badinage wrote:If this rebuild is to result in what was promised — a “generational” team that competes for a title for 6-7 years, wins a couple, and routinely racks up 60-win seasons — it’s going to require Dawkins to hit (and hit big) outside of the “easy,” star picks.
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But there’s very, very little to hang hope on right now.
Well, no. There IS something to hang hope on. The unfortunately slight prospect of landing Flagg or Bailey in the next draft.
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Finally: I know the sports are completely different, but the Team Formerly Known as Redskins got a new owner, a new GM, and a boatload of new players … and are in the conference final. Yes, yes, of course — they drafted a breathtaking star. And all of this is dependent, largely, upon his magic. Yes. Of course.
This. See my post above. The only thing that matters in the next 2 years is dodging the loss of our lotto pick, and escaping the aftereffects of the Westbrook-for-Wall trade.
In the NBA it's nearly impossible to win a chip with a collection of role players. PIF will argue that you CAN find all stars lower down, and that in every draft there are players drafted late who prove better than those at the top. But studies show that the curve is pretty steep after the first 5 players, and the hit rate at the top is better. The best of the best are often identified really early. People knew Wemby was coming. LeBron. Shaq. And for a few years now scouts have been touting the next two years as particularly strong at the top. The factor most likely to turn a team around is to draft a franchise guy at the top of the draft. A team cannot afford to waste those assets.
But we have declining protections on those two years. it is imperative to lose the next 2 years or else waste the opportunity of our losses. And ship our assets to an Eastern Conference rival.
Therefore it seems to me you can't really assess the team, the players, or even the drafting ability of the front office. While they are matrix-dodging choices made by the prior front office. Dawkins and crew deliberately selected long term projects. Young players and late growth spurt guys who will require time and seasoning. They did not take accomplished instant professionals like Zach Edey. Upperclassmen or accomplished box score heroes. They took projects.
Bub and Bilal were among the youngest players in their draft classes. Bub is a half year younger than Baby Deni was as a rookie. Sarr was noted as being a raw prospect, who of all the guys at the top of his class was the one most likely to need seasoning, at a position that takes longer to develop. Long time 'guard' Kyshawn is in the middle of a growth spurt that may top out at 6'10", when drafted it was known he needs conditioning and strength training. Even Vuk was a young talent on a team of professionals in Europe.
They weren't drafting the Corey Kispert and Johnny Davis types who came into the league as developed as they were going to be.
So. The point is not that they have to have hit on winners in the guys they drafted. They had a trickier proposition, they have to pick great talents and hope that they break out some time AFTER we draft surefire All Star prospects. The 'hope' aspect only exists in our luck in our lottery. But even there they are minimizing our risks and shoring up our percentages. We are playing our rookies heavy minutes, letting Jordan Poole captain the team, held on to Kuzma and shipped out the only guy on our roster who has had a positive effect on our +/- box score results. We HAVE punted to the future.
I like the talents we have selected. I think they could develop well. Brogdon and JV seemed like the right sort of vets to put around them. We have effort and energy guys at the back end of the bench. We stay scrappy even in double digit losses. But the thing that matters most is not to hope that our youth all become stars, but that we do not lose the only asset that we can actually 'win' by harvesting all these losses.
It's not nothing, but if you had a better than 1-in-10 chance of taking the next Larry Bird (or whomever the best comp is for Flagg) as a long time Wizards fan I think you'd be happy with those odds. As of today we have a 100% chance of a top 5 player this year. 40% of a top 3 guy. And next year, if we don't ship our pick to New York we get our lotto balls plus all of Phoenix' if they miss the playoffs.
