Surprise! AKME aren’t really rebuilding

[League Circles]

Bulls could trivially keep Caruso on a 5 year deal and he'd probably be a positive impact player the entire time. 35 is the new 30. Nobody is giving Alex Caruso a huge contract. That's just not how this league works.

And I'm not sure if everyone else has noticed this, but players almost never want to leave the Chicago Bulls and almost never do so as free agents. If we want to keep our players we can.

I find it super unlikely that Caruso's game will age well. He has no meaningful offensive ability, and his defense is going to fall off a cliff with any loss in athleticism. He also plays a reckless, injury prone style that is going to become riskier and riskier as time goes on.

On top of that, UFAs are the MOST likely guys to get overpaid because there is no threat to match, which means we would have to be the absolute high bidder in the NBA, and Caruso hasn't made enough money where he will give anyone a discount.

You don't have to be the high bidder per year to keep a guy. Got to use the leverage of being able to offer a 5 year deal vs 4 year like other teams. Also, like quite a few players before him, Caruso might take less to play for the Bulls. Again, though, I agree on his reckless style and I'd trade him in the right deal. I'd want something good though. Not trading him just because he's "win now" for a "surprise later" scrub. I'd like to use him to get rid of Vuc's deal or something and get a solid player in return.

[Guru]

The big questions are

1. Does playing alongside Caruso help lead us to the best versions of White-Williams because they get used to playing active with tempo and aggression? Players can learn to be losers. Does this help them not do that?
2. If we trade Caruso are we doing it just to get a pick to try to get someone like Caruso? What return do you expect here? The draft is an absolute crapshoot. Are we talking about a pick or two in the 20's? Is that anywhere near what he is worth for us?

[RSP83]

If he's not rebuilding than better still trade DeMar and Zach. I love DeMar, one of my fave Bull, but he doesn't fit with what should be doing long term. Need to find the right partners for Coby and someone who can play within the system.

[dougthonus]

You don't have to be the high bidder per year to keep a guy. Got to use the leverage of being able to offer a 5 year deal vs 4 year like other teams. Also, like quite a few players before him, Caruso might take less to play for the Bulls. Again, though, I agree on his reckless style and I'd trade him in the right deal. I'd want something good though. Not trading him just because he's "win now" for a "surprise later" scrub. I'd like to use him to get rid of Vuc's deal or something and get a solid player in return.

All you are saying is we can offer him the worst contract with more flexibility than another team. This makes it more likely we can keep him but won't make the deal better.

If we offer him 5/50 and some other team offers him 4/45, he's not going to take 5/50 unless he thinks for sure he can't get 5m in that 5th year later in which case that 10m later is going to be a really bad deal.

You should rephrase "surprise scrub" with "7.5% chance at a guy who makes an all-star team". That's what the odds are of drafting an all-star with a pick between 15-30 based on the most recent 20 year sample (minus the past 4 years so we are giving a chance for everyone to grow).

You aren't making these trades for the likely outcome, you are trying to generate as many chances as you can at the "unlikely, but not crazy unlikely" outcome. To put it in perspective, your odds of drafting an all-star from the 15-30 slots are the same as the odds of getting the #1 pick (which is like 50% shot at an all-star) from the 7th spot. You could probably relatively easily get two picks in the 15-30 range every year though.

Granted, a lot of these guys would be fringe all-star types (like the 1-2 appearance guy) but you'd also generate a lot of good starting caliber players in there too. Having lots of chances that are cheap to acquire is a good way increase your asset base, not because you have a 92.5% of failure, but because the ones that do succeed are infinitely more valuable than their cost.

Also, if you accumulate a lot of picks, and you hit a couple (including possibly 1 of your own lottery picks) then when someone is available via trade (which now seems the only way anyone is ever available due to changing dynamics of how players move) then you have the only currency people care about to acquire that guy (future picks). Basically every legit star player that has swapped teams has gone for 4+ 1sts. Having a lot of extra of these gives you the best chance at increasing your player talent level in the draft and also the best chance of trading for star talent after you have built a good base.

There is no guarantee of success in the NBA, but this was effectively the plan of the Thunder (who implemented it by far the most mathematically), the Pelicans, Spurs, Magic, and Jazz. The Thunder are just beginning to collect on all their assets and already look like absolute geniuses. The Spurs (perhaps) already got incredibly lucky by getting a generational talent with their own pick and will now have a bunch of extras to also build around him. The Pelicans are just treading water wishing Zion could stay healthy and didn't hate being there, the Magic look like they're going to be very solid, and the Jazz haven't gotten to cash in any of their assets yet, but I would swap places with them in a heartbeat.

In the end, the only strategy that works towards winning a title is to get super lucky and land a superstar, but the strategy to increase your asset base and stay relatively young, cheap, flexible, and still make the playoffs is the above, and while you're waiting to get super lucky, those things are what will allow you to build around that star quickly if you do get him.

[NZB2323]

The issue is AKME made moves to be competitive with Derozan and Vuc. Now if they do a rebuild, they have to get fired.

I would compare the current situation the Bulls are to our military being in Afghanistan for 20 years. Everyone knew 20 years was too long for us to be in Afganistan, but if we withdrew it would be a ****. Everyone knows we've held onto the mid-3 for too long, but if you trade our players for pennies on the dollar it's a **** and you get fired.

[League Circles]

You don't have to be the high bidder per year to keep a guy. Got to use the leverage of being able to offer a 5 year deal vs 4 year like other teams. Also, like quite a few players before him, Caruso might take less to play for the Bulls. Again, though, I agree on his reckless style and I'd trade him in the right deal. I'd want something good though. Not trading him just because he's "win now" for a "surprise later" scrub. I'd like to use him to get rid of Vuc's deal or something and get a solid player in return.

All you are saying is we can offer him the worst contract with more flexibility than another team. This makes it more likely we can keep him but won't make the deal better.

If we offer him 5/50 and some other team offers him 4/45, he's not going to take 5/50 unless he thinks for sure he can't get 5m in that 5th year later in which case that 10m later is going to be a really bad deal.

You should rephrase "surprise scrub" with "7.5% chance at a guy who makes an all-star team". That's what the odds are of drafting an all-star with a pick between 15-30 based on the most recent 20 year sample (minus the past 4 years so we are giving a chance for everyone to grow).

You aren't making these trades for the likely outcome, you are trying to generate as many chances as you can at the "unlikely, but not crazy unlikely" outcome. To put it in perspective, your odds of drafting an all-star from the 15-30 slots are the same as the odds of getting the #1 pick (which is like 50% shot at an all-star) from the 7th spot. You could probably relatively easily get two picks in the 15-30 range every year though.

Granted, a lot of these guys would be fringe all-star types (like the 1-2 appearance guy) but you'd also generate a lot of good starting caliber players in there too. Having lots of chances that are cheap to acquire is a good way increase your asset base, not because you have a 92.5% of failure, but because the ones that do succeed are infinitely more valuable than their cost.

Also, if you accumulate a lot of picks, and you hit a couple (including possibly 1 of your own lottery picks) then when someone is available via trade (which now seems the only way anyone is ever available due to changing dynamics of how players move) then you have the only currency people care about to acquire that guy (future picks). Basically every legit star player that has swapped teams has gone for 4+ 1sts. Having a lot of extra of these gives you the best chance at increasing your player talent level in the draft and also the best chance of trading for star talent after you have built a good base.

There is no guarantee of success in the NBA, but this was effectively the plan of the Thunder (who implemented it by far the most mathematically), the Pelicans, Spurs, Magic, and Jazz. The Thunder are just beginning to collect on all their assets and already look like absolute geniuses. The Spurs (perhaps) already got incredibly lucky by getting a generational talent with their own pick and will now have a bunch of extras to also build around him. The Pelicans are just treading water wishing Zion could stay healthy and didn't hate being there, the Magic look like they're going to be very solid, and the Jazz haven't gotten to cash in any of their assets yet, but I would swap places with them in a heartbeat.

In the end, the only strategy that works towards winning a title is to get super lucky and land a superstar, but the strategy to increase your asset base and stay relatively young, cheap, flexible, and still make the playoffs is the above, and while you're waiting to get super lucky, those things are what will allow you to build around that star quickly if you do get him.

You do make a lot of good points here, but I'll counter on some of it.

First of all, "all -star" is kind of a meaningless designation IMO. We currently have FOUR multi time all stars in what should be their primes (no health or extreme age issues). And we are not good.

Second, I think it's a specific problem to have too much youth. Like holding so many lottery tickets that when you finally get a winning one, you can't find him in the pile. 2 firsts every year? That would mean more than half of your roster is guys on rookie deals trying to make a name for themselves. That rarely works and they'll all suck and the team will suck. We saw this catastrophically from 99-04.

It's not true IMO that the only strategy to win a title is to het lucky and get a superstar. IMO we've had 3 title teams this century that didn't have a superstar. Just built really well balanced rosters.

Third, a player absolutely may take 5/50 over 4/45 even if he thinks he can make more later. We've seen like 5 significant players take less with us in recent years. Not sure why you think the landscape is a pure high bidder market cause it's not. And 5/50 is a better contract for the team than 4/45 in most cases.

Drafting in the late first would give us "a lot of good quality starters"???? Based on what. Let's take your all star numbers. Ok, so we have a 1 in 12 chance at a fringe all star. Fringe all stars are NOT typically players who are, for their entire prime, guys who are top 6 at their position (24 all stars per year from 150 starters). And even if they were, big deal.

What "all stars" actually are are roughly the 24 top scorers in the league, mostly wings. They are guys that get opportunities to score. They are, sadly, the Zach Lavines, Demar Derozans, Bradley Beals, Corey Maggettes, Lady Lillards, Jason Richardsons, Jalen Roses of the world. Those guys don't really drive wins and are VERY often not actually top 24 players in the league.

I agree with the importance of finding young talent, but once I do, I want to add sure talent around them ASAP and compete, like we did with Rose. You named 5 teams and 3 of them aren't any good. It's presumptuous to assume they'll become good just because they may have "future assets".

[dougthonus]

You do make a lot of good points here, but I'll counter on some of it.

First of all, "all -star" is kind of a meaningless designation IMO. We currently have FOUR multi time all stars in what should be their primes (no health or extreme age issues). And we are not good.

I agree, but these would be all-stars you draft and have in their prime during their all-star years, not washed up guys.

Second, I think it's a specific problem to have too much youth. Like holding so many lottery tickets that when you finally get a winning one, you can't find him in the pile. 2 firsts every year? That would mean more than half of your roster is guys on rookie deals trying to make a name for themselves. That rarely works and they'll all suck and the team will suck. We saw this catastrophically from 99-04.

I also agree it is a specific problem, and you have to be good at developing and choosing guys and moving other guys for future picks to keep the train going, you can't afford to fully develop two every year year indefinitely.

It's not true IMO that the only strategy to win a title is to het lucky and get a superstar. IMO we've had 3 title teams this century that didn't have a superstar. Just built really well balanced rosters.

Who? The only one I see is the Pistons in 2004, and while they had no stars, they had a 4x DMVP and four more two way players and I think averaged what 3-4 all-stars every year? Either way though, my strategy is also the best way to building a team that has above contract value players that I can think of which would make it most likely to build that type of team too.

[Third, a player absolutely may take 5/50 over 4/45 even if he thinks he can make more later. We've seen like 5 significant players take less with us in recent years. Not sure why you think the landscape is a pure high bidder market cause it's not. And 5/50 is a better contract for the team than 4/45 in most cases.

Anything is possible, but high bidder explains probably 98% of the outcomes. No reason to think zebras if you're on a farm and hear the beating of hoofs. Either way, our ability to add an extra year still just means we can offer a worse contract in more ways. Caruso will take the contract that benefits him the most from his perception which will likely be the most expensive contract for the team he signs for.

Drafting in the late first would give us "a lot of good quality starters"???? Based on what. Let's take your all star numbers. Ok, so we have a 1 in 12 chance at a fringe all star. Fringe all stars are NOT typically players who are, for their entire prime, guys who are top 6 at their position (24 all stars per year from 150 starters). And even if they were, big deal.

What "all stars" actually are are roughly the 24 top scorers in the league, mostly wings. They are guys that get opportunities to score. They are, sadly, the Zach Lavines, Demar Derozans, Bradley Beals, Corey Maggettes, Lady Lillards, Jason Richardsons, Jalen Roses of the world. Those guys don't really drive wins and are VERY often not actually top 24 players in the league.

You mean the same types we have now, except we have the 34 year old versions of them that are declining and won't even hold steady value? But I agree, these aren't the types of players that drive wins. They are the types of players that allow you to win if you get lucky with the star player. Having players like these in their prime instead of trying to build around the geriatric version of them allows you the flexibility to move them for different assets, maintain a .500ish team, be prepared if you get a star, and have not crap basketball, and some flexibility to mix things up.

I agree with the importance of finding young talent, but once I do, I want to add sure talent around them ASAP and compete, like we did with Rose. You named 5 teams and 3 of them aren't any good. It's presumptuous to assume they'll become good just because they may have "future assets".

I don't think they'll be good just because they have assets. I just said they were the five teams that are following my strategy, and so they provide data points to watch this strategy play out. The Thunder are the ones whom have followed it most purely and are also in the late stages of reaping the rewards. Not sure the Magic really followed as much as they just completely screwed us over in one trade. The Spurs have definitely been implementing it as have the Jazz/Pelicans.

There really aren't a group of teams trying to do what we're doing, because it's just so dumb that no one would try it. The last example I can think of is the Nets trading for KG/Pierce a long time ago.

Maybe to put it this way, I don't think you have to build assets through the draft, just when you're really bad and don't have sustainable value, and time is against you, and you are set to miss the playoffs for likely two years no matter what you do, that's a time to sell off assets that won't have high value or consistent value in two years and to turn them into assets that will. Draft assets are the most straight forward way to do that.

[League Circles]

I agree, but these would be all-stars you draft and have in their prime during their all-star years, not washed up guys.


Who? The only one I see is the Pistons in 2004, and while they had no stars, they had a 4x DMVP and four more two way players and I think averaged what 3-4 all-stars every year? Either way though, my strategy is also the best way to building a team that has above contract value players that I can think of which would make it most likely to build that type of team too.

Anything is possible, but high bidder explains probably 98% of the outcomes. No reason to think zebras if you're on a farm and hear the beating of hoofs. Either way, our ability to add an extra year still just means we can offer a worse contract in more ways. Caruso will take the contract that benefits him the most from his perception which will likely be the most expensive contract for the team he signs for.

You mean the same types we have now, except we have the 34 year old versions of them that are declining and won't even hold steady value? But I agree, these aren't the types of players that drive wins. They are the types of players that allow you to win if you get lucky with the star player. Having players like these in their prime instead of trying to build around the geriatric version of them allows you the flexibility to move them for different assets, maintain a .500ish team, be prepared if you get a star, and have not crap basketball, and some flexibility to mix things up.

Yeah you might draft a guy, keep him for 7 years, see him become an all star once, flame out, and watch him sign with some other team for peanuts. Like a Drummond type. My point is that an all star selection does not in any way imply a period of being an above average starter for a 5+ year span. This league is waaay less predictable than that IMO. Guys really, really play up and down. Look at Zach after the deadline last year vs this year.

The teams that actually won a title without a superstar were the 03 Pistons, the 2011 Mavs (Dirk was not even considered a top 2 or 3 player at his position prior to that playoff run, was always a very poor defender, and fans and media have really really rewritten history about him based on that run). But the team WAS built in a very well balanced way, and they played their best in the playoffs that year. By the way, that team's entire core was old AS HELL and had been knocked out in the first round the year before. Food for thought. You and many others here would have been adamant that they should blow it up the summer before that ring.

The 3rd team was the Spurs title I think in 2014 where Kawhi wasn't a superstar yet, but again, balanced roster and played their best.

High bidder explains 98% of outcomes? Idk, we've had Boozer, Gasol, Wade and others take less to play here. Kobe wanted to. Drummond did this year IMO. Chicago isn't a #1 destination, but IMO players prefer it to roughly 25 other cities to play in. Especially if they're already here.

34 year old versions? Why the plural? Zach is 28, Drummond is 30, Vuc is 33. But yeah. They don't fit well together. Not a well balanced team. You draft a bunch of guys with all star talent, and some of them might actually make it, but the team probably won't. Again, the 99-03 Bulls were some of the most talented in the league. And we were terrible and most of the guys went on to more success elsewhere.

You mentioned flexibility, but IMO you never have much flexibility if you operate over the cap indefinitely. People say that players don't move via FA anymore, and while that's largely true and a function of the rules, it's also true that almost no one is trying to see if it will work. Literally no one. It's embarrassing IMO. Bad teams should not be committing to long term salary, including for a bunch of "first round picks" which are not actually very cheap anymore IMO and are often bad contracts giving you vet min performance for closer to MLE money and length.

[dougthonus]

Yeah you might draft a guy, keep him for 7 years, see him become an all star once, flame out, and watch him sign with some other team for peanuts. Like a Drummond type. My point is that an all star selection does not in any way imply a period of being an above average starter for a 5+ year span. This league is waaay less predictable than that IMO. Guys really, really play up and down. Look at Zach after the deadline last year vs this year.

Sure. I don't really disagree. Again, from an asset management perspective it is simply about building more likely to succeed assets so that if you ever get really really lucky you are prepared to pounce (via trade, via other guys on your roster, via whatever). We moved away a ton of high upside assets in the recent past which is a terrible strategy when you are lousy. Our result for that was one playoff win and two lottery trips where we didn't even get the lottery pick. I don't know that we'll go down that path again, but it's a philosophy that generally yields selling low and generates extremely low upside to bolster the present. There are times when you do that, but they are generally when the present is really good, not when the present is missing playoffs.

The teams that actually won a title without a superstar were the 03 Pistons, the 2011 Mavs (Dirk was not even considered a top 2 or 3 player at his position prior to that playoff run, was always a very poor defender, and fans and media have really really rewritten history about him based on that run). But the team WAS built in a very well balanced way, and they played their best in the playoffs that year. By the way, that team's entire core was old AS HELL and had been knocked out in the first round the year before. Food for thought. You and many others here would have been adamant that they should blow it up the summer before that ring.

The 3rd team was the Spurs title I think in 2014 where Kawhi wasn't a superstar yet, but again, balanced roster and played their best.

So your teams are:
The Pistons with 4 all stars
The Mavs with Dirk in his prime, as a top 50 all time player, whom had led his team to 50+ wins for like a decade straight
The Spurs with 4 likely HOF players, all playing at a high level but not their peak level=

From a team building perspective, even if you think Mavs/Spurs guys weren't playing at superstar levels at that time, they clearly had superstar caliber players that they acquired through the draft that were the absolute core of what they became. The Spurs especially is my exact model getting 3 guys in the draft that were all-star+ out of non lottery picks.

Only the Pistons, 20 years ago, were actually built against the model I stated.

High bidder explains 98% of outcomes? Idk, we've had Boozer, Gasol, Wade and others take less to play here. Kobe wanted to. Drummond did this year IMO. Chicago isn't a #1 destination, but IMO players prefer it to roughly 25 other cities to play in. Especially if they're already here.

Let me rephrase, you can analyze all FA history and basically the order of importance is pretty obviously:
1: Money - Almost always wins
2: Winning - More important to guys who haven't won yet, and have made a ton of money and will be a key contributor
3: City - Generally only LA / Miami have leveraged this into massive gains, it probably hurts teams in some places, but it isn't a big lure.

For Caruso specifically, it will likely be almost exclusively about Money and maybe a bit of winning, and Chicago won't offer winning.

34 year old versions? Why the plural? Zach is 28, Drummond is 30, Vuc is 33. But yeah. They don't fit well together. Not a well balanced team. You draft a bunch of guys with all star talent, and some of them might actually make it, but the team probably won't. Again, the 99-03 Bulls were some of the most talented in the league. And we were terrible and most of the guys went on to more success elsewhere.

Vuc/DeMar are the two key guys whom are really old and core contributors. Drummond isn't old, but man does he play like it which is a shame, because I would love him if he could handle more minutes.

[League Circles]

Yeah you might draft a guy, keep him for 7 years, see him become an all star once, flame out, and watch him sign with some other team for peanuts. Like a Drummond type. My point is that an all star selection does not in any way imply a period of being an above average starter for a 5+ year span. This league is waaay less predictable than that IMO. Guys really, really play up and down. Look at Zach after the deadline last year vs this year.

Sure. I don't really disagree. Again, from an asset management perspective it is simply about building more likely to succeed assets so that if you ever get really really lucky you are prepared to pounce (via trade, via other guys on your roster, via whatever). We moved away a ton of high upside assets in the recent past which is a terrible strategy when you are lousy. Our result for that was one playoff win and two lottery trips where we didn't even get the lottery pick. I don't know that we'll go down that path again, but it's a philosophy that generally yields selling low and generates extremely low upside to bolster the present. There are times when you do that, but they are generally when the present is really good, not when the present is missing playoffs.

The teams that actually won a title without a superstar were the 03 Pistons, the 2011 Mavs (Dirk was not even considered a top 2 or 3 player at his position prior to that playoff run, was always a very poor defender, and fans and media have really really rewritten history about him based on that run). But the team WAS built in a very well balanced way, and they played their best in the playoffs that year. By the way, that team's entire core was old AS HELL and had been knocked out in the first round the year before. Food for thought. You and many others here would have been adamant that they should blow it up the summer before that ring.

The 3rd team was the Spurs title I think in 2014 where Kawhi wasn't a superstar yet, but again, balanced roster and played their best.

So your teams are:
The Pistons with 4 all stars
The Mavs with Dirk in his prime, as a top 50 all time player, whom had led his team to 50+ wins for like a decade straight
The Spurs with 4 likely HOF players, all playing at a high level but not their peak level=

From a team building perspective, even if you think Mavs/Spurs guys weren't playing at superstar levels at that time, they clearly had superstar caliber players that they acquired through the draft that were the absolute core of what they became. The Spurs especially is my exact model getting 3 guys in the draft that were all-star+ out of non lottery picks.

Only the Pistons, 20 years ago, were actually built against the model I stated.

High bidder explains 98% of outcomes? Idk, we've had Boozer, Gasol, Wade and others take less to play here. Kobe wanted to. Drummond did this year IMO. Chicago isn't a #1 destination, but IMO players prefer it to roughly 25 other cities to play in. Especially if they're already here.

Let me rephrase, you can analyze all FA history and basically the order of importance is pretty obviously:
1: Money - Almost always wins
2: Winning - More important to guys who haven't won yet, and have made a ton of money and will be a key contributor
3: City - Generally only LA / Miami have leveraged this into massive gains, it probably hurts teams in some places, but it isn't a big lure.

For Caruso specifically, it will likely be almost exclusively about Money and maybe a bit of winning, and Chicago won't offer winning.

34 year old versions? Why the plural? Zach is 28, Drummond is 30, Vuc is 33. But yeah. They don't fit well together. Not a well balanced team. You draft a bunch of guys with all star talent, and some of them might actually make it, but the team probably won't. Again, the 99-03 Bulls were some of the most talented in the league. And we were terrible and most of the guys went on to more success elsewhere.

Vuc/DeMar are the two key guys whom are really old and core contributors. Drummond isn't old, but man does he play like it which is a shame, because I would love him if he could handle more minutes.

We definitely didn't give up a TON of high upside assets. The ONLY high upside asset we've given up was Lauri. Vuc trade was still a mistake, but it did not involve giving up high upside assets.

Dirk isn't a top 50 NBA player no matter which marketing exec tries to make us believe it. He was very bad at half the game (defense). For his entire prime no one thought he was in the same league as Duncan and KG. Others were also considered as good or better for big chunks of Dirk's prime, such as Chris Webber, and even Rasheed, Brand etc. Dirk was a great scorer who benefitted from an org that was always willing to spend big and had good coaching.

Billups and RIP didn't become all stars until years after that 03 title, and Rasheed was 3 years removed from being one. Only Ben Wallace was an all star at that time. That's my point. Castoffs such as Billups and Rasheed (and Derozan for us) are GREAT places to find good value to help drive wins. The draft can be too, but is decreasingly so IMO.

As for the Spurs, if you look back at the ages, contracts, stats etc of the team that year and the year before, I think it's quite likely you would have been wanting to sell at least some of Duncan, Manu, and Parker for "future assets". Many and Duncan were old as hell and NO ONE on that team performed remotely close to superstar level. Kawhi played less than 30 mpg and averaged 12 ppg and I think ended up winning finals MVP. Again, this league is waaaay harder to predict than many imply.

I do strongly agree with your mindfulness of asset management, but I just think it's not as straightforward as you might. I think recent draft picks are often bad deals, rarely become valuable, and shouldn't be focused on too much. Meanwhile, wise, selective contracts for good but not great vets are an underrated way to get value deals.

[dukeespn]

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#m

As many already stated AK is delusional as hell. He'll keep pushing this stupid win-now mode just to make the play-in tournament. His goal is to build a perennial mediocre team.

He really don't understand the logic at all that you need to tank on purpose even when you already have proven all-stars or really promising young players.

OKC tanked even when they had the franchise cornerstone in SGA. Thanks to smart tanking they have now Chet and Jalen Williams and Giddey. The Spurs are tanking actively even when they Wemby and Pop as a coach.

The Bulls have what washed 33-year old DDR? Coby White? Billy Donovan? Well good luck.

[League Circles]

I'm glad we're trying to win now. Every team should always be trying to win. That's, you know, sports.

We certainly shouldn't be trying to trades wins tomorrow (Patrick Williams and draft picks I guess?) for wins today, but if we can trade "never wins" for wins today (cough Zach Lavine and Nikolas Vucevic cough), we certainly should. Hopefully that's what AK is trying to do.

[HoopsterJones]

Caruso plays at 100% maximum effort when on the floor. While I love his game and what he brings to the team, he’s always getting injuries. AKME has to trade him while he has high value and can bring in significant enough returns.

[_txchilibowl_]

I don't get it. Isn't this what a competent GM would do? This is GM'ing 101. It only drives the market up.

[dukeespn]

I'm glad we're trying to win now. Every team should always be trying to win. That's, you know, sports.

We certainly shouldn't be trying to trades wins tomorrow (Patrick Williams and draft picks I guess?) for wins today, but if we can trade "never wins" for wins today (cough Zach Lavine and Nikolas Vucevic cough), we certainly should. Hopefully that's what AK is trying to do.

Yeah AK is really good at trying to win.

He traded WCJ and 2 FRPs for Vuc which turned out to be a total disaster. WCJ himself is a better player than Vuc is right now. No need to say about Franz Wagner.

In fact AK is really good at rebuilding. He helped The Orlando Magic a lot to rebuild properly, right?

He also traded Lauri for a heavily protected pick and DJJ to win as many games as possible. Thanks to that trade Lauri became an all-star in the West. Great to hear he's not on the East.

Oh I almost forgot AK traded 25' FRP for DDR! You must be thrilled if the Bulls give away another lottery pick while trying to compete next season.

He also gave a secret extension to a mediocre HC right after the Bulls got crushed in the first round of the playoffs.

In one word AK excels at making terrible moves for the franchise in the long term and some are happy with his moves. Nice.

[dougthonus]

We definitely didn't give up a TON of high upside assets. The ONLY high upside asset we've given up was Lauri. Vuc trade was still a mistake, but it did not involve giving up high upside assets.

We gave up a young former lottery pick that had already shown two way potential and two lottery picks. I'm not sure why you don't feel those are "high upside" assets, but that is merely a matter of perspective. All three of those assets are worth more than the guy we acquired and probably have roughly starting caliber expected performance with upside to do better. WCJ looks like a starter, Wagner looks like a future star, and Jet Howard is an unknown.

Dirk isn't a top 50 NBA player no matter which marketing exec tries to make us believe it. He was very bad at half the game (defense).

Literally the whole knowledgeable basketball world disagrees with you. Bill Simmons, whom has done the most extensive published research on this topic has him top 20.

Billups and RIP didn't become all stars until years after that 03 title, and Rasheed was 3 years removed from being one. Only Ben Wallace was an all star at that time. That's my point. Castoffs such as Billups and Rasheed (and Derozan for us) are GREAT places to find good value to help drive wins. The draft can be too, but is decreasingly so IMO.

I agree the Pistons were built with your philosophy. One title in the past 20 years. 5% of the good teams were built the way you would build a team, and it has only been done successfully once. Whereas 95% of the good teams are build roughly with my philosophy as part of what they did to get there.

As for the Spurs, if you look back at the ages, contracts, stats etc of the team that year and the year before, I think it's quite likely you would have been wanting to sell at least some of Duncan, Manu, and Parker for "future assets". Many and Duncan were old as hell and NO ONE on that team performed remotely close to superstar level. Kawhi played less than 30 mpg and averaged 12 ppg and I think ended up winning finals MVP. Again, this league is waaaay harder to predict than many imply.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm generally not a fan of selling when you have even a puncher's chance at being really good because it's so hard to get back there. I long said the Bulls were right to try to keep building around Rose (even though it didn't work) after the ACL because the odds of him becoming healthy again and being a star, though low, were still better than the odds of them doing something meaningful by trading everyone.

[League Circles]

I'm glad we're trying to win now. Every team should always be trying to win. That's, you know, sports.

We certainly shouldn't be trying to trades wins tomorrow (Patrick Williams and draft picks I guess?) for wins today, but if we can trade "never wins" for wins today (cough Zach Lavine and Nikolas Vucevic cough), we certainly should. Hopefully that's what AK is trying to do.

Yeah AK is really good at trying to win.

He traded WCJ and 2 FRPs for Vuc which turned out to be a total disaster. WCJ himself is a better player than Vuc is right now. No need to say about Franz Wagner.

In fact AK is really good at rebuilding. He helped The Orlando Magic a lot to rebuild properly, right?

He also traded Lauri for a heavily protected pick and DJJ to win as many games as possible. Thanks to that trade Lauri became an all-star in the West. Great to hear he's not on the East.

Oh I almost forgot AK traded 25' FRP for DDR! You must be thrilled if the Bulls give away another lottery pick while trying to compete next season.

Just because AK hasn't done a good job of winning doesn't mean he should stop trying. He just meeds to do better.

[dukeespn]

I'm glad we're trying to win now. Every team should always be trying to win. That's, you know, sports.

We certainly shouldn't be trying to trades wins tomorrow (Patrick Williams and draft picks I guess?) for wins today, but if we can trade "never wins" for wins today (cough Zach Lavine and Nikolas Vucevic cough), we certainly should. Hopefully that's what AK is trying to do.

Yeah AK is really good at trying to win.

He traded WCJ and 2 FRPs for Vuc which turned out to be a total disaster. WCJ himself is a better player than Vuc is right now. No need to say about Franz Wagner.

In fact AK is really good at rebuilding. He helped The Orlando Magic a lot to rebuild properly, right?

He also traded Lauri for a heavily protected pick and DJJ to win as many games as possible. Thanks to that trade Lauri became an all-star in the West. Great to hear he's not on the East.

Oh I almost forgot AK traded 25' FRP for DDR! You must be thrilled if the Bulls give away another lottery pick while trying to compete next season.

Just because AK hasn't done a good job of winning doesn't mean he should stop trying. He just meeds to do better.

AK hasn't done a good job? Nah he has done a tremendously terrible job. The Vuc trade itself is one of the worst trade in the 2010s.

He's even worse than Gar Forman. And way worse than Paxson as FO. He's delusional as hell and what he's done are all historically bad and yet you want to see him do those win-now moves again?

[League Circles]

We definitely didn't give up a TON of high upside assets. The ONLY high upside asset we've given up was Lauri. Vuc trade was still a mistake, but it did not involve giving up high upside assets.

We gave up a young former lottery pick that had already shown two way potential and two lottery picks. I'm not sure why you don't feel those are "high upside" assets, but that is merely a matter of perspective. All three of those assets are worth more than the guy we acquired and probably have roughly starting caliber expected performance with upside to do better. WCJ looks like a starter, Wagner looks like a future star, and Jet Howard is an unknown.

Dirk isn't a top 50 NBA player no matter which marketing exec tries to make us believe it. He was very bad at half the game (defense).

Literally the whole knowledgeable basketball world disagrees with you. Bill Simmons, whom has done the most extensive published research on this topic has him top 20.

Billups and RIP didn't become all stars until years after that 03 title, and Rasheed was 3 years removed from being one. Only Ben Wallace was an all star at that time. That's my point. Castoffs such as Billups and Rasheed (and Derozan for us) are GREAT places to find good value to help drive wins. The draft can be too, but is decreasingly so IMO.

I agree the Pistons were built with your philosophy. One title in the past 20 years. 5% of the good teams were built the way you would build a team, and it has only been done successfully once. Whereas 95% of the good teams are build roughly with my philosophy as part of what they did to get there.

As for the Spurs, if you look back at the ages, contracts, stats etc of the team that year and the year before, I think it's quite likely you would have been wanting to sell at least some of Duncan, Manu, and Parker for "future assets". Many and Duncan were old as hell and NO ONE on that team performed remotely close to superstar level. Kawhi played less than 30 mpg and averaged 12 ppg and I think ended up winning finals MVP. Again, this league is waaaay harder to predict than many imply.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm generally not a fan of selling when you have even a puncher's chance at being really good because it's so hard to get back there. I long said the Bulls were right to try to keep building around Rose (even though it didn't work) after the ACL because the odds of him becoming healthy again and being a star, though low, were still better than the odds of them doing something meaningful by trading everyone.

It's confusing that you refer to title winning teams as "good". I'm trying to be a top 8 team every year, not really win titles. I got my quota of those for a lifetime.

I was a big Wendell fan, but he's far from a high upside guy. He's a high floor, low ceiling guy.

I don't think Wagner looks like a future star. I don't know the third guy. IIRC, we gave up what ended up being Carter, #8, and #12 for Vuc. Again, I agree it was a bad trade, but those are 3 assets that all project to be starters that you perpetually want to replace cause they're not all that good. Top 5 picks are high upside. Why? Cause almost no drafts ever yield more than 5 building block type talents, and those 5 are obviously projected, by definition, to go top 5. Obviously there are big error bars on draft pick potential, but I'm talking expected value. If a #12 pick is "high upside", might as well call any "lottery pick" or "first round pick" or "future draft pick" or "heavily protected future FRP" "high upside". You can get MVP caliber players all over the draft, but the only picks that actually have an expected value of being a long term core roster talent are top 5 picks, which can't even be reliably tanked into (which is no coincidence!!!).

[coldfish]

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#m

As many already stated AK is delusional as hell. He'll keep pushing this stupid win-now mode just to make the play-in tournament. His goal is to build a perennial mediocre team.

He really don't understand the logic at all that you need to tank on purpose even when you already have proven all-stars or really promising young players.

OKC tanked even when they had the franchise cornerstone in SGA. Thanks to smart tanking they have now Chet and Jalen Williams and Giddey. The Spurs are tanking actively even when they Wemby and Pop as a coach.

The Bulls have what washed 33-year old DDR? Coby White? Billy Donovan? Well good luck.

The goal isn't to win a title. The goal is to be interesting enough to fill seats and get some playoff revenue.

We have always suspected this but its been a real "mask off" moment.