News Flash!!!!!! LOSING IS BAD!!!!!

JMAC3 · Post #1 » by **JMAC3** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 5:44 am

Since when is losing acceptable?

That's what this board has been become is a bunch of loser fans. "Gosh I sure hope we suck this year so we can get a top three pick" "Man I hope we do not get anybody good or make any game winning shots that will cost a few extra balls in the draft" well guess what winning is a mindset and your not going to magically go from being a 15 win team to 50 win team over two seasons. The players need to learn how to win and that takes actually being competitive and being in games in the fourth quarter. Kemba is a winner if we do not give him the tools to be a winner here guess what he will leave, same goes for any other young guys we draft.

Michael Jordan needs to sac up and put some money into this franchise. It is clear this whole well if I were an NBA star I would love to play on MJ's team someday theory isn't going to work out. He needs to quit waiting for some magic deal to arrive that fixes this team and wake up and sign a few free agents. Instead we just let players leave in crappy deals that get us bad contracts and lose us star players. We never pay anybody ever!!!!! As soon as a contract is up we either trade them away, let them leave through free agency or lose them to a higher paying team. Really what have we really gotten for guys like Chandler, Wallace, Jackson, Felton, Okafor, or even Wright. When was the last time we actually payed a big free agent or resigned a guy at the end of his contract...Pathetic!

This free agency is going to be no different. We let Kwame sign with somebody else without even giving him an offer. We will ultimately lose out on Reggie Williams because some team will give him a whole whooping 2-3 million a year. Let alone we will start the year without a healthy true center...embarassing. Diop should of been amnestied along time ago, but MJ is to cheap to have to pay somebody. Najera is one of the worst 5 players in the NBA, but yet he remains on our roster. We say we want to rebuild and have young talent then why do we not sign a few young guys instead we sit around and wait until everybody is gone and we say gosh nobody is available we are going to have to stay with what we have.

I could run this team better then these idiots. No wonder nobody gives a crap about this team in Charlotte because they refuse to get better. We are the only team in the NBA that has done nothing since lockout has ended(other then signing Kemba and UPS) Every other team has acquired a new player either through free agency, made a trade, or resigned a big name on there team.

Remember just because you are the worst team does not guarantee your the first pick in the draft. Lottery Balls have a weird way of bouncing and doing nothing to make our team better or gain any fans is not going to help(for you conspiracy theorist out there that it is rigged).

I know this long so most of you guys wont read it. I might as well get ready for the posters who pick one thing out and continually reemphasize that I am wrong.

ex: Najera is better then at least 20 guys in this league. BLAH Blah you would know this if you actually watched the games.

I don't know If I can take accepting that my team is the worst in the League and sit back and watch us do nothing about it. TANKING is something that should be thought of with 5 games left not 66.

Stun704 · Post #2 » by **Stun704** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 5:58 am

I agree, I hope Kemba can show flashes of being a franchise player, but simply put we aren't talented enough as a team top to bottom to make the playoffs, even though I will root for us to win every game, we must accept the reality that we are rebuilding, and getting a top 3 pick will put us in the best position to end our rebuilding phase as soon as possible.

Post #3 » by **fatlever** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 6:01 am

we didnt have much cap space this year. 6 mil w/out kwame i think it was.

we could have amnestied diop and been like 13 mil under. but who could we have signed that would have really made us better? i didnt really see anyone this FA period who would have made a real difference.

i will still be at the games rooting my eyeballs out for a win, but we need to wait until next summer. we will have a lot of capspace then, in a better FA market and potentially have a good pick. if we sit on our hands again next summer i will be furious.

we all knew this was coming once we made the decision to trade wallace and jax.

Post #4 » by **fatlever** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 6:04 am

here's what scares me a little... everyone talks about this 2012 draft as being so great, but is it really so great? it seems deep in the sense that you can get a good player at 15. but it doesnt have any surefire superstars at the top. who at the top of this draft is a franchise player? i dont see it in barnes or davis......... yet. maybe this uconn big man will be the real deal.

Stun704 · Post #5 » by **Stun704** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 6:08 am

fatlever wrote:here's what scares me a little... everyone talks about this 2012 draft as being so great, but is it really so great? it seems deep in the sense that you can get a good player at 15. but it doesnt have any surefire superstars at the top. who at the top of this draft is a franchise player? i dont see it in barnes or davis......... yet. maybe this uconn big man will be the real deal.

drummond davis barnes and Perry Jones III are 5 star prospects aka franchise players, Lamb, Rivers, Sullinger are 4 star prospect quasi chris bosh/monta ellis level talent then it descends from there IMO. don't count Barnes out just because he plays in a team orientated system

Post #6 » by **Paydro70** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 6:27 am

1) I am not interested in winning 50 games. I am interested in winning titles. The only way to do that (repeat: ONLY) is by getting a superstar. The only way for us to get a superstar is in the draft. Thus, losing to get a high draft pick is basically the only option if we actually want to contend.

2) I hardly think it's surprising that a team which has consistently lost money since its founding is interested in cutting costs, especially when its owner is not that rich. When you consider the reality that increasing its payroll comes with a penalty to future gains (in the form of draft picks), it's even less surprising that the team isn't eager to do it.

3) Even if we did adopt your strategy and go all-out to try to win, we would not be able to do so. I mean seriously, look at this list: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/story/_/ ... gents-2011
Even if we signed ALL of them, we would not be a 50-win team. So why sign any of them, especially when we'd likely have to overpay? By the time this team is actually title-worthy, any of the veterans will be too old, and the younger guys (e.g., Rodney Stuckey) are not inspiring to say the least.

4) I basically agree with you that the team should at this point stock itself to the gills with as many players under 24 as they possibly can. The trouble is that this is not compatible with your desire to actually win games... if they're good, they're not signing with us, and if they're unknown, odds are they're bad. We'll be lucky, with a roster full of young free agents, if one or two of them prove worthy of more than an end-of-the-bench role. Mostly we'll do a lot of losing while we attempt to find out which of the young guys is actually worth something. But to me, that's the best strategy... not only do you give yourself a chance to find a young diamond in the rough, but the losing likely nets you a higher draft pick, which means one more shot at a superstar.

5) Nobody has to "learn how to win." You're either good, and win, or you're bad, and don't. The Thunder didn't need to "learn" how to win, they sucked for years, racked up a bunch of lotto picks, hit on a couple of stars, and immediately leapt out to 50 wins from 23. That's our formula. Worrying about whether Kemba Walker will have anybody around him (we frankly don't even know if he's good yet!) in his rookie season is, to me, absurd. We'll deal with his desire to leave us for a winner when that actually can happen, in 2015.

Post #7 » by **fatlever** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 6:33 am

Stun704 wrote:
fatlever wrote:here's what scares me a little... everyone talks about this 2012 draft as being so great, but is it really so great? it seems deep in the sense that you can get a good player at 15. but it doesnt have any surefire superstars at the top. who at the top of this draft is a franchise player? i dont see it in barnes or davis......... yet. maybe this uconn big man will be the real deal.

drummond davis barnes and Perry Jones III are 5 star prospects aka franchise players, Lamb, Rivers, Sullinger are 4 star prospect quasi chris bosh/monta ellis level talent then it descends from there IMO. don't count Barnes out just because he plays in a team orientated system

i disagree about barnes. i think he is a safe pick. someone who is almost guaranteed to be a solid starter for a long time. very solid top 10 pick. however, i dont see anything in his game yet that makes me think he will be a franchise player. but, i dont want to derail this thread too bad. we can discuss in the draft thread i guess.

Liver_Pooty · Post #8 » by **Liver_Pooty** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 6:55 am

Agreed. Barnes is not a franchise player. And at Paydros comment winning a title is the ultimate goal, but id be pretty stoked if we won 50 games.

JMAC3 · Post #9 » by **JMAC3** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:11 am

My point is this year at least get a legit center who is close to 7 foot. I mean why waste money on Diop and Najera when you could find younger players who could end up turning into solid role players in the future. That way when we do add two top 7 picks in the next 2 years we will have a bench and a team full of young guys who have experience and played together. Rather we will have a bunch of young guys who are still probably below average starting 5 with no bench depth to speak of because we want to wait until we think were good enough to be a champion.

The Thunder also have two allstars. Your formula for success has not worked the last 5 years and it wont until we actually make some decent picks.

If we would sign Reggie Williams and Fesenko I would be happy because at least we did something and showed that we cared a little bit.

I agree we arent a playoff team and I am not saying we need to be one this year, but why not try and set us up to be one in 2 years lets get the smaller pieces together now.

Diaw will get dunked on 100 times this year if we let him play center majority of time and we will give up 20 offensive rebounds a game.

I just want us to do something even if it is small. Last year the small moves we made payed off Livingston and Kwame. That is what Williams and Fesenko could mean this year. It is not like it will make us a playoff team, but it will be better basketball.

Also, Ronnie Price was signed by Suns. Looks like we will sign some awful point guard. Play Carroll 20 minutes a game and play 3 power forwards at all times.

Stun704 · Post #10 » by **Stun704** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:18 am

fatlever wrote:
Stun704 wrote:
fatlever wrote:here's what scares me a little... everyone talks about this 2012 draft as being so great, but is it really so great? it seems deep in the sense that you can get a good player at 15. but it doesnt have any surefire superstars at the top. who at the top of this draft is a franchise player? i dont see it in barnes or davis......... yet. maybe this uconn big man will be the real deal.

drummond davis barnes and Perry Jones III are 5 star prospects aka franchise players, Lamb, Rivers, Sullinger are 4 star prospect quasi chris bosh/monta ellis level talent then it descends from there IMO. don't count Barnes out just because he plays in a team orientated system

i disagree about barnes. i think he is a safe pick. someone who is almost guaranteed to be a solid starter for a long time. very solid top 10 pick. however, i dont see anything in his game yet that makes me think he will be a franchise player. but, i dont want to derail this thread too bad. we can discuss in the draft thread i guess.

I think Kemba has the potential to be a franchise player, in the sense I think he has the leadership qualities where you can build around him, and I think Barnes has the potential to be a franchise level talent, even though he may not have the killer instinct, think like the westbrook/durant relationship but reversed

doc.end · Post #11 » by **doc.end** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 10:32 am

We are the LOLCATS. A side from joy from winning we have perfect theme for making fun of losses. And we'll embrace it. Nobody (I guess) is going to root against our team game time but other than that many would be quite comfortable that we didn't win a given game. We win a couple of games by default especially in this brutal schedule when we are sure to play some tired teams here and there. We should just concentrate on cheering for the young guys and laugh at some special in game rotations we are bound to experience. We first have to get of our cap space crap before we can do anything - and no that doesn't mean any master plan to eventually build a contending team, we can't do anything right now and not much more next season either. We are bound to have a shot at two at least solid drafts and are toast meanwhile. There is no point for FO to squeeze owners for few extra bucks if it¨s meaningless to spend. Let them save up for better seasons.

captaincrunk · Post #12 » by **captaincrunk** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 11:55 am

JMAC3 wrote:I just want us to do something even if it is small. Last year the small moves we made payed off Livingston and Kwame. That is what Williams and Fesenko could mean this year.

Neither livingstyon nor kwame are on the team anymore, but good point.

Bassman · Post #13 » by **Bassman** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 1:08 pm

JMAC3 wrote:My point is this year at least get a legit center who is close to 7 foot. I mean why waste money on Diop and Najera when you could find younger players who could end up turning into solid role players in the future. That way when we do add two top 7 picks in the next 2 years we will have a bench and a team full of young guys who have experience and played together. Rather we will have a bunch of young guys who are still probably below average starting 5 with no bench depth to speak of because we want to wait until we think were good enough to be a champion.

The Thunder also have two allstars. Your formula for success has not worked the last 5 years and it wont until we actually make some decent picks.

If we would sign Reggie Williams and Fesenko I would be happy because at least we did something and showed that we cared a little bit.

I agree we arent a playoff team and I am not saying we need to be one this year, but why not try and set us up to be one in 2 years lets get the smaller pieces together now.

Diaw will get dunked on 100 times this year if we let him play center majority of time and we will give up 20 offensive rebounds a game.

I just want us to do something even if it is small. Last year the small moves we made payed off Livingston and Kwame. That is what Williams and Fesenko could mean this year. It is not like it will make us a playoff team, but it will be better basketball.

Also, Ronnie Price was signed by Suns. Looks like we will sign some awful point guard. Play Carroll 20 minutes a game and play 3 power forwards at all times.

Agree, and understand your intent. Paydro is absolutely correct relative to our formula for getting really good. We can do both by getting those 2 players (Fesenko and Williams) and developing the young talent while (understandably) losing our way into a quality draft pick in 2012. But let's NOT sit on our hands and start the season with one hand tied behind our back. Higgins is an IDIOT...I can't stand the guy. Wish he was out and Cho was in charge.

GQCoolest · Post #14 » by **GQCoolest** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 2:46 pm

Of course it's going to suck to be back to basically a expansion level team, after tasting the sweet, if not short-lived, nectar of playoff basketball. That said, the intent of the FO was made clear after dumping Crash, and confirmed after trading Jack. As long as we entertain, play hard, avoid long term injuries, and don't get blown out on the reg, I'll be happy. Of course I want the Cats to play hard and win, but it's clear how hamstrung this roster is with the Diop and Diaw deals. The summer of 2013 is going to be awesome, when we drop about 20 million off the cap. Hopefully we can draft a scoring 2/3 in the 2012 draft and continue to build around a solid starting 5 of:

Kemba
Hendo
(2012 draft pick who will probably be a 6th man until next year's deadline so we can showcase Maggette in order to trade him for picks and an expiring)
Tyrus
Biyombo

In 2013, you take a look at where Hendo is, see if he's a starter in this league, by then we'll know. Then you use the cap space to sign a legit 2 guard, a backup point (DJ gone), and a backup big.

2014, 50 wins.

2015, 55 wins, everyone resigns because we're the new Thunder.

2016-Forever: Bobcats dynasty.

It's that simple.

Badd_Intentions · Post #15 » by **Badd_Intentions** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 2:47 pm

I understand the original poster, but as someone stated, we are in full rebuild mode so it's gonna be ugly for a couple of seasons at least. We need to focus on drafting well and in consecutive years. That is the ONLY way we are going to get out of the mess we are in. Hopefully we'll have some lottery day luck as we've been getting screwed in the lotto.

Fingers crossed on Kemba and Bitchsmack for this year. This year is really all about them, Hendo, and Tyrus. I don't see any other players with a long term future on the team. You can throw DJ in the mix as well, but I just feel he'll be trade bait if Kemba pans out.

penquin11 · Post #16 » by **penquin11** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 3:54 pm

Ok lets see which is better

2011: 36-46 (narrowly miss playoffs)
2012: 36-46 (narrowly miss playoffs)
2013: 36-46 (narrowly miss playoffs)
2014: 40-42 (go to playoffs get wiped in 1st round)
2015: 36-46 (narrowly miss playoffs)
or
2011: 15-51 (top 5 pick)
2012: 30-52 (misses playoffs)
2013: 44-38 (Divisional Round)
2014: 50-32 (NBA TITLE CONTENDER)
2015: 56-25 (NBA TITLE CONTENDER)

JMAC3 · Post #17 » by **JMAC3** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 4:28 pm

penquin11 wrote:Ok lets see which is better

2011: 36-46 (narrowly miss playoffs)
2012: 36-46 (narrowly miss playoffs)
2013: 36-46 (narrowly miss playoffs)
2014: 40-42 (go to playoffs get wiped in 1st round)
2015: 36-46 (narrowly miss playoffs)
or
2011: 15-51 (top 5 pick)
2012: 30-52 (misses playoffs)
2013: 44-38 (Divisional Round)
2014: 50-32 (NBA TITLE CONTENDER)
2015: 56-25 (NBA TITLE CONTENDER)

This is stupid...

doc.end · Post #18 » by **doc.end** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 5:11 pm

Yup, this whole thread. Well done original poster.

doc.end · Post #19 » by **doc.end** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 5:17 pm

Anyway this our 25 years old or younger depth chart:

Augustin 24, Walker 21
Henderson 24
Cunningham - RFA 24, D.Brown 24
Thomas 25, White 25
Biyombo 19

other are for games being played and available for trades getting us picks (any) or any future oriented pieces. Next youngest are Diaw and Diop both 29 to put ion perspective. So only those in depth chart matters and probably not even all of them - depending on their abilities and acceptance of role.

I would just warn that drafting Barnes over better prospect just because he is local talent and positional need would be

We have to more picks and other moves to sort that out.

Kembastockton · Post #20 » by **Kembastockton** » Wed Dec 14, 2011 5:54 pm

JMAC3 is it really that hard for you to understand the big picture here? None of us like to loose. That is why we want an opportunity for a true franchise player. We don't want to be like those teams who are in the lottery year after year. They might luck up and make the playoffs one or two years, and then it is right back to the lottery. We want to have a Duncan, a Lebron, Griffin, or Wade type superstar to make us an attractive freeagent destination for ten years. You can have capspace for days, but players have to want to play for you. If we have a franchise player, and capspace then the free agents will come in droves. These players want to win a championship, and they will go where they think they can win one. It is not all about endorsements in the major makets. Larry Johnson made much money from endorsements, tv appearances, and movie spots while in Charlotte. It all starts with getting a superstar. Otherwise fans like you will always make the mistake of blaming the f.o. for something they have absloutely no control over.

I would just warn that drafting Barnes over better prospect just because he is local talent and positional need would be We have to more picks and other moves to sort that out.

I feel what you are saying, but honestly there is only one truly better prospect than Barnes in this draft. Anthony Davis and Barnes are the two best players in this draft.