What I find more amusing than even your misunderstanding of all of this is the people who honestly think we are a George Hill and random Center away from the playoffs. This team is too young, and largely too filled with undisciplined garbage defenders who have been coached by a yoga instructor for most of their careers to be passable, let alone in the playoffs in this western conference. If everyone here agrees that Lorenzo Romar was a pretty horrible coach during Chriss's tenure and that Watson had no business being an NBA coach, how in the hell do you hold Chriss's entire future to what he has done in 14 months as a pro, when he came in as a project big who has been playing organized basketball for a limited period of time, let alone at the college or NBA level?
I can pull up tons of examples of very good players who at the age of 20 were struggling in COLLEGE. It's not some one-off event. It happens all the time. Booker is the only sure thing on this team, but my problem with your arguments against Bender and Chriss are that they are lazy, convenient, and ignore all of the logic that follows, all because you choose to evaluate a 20 year old and a 25 year old as the same level of preparedness for the NBA simply because they have both been in the league for the same period of time. It is nonsense imo.
The tanking argument is about getting high picks to maximize odds. It is not a sure thing. Despite what you think, free agency and trades for vets aren't sure things either. The advantage of tanking though is that you can luck out and get a guy like Towns, Davis, Embiid, Simmons, etc. who is ready to play at a high level from Day 1, if you can get that 1st or 2nd pick. We haven't been that lucky yet. It doesn't mean the strategy is wrong though. The other advantage is you maintain cap flexibility throughout it so long as you don't do something stupid like trading for George Hill or Mike Conley. This allows you to build around a young star like Booker while maintaining the cap flexibility to go after somebody who is truly worth the salary, and to time it appropriately. For us, our window is 2 offseasons. If we do it right we have the chance to get 1 max player and maybe one other borderline expensive player depending on the type of max and what happens with the rest of the roster. The other advantage is you get guys who will be there throughout Booker's prime and you control them. You don't get that going for the vets you have pined after. In short, you are losing now for the CHANCE at an extended contention window.
I think that makes a hell of a lot more sense than volunteering to be the Grizzlies or the Heat. You can pine to be those teams. You can pine for the Rubios, Gasols, Milsaps, and whoevers of the world who are proven but overrated vets that would do nothing but get us the 8 seed if lucky and tie up all cap flexibility until after we have to max Booker, hamstringing us for his entire prime here. I'd rather be the 76ers, and yes, even the Suns, because having that YOUNG star in Booker or Simmons or Embiid is more valuable than every player on both the Grizz and Heat roster combined. And while I realize we got Booker due to draft luck and not tanking, realize the 76ers are entirely a product of tanking, and that getting Booker at 13 is so unbelievably more lucky than the 76ers getting Simmons or Embiid at 1 and 3, which was all tanking plus an Embiid injury.
