Poll: Which of these do you classify as a "winning" team?

[SFour]

Last 4 seasons of the finals teams:

IND: 25 wins - 35 wins - 47 wins - 50 wins (finals)
OKC: 24 wins - 40 wins - 57 wins - 68 wins (finals)

Cool. Scam a team for a Haliburton-level talent with the assets we've got, and then also a Siakam-level talent.

Alternately, scam a team for a Shai-level talent who then gets healthy after his first few seasons with the team, and then turns into an ATG 30/5/6 player on insane efficiency and wins an MVP. (EDIT: Oya, and author an historic -7 defense around said player)

When those options actually become available to us, that sort of commentary becomes viable, you know what I mean? It's not that simple, though.

Timing and opportunity are rooted in luck.

We did get a Siakam-level talent from the Ingram trade...so that part is done. For the Haliburton-level talent that could come from Barnes if he takes another leap....that doesn't even account for RJ, IQ, bench players from also showing improvements.

[StopitLeo]

Winning team is more so about consistency over a span of several years.

Hawks made the ECF 3 years ago but nobody calls them a winning team. Being a consistent playoff team is a winning “team”

I agree that it is about consistency.

The DeRozan-Lowry Raptors became a winning team in 2015 when making the playoffs was assumed and a sub-50 win season was seen as underperforming (49 wins that year). That "team" went on to have five 50+ win seasons and a Championship (obviously we had the crazy Kawhi situation and Pascal coming out of nowhere).

It's going to take a few years before we know what we have in Ingram-Barnes.

[tsherkin]

We did get a Siakam-level talent from the Ingram trade...so that part is done. For the Haliburton-level talent that could come from Barnes if he takes another leap....that doesn't even account for RJ, IQ, bench players from also showing improvements.

Give or take, I suppose. Siakam is healthier and a two-way player, and he is also a pretty good iso player. Not as smooth and not as good a shooter, of course, so I guess it evens out.

Barnes isn't going to turn into Haliburton. That's clear enough. He's good, but not that level of player at all. Not nearly dynamic enough off the dribble, not even close to the same kind of shooter and not really the same level of playmaker.

And I don't think we're going to see huge improvements from RJ, IQ or the bench guys. Certainly not enough to mimic star-level talent. We should expect improvement of some sort as the whole team gets better and makes everyone else's lives easier, of course. And that's good, and should help us win some games, get north of .500 and all that. But we're talking about the top-level talent required to become contention-adjacent. And no one on this roster is or will likely be good enough to enable that. Which is fine, because we're taking the step from "crap" to "decent" before we start doing things to try and move beyond that.

Baby Steps, as Doctor Leo Marvin says!