prime1time wrote:Let's be clear, if we trade Beal, the goal should be to bottom out and stockpile genuine elite talent. I.E. a player better than Beal. Duncan Robinson would be useless on a team like that. I also think if we trade Beal, we should fire sale all of the other win-now pieces we have like Bertans. I would think about packaging whatever we got back from Beal to trade Westbrook. I would expect a minimum of 3 straight high lottery picks at least. I would also advocate for not extending above average talent (De'Aaron Fox/Colin Sexton/Marvin Bagley etc). I would prefer to just be bad until we got an elite player.
An elite player, imo, is someone that ranks among the top 5 or so players in the NBA—and obtaining a player like that isn’t easy. Elite players (Doncic, Giannis, Durant, Lebron, A. Davis, Curry) come along about once every 4-5 years, and you have to be real lucky to be in a position to draft him. (Maybe you have a different definition of an "elite" player.)
Even three straight high lottery picks doesn't guarantee you an "elite" player.
No elite player is going to sign with a “bad” Zards team or demand to be traded to one. And even if you somehow draft, sign or trade for an elite player that one player alone is not going to turn a bad team into a contender.
So it’s important that you still try to field a good (or at least middling) team even as you wait on (and wish for) that elite player. You really don’t want to ever settle for being a “bad” team because that badness could last for years and years.
P.S.: Beal is the closest thing that the Zards have had to an elite player in a decade or more. The goal should be to build around BB…until such time that he demands to be traded or indicates that he doesn’t intend to sign an extension.