bwgood77 wrote:lilfishi22 wrote:I'm saying everything should be on the table. What if that top 5 pick ends up being a dud. What if JJ never works out his weaknesses? On the topic of Kyrie....the Celtics 23-6 and he's 2nd in the league in clutch time...
No offense but holding so much stock in all of these picks and young players and assume they'll take us to the promised land in 2020 and beyond is just as much of a potential disaster as throwing away all the picks. People look at Philly like all they did was tanked perfectly and now they have Simmons, Fultz and Embiid and forget they also whiffed on Okafor, Noel, Turner and MCW. It's taken us 4 years to realise the guy we drafted at #5 in 2013 is a dud while our two best players were drafted #13 and #14... Bender, Chriss, JJ are all up in the air and we probably will be patient and won't know what we really have until few seasons down the line. At this point, Bender and Chriss aren't exactly trending upwards and that's a scary thought. JJ has shown some flashes and has had some productive games but has largely been disappointing. Not the end of the world since he's young and we're only 30 or so games into the season but at this point you have as much evidence to say he might be the best player from this draft in 5yrs as anyone who thinks he could be the biggest bust in this draft. The reason I'm not against picking outside of the top 5 or even top 10 as a result of playing competitive basketball is because McD doesn't have a great draft record when he has a high pick anyway.
For the tankers who think doing anything that isn't tanking is 'shortsighted', think that non-tankers are advocating trading away everything just to add a few wins or that this Timeline is foolproof if we just keep sucking and keeping picking high, you're wrong.
Let's not be so blinded by this 2020 plan that McD trotted out a couple of seasons ago and think that a good plan then is still a good plan now or next season. If Booker plateaued as an inefficient 15ppg scorer who does nothing else and TJ only became a spark off the bench and nothing more (two entirely likely cases for #13 and #14 picks), then fine, keep tanking. But Booker has upped his efficiency across the board, he's rebounding better, he's making plays for his team mates and he's shown he can be a lethal 4th quarter assassin. TJ is a reliable 18ppg scorer on good efficiency (even without a 3PT shot) and much improved defense. We have two guys on this team that's ready to play competitive basketball but with team mates who aren't 2 years away from being 2 years away. Doesn't that alone prompt a review of this 2020 plan? My preference is that we start building a competitive team this offseason. If something comes along midseason that would make us competitive, let's dip into that stockpile of picks we have and get deals done. Not saying we need to trade all our assets away to try and contend but let's start building a fringe playoff team. Let's develop what we already have and let's focus on Booker.
I think people who want to develop the young guys and pick through the draft are fine with trying to get competitive this off season as well. This summer we possibly flirted with adding guys (Griffin, Millsap, Irving, all of which are currently out, interestingly enough), but we decided to stick with the young guys.
No one predicted the Watson and coaching disaster though...and while some felt the Bledsoe ending would be bad, I don't think anyone expected it to go down quite that way. So the team is awful to watch due to the lack of a PG and basically the lack of anything resembling a decent head coach for the rookie year and first offseason for Bender and Chriss.
It's ugly and can be disappointing to watch, and it would be nice to have a decent vet PG who liked to pass and get others involved more but I'm not sure what's out there other than maybe George Hill. Of course if we went that route it leaves us out of FA this summer in all likelihood.
The problem with young guys under performing to an extent you want to put them on the table for trade is that it likely also means their probable trade return value is extremely low as well.
I won't be surprised if we scramble and do a trade mid season, because there is a good chance Sarver feels the same way you do and doesn't want to stand around and wait for McD's high picks not to pan out.
I definitely think our best chance to improve the team over the long term though is to keep our picks right now and use them wisely and let Booker be the leader of the guys we build beneath him.
And you made some good points about the Sixers having some bad picks...like we did with Len...just because they struck out with MCW, Noel, Okafor, an injured Embiid they didn't just throw in the towel and say "High picks suck! We can't make the right ones!" and trade them. They used them and ended up with Simmons and Fultz...and they were patient with Embiid after him showing nothing for a couple years.
I think they are glad they did keep the picks.
