MrSparkle wrote:MikeDC wrote:I feel like you guys are consciously trying to focus on minor details and ignore the big, really obvious point that OKC was doing things fundamentally differently and even the superficial similarities (like losing 20+ games in a row) occurred for very different reasons.
In OKC, it happened on the front end of the rebuild because of the team consciously chose to tank and not play its best players.
In DET, it's happening on what was supposed to be a season where they emerged from a rebuild and are trying hard to be competitive.
It's not "just luck". OKC has made good decision after good decision. Detroit has made bad decision after bad decision. OKC has a stable and consistent organization that's all pulling in the same direction. Detroit has a factional and dysfunctional organization that's continually at odds.
Luck is for losers, as the saying goes. Another way to put it is that everyone needs luck, but a bad, dysfunctional team like the Pistons simply wastes the luck they get.
OKC got Shai (and the haul) in a Paul George trade, who they got as a mediocre tread-mill team with no "future" while trying to be competitive.
I don't get the love for OKC. If they don't get Shai as a throw-in from the thirsty Clippers, then they're just as lost as the next tank job... With Kiddey and Dort being Chet's wingmen.
If you want to say they didn't know how great Shai would be, sure. But they knew he would be good and having him was central to the deal.
Which is a fact you guys are not acknowledging, but it very important to understanding why some teams are successful and why others aren't. Timing. Talent evaluation.
OKC keeps coming up good because they do stuff like require guys like Shai as "throw ins". They ask for that extra 2nd rounder and get it. And they understand that timing matters. Trading PG when he's at the height of his value.
Remember when the Bulls traded with OKC? We traded Dog McDogmut and freaking Taj Gibson. And OKC asked for a got a 2nd rounder that turned out to be a high one 2018 #32... Mitchell Freaking Robinson!) to get a backup PG with a broken foot (Cam Payne).
OKC is a smart team. Not every move is going to work out, but they work out more because they're better at talent evaluation, they're better at planning, and they just know how and what to value more than dumbass teams like the Bulls and Pistons.
Smart teams ask for a lot and get it. Smart teams move a year sooner. Teams like the Bulls and Pistons are always moving a year or more too late, and generally compliantly handing over too freaking much.
Now, GarPax can just sit there and talk about, I guess, how it was unforeseeable that their big swing on Cam Payne just didn't work out while nobody could have imagined Shai would be so good. But that's ridiculous loser talk.