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A new kemba thread, and a question.

Will we keep Kemba?

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It's going to be a good season. We're going to be a playoff team again, with Kemba at the forefront of it all. Our roster is better than in years past, our coach is saying the right things (hopefully they transfer onto the court), and we have a GM who is unafraid to make roster changes when they're needed. We're three deep at center and have the depth to withstand an injury to anybody except Kemba.

He's staying.

I don't even see this being a question. No way he leaves or is traded.

Only way Kemba goes is if we are like 5-25 after 30 games. In other words, it's possible.

We should give Kemba a no-trade clause on his contract. Kemba obviously does not like the idea of being traded anywhere, and he may value the stability over anything else after seeing what happened with DeRozan.

Toronto finally gets a player that wants to be there like we do with Kemba, and they lie to him trade him for a one year rental.

Liver_Pooty wrote:Toronto finally gets a player that wants to be there like we do with Kemba, and they lie to him trade him for a one year rental.

The situations are a little different. We probably could have done something like Kemba + something for Kwahi, but Kwahi doesn't get us near the Finals for that one season, and because Jordan isn't trading Kemba for anything less than Kwahi (long-term), then I'm pretty sure we don't have to worry about Kemba being flipped. I agree with the guy above. Maybe we can get Kemba to take slightly less to sign a no trade clause.

Please, do not get me wrong, I love Kemba Walker. I think he is the greatest Hornet of all time. I just do not understand the fascination of keeping him. He is not a true superstar in this league. A star, yes, but not superstar. You cannot win a championship with him as you number 1. You give him a max extension next year and you are guaranteeing mediocrity until the end of his contract. I truly believe keeping him is an awful idea.

NJBuzz12 wrote:I truly believe keeping him is an awful idea.

I get that. You may even be right.

The thing is that the alternatives could be even worse. There are TONS of teams that endlessly cycle through young players, vets looking for money, etc. and just stay bad. There is this idea that starting over 'just makes sense' because it sometimes works. The thing is that it's largely confirmation bias. We remember the teams where it works and don't think about the teams where, for years, it doesn't.

Kemba likes Charlotte. No real guarantee that the next all-star the team drafts will.
Stars like playing together. As long as Kemba is here it's easier to add a second or even third star than it will be to try to hit draft luck.

And don't forget that the cap is going up next year ... and gambling could push it even higher. Right now the team seems pretty locked cap wise, but things change .. sometimes pretty quickly too.

Vanderbilt_Grad wrote:

NJBuzz12 wrote:I truly believe keeping him is an awful idea.

I get that. You may even be right.

The thing is that the alternatives could be even worse. There are TONS of teams that endlessly cycle through young players, vets looking for money, etc. and just stay bad. There is this idea that starting over 'just makes sense' because it sometimes works. The thing is that it's largely confirmation bias. We remember the teams where it works and don't think about the teams where, for years, it doesn't.

Kemba likes Charlotte. No real guarantee that the next all-star the team drafts will.
Stars like playing together. As long as Kemba is here it's easier to add a second or even third star than it will be to try to hit draft luck.

And don't forget that the cap is going up next year ... and gambling could push it even higher. Right now the team seems pretty locked cap wise, but things change .. sometimes pretty quickly too.

^^ exactly how it is. You don't understand the fascination with keeping Walker unless you're a Bobcat fan back in the day. We were a team that won 7 games one year. We have two top three picks in history that were for all intents and purposes busts in every sense of the term. And, here we have an All-Star player who wants to be here. Does it look likely we have to pay him the max? Yes, but other teams in the league would also pay him the max. The problem isn't Walker, and the solution may not be top 3 picks. I personally like how the team is rebuilding without tanking. A guy like Monk has a legit chance of breaking out this year, and already Bridges showed flashes in summer league (yeah I know its early). The point is you can find legit talent at the back of the lottery. Being at the front of the lottery guarantees nothing, and if there was a case study for that, we'd be the franchise to represent. And, we are also the franchise that can't afford to have 3 or 4 more atrocious seasons.

If you have a good coach and a good FO, you can build a contender without tanking. That's what I want to do, and I hope we currently have a good coach and a good FO.

If we don't, trading Kemba and tanking doesn't mean we're more likely to be successful.

yosemiteben wrote:If you have a good coach and a good FO, you can build a contender without tanking. That's what I want to do, and I hope we currently have a good coach and a good FO.

If we don't, trading Kemba and tanking doesn't mean we're more likely to be successful.

Good coach? I don't think we have ever had a good coach. Let's just tank and get a top 5 pick. Teams in the East have got to be desperate to make some moves(Philly,Mil,Nyk). We're stuck in quicksand and we can either grab onto the branch or sink.

316Hornets wrote:

yosemiteben wrote:If you have a good coach and a good FO, you can build a contender without tanking. That's what I want to do, and I hope we currently have a good coach and a good FO.

If we don't, trading Kemba and tanking doesn't mean we're more likely to be successful.

Good coach? I don't think we have ever had a good coach. Let's just tank and get a top 5 pick. Teams in the East have got to be desperate to make some moves(Philly,Mil,Nyk). We're stuck in quicksand and we can either grab onto the branch or sink.

Point being, if you tank but don't have a good coach or FO, you aren't going to be successful. If you do have a good coach and FO, you don't need to tank to be successful.

Looks like the East is going to suck for a while. The difference between us and a 4/5 seed really isn't that great so I can understand us deciding to keep our best player and trying to win now. We've got no shot at contending but neither do 25 other teams.

316Hornets wrote:

yosemiteben wrote:If you have a good coach and a good FO, you can build a contender without tanking. That's what I want to do, and I hope we currently have a good coach and a good FO.

If we don't, trading Kemba and tanking doesn't mean we're more likely to be successful.

Good coach? I don't think we have ever had a good coach. Let's just tank and get a top 5 pick. Teams in the East have got to be desperate to make some moves(Philly,Mil,Nyk). We're stuck in quicksand and we can either grab onto the branch or sink.

Why do some people feel so strongly that "tanking" and getting a "top 5 pick" will lead us, or any team to success?

Let's look at the history of top 5 picks going back to 2010 and how they've fared/impacted their team or results:

Markelle Fultz - too early to tell?
Lonzo Ball - too early to tell?
Jayson Tatum - too early to tell?
Josh Jackson - too early to tell?
De'Aaron Fox - too early to tell?

Ben Simmons - looks like a stud
Brandon Ingram - an average player
Jaylen Brown - an above average player?
Dragan Bender - Is he still in the league?
Kris Dunn - I'm not even sure who he plays for any more. The Bulls?

Karl-Anthony Towns - Stud
D'Angelo Russell - an above average player?
Jahlil Okafor - out of the league
Kristaps Porzingis - Stud
Mario Hezonja - almost out of the league

Andrew Wiggins - an average player
Jabari Parker - a below average player
Joel Embiid - Stud
Aaron Gordon - an average player
Dante Exum - a below average player

Anthony Bennett - Out of the leauge
Victor Oladipo - a star
Otto Porter - an above average player (sorry misterglover)
Cody Zeller - an average player
Alex Len - Is he still in the league?

Anthony Davis - Stud
Michael Kidd-Gilchrist - a below average player
Bradley Beal - an above average player
Dion Waiters - Is he still in the league?
Thomas Robinson - Out of the league

Kyrie Irving - Stud
Derrick Williams - Is he still in the league?
Enes Kanter - a below average player
Tristan Thompson - a below average player
Jonas Valanciunas - an average player

John Wall - Stud
Evan Turner - is he still in the league?
Derrick Favors - an above average player
Wesley Johnson - Is he still in the league?
DeMarcus Cousins - star?

You get the idea. "Tanking" is no lock. It doesn't promise you the lottery balls go your way (thanks MKH Vs Davis) and it doesn't promise you landing a franchise changing player.

Yep. Most lottery picks end up disappointing, even high ones. Not much to be gained from tanking when you're going to end up with a big name you feel obligated to resign when they've done nothing to deserve it

When you break down the top 5 of those drafts it seems 1-2 in each draft can change a franchise. Those are hardly great odds. Tanking is not worth it. It comes down to... Do you as a fan enjoy watching Kemba play? Are you entertained by him?

the pro-tank guys obviously don't remember what happened to the early Bobcats. 2004 was a 1-man draft where we picked 2nd and got to pick between Okafor/Devin Harris/Ben Gordon/Shaun Livingston, or gone for a super-reach for Deng or Iguodala, 2005 had a top 4 that included CP3 and Deron, and we picked 5th. Felton was arguably the 2nd best guy in the entire 5-14 of the lottery, and is the only one left still playing since the other was Bynum. 2006, Morrison was an unmitigated disaster, but the only non-bust players from #3 onwards were Rudy Gay, and Brandon Roy, who retired after five years.

Nuking your roster and tanking only works if you're lucky enough to get a franchise changing talent. Otherwise you're stuck with a roster like ours, or worse- Sacramento/PHX/Orlando who've never even got off the ground. The relative success stories of Philly these last few years, OKC from 07-09, and Cleveland in 03 are few and far between. We have never even been a position to draft one player that turn out as well as LeBron/Durant/Westbrook/Harden or even potentially Embiid/Simmons.

With the new lottery system, there's even less chance of a rock bottom team being able to come out of the hole than before. It's useless to trade Kemba unless you absolutely believe he will turn down the extra money to leave Charlotte.

Tanking in theory sounds like a great idea. Just look at the sixers. Reality is, they got extremely lucky and were awful for like 5 years. They blew several draft picks during that span and the rest couldn’t even play their rookie and in some cases sophomore year.

It all came together once Embiid could play and Simmons was healthy. If that were a repeatable process, then Sac, Phoenix, Orlando, etc. wouldn’t be fixtures in the lottery. If that process worked, we would’ve already built a contender when we were the Bobcats picking in the top of the lottery like 3 years in a row or something.

You need the odds, which tanking helps. But then you also need the luck which you can’t do anything about PLUS you need excellent scouting and management which this team has just never had and nothing about what they’re doing right now leads me to believe that is now different.

So, we are better off trying to compete with what we have now and the odds of a Monk or Bridges or someone else breaking out seem just as high as tanking and getting superstars.

People forget how long the warriors were in our position. They just drafted really well and they got lucky. Prior to that, it was an 8th seed every once in a while just like us.

Also, something that shouldn’t be lost in the conversation is what happens if there’s an opportunity for a trade that leads us into another tier. Lots of better routes to take than tanking. I would be for it if we didn’t have to wait 3-5 years to MAYBE be better than we are now.


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