Harry Palmer wrote:wegotthabeet wrote:Harry Palmer wrote:Bit surprised that so many are seeing IQ and RJB as core players.
What are people seeing that suggests an upside in either that heads higher than average starter and a probability of grading out lower than that? Never say never I guess, but as the foundation for organizational strategy it’s all too familiar helium imo.
I’m not even sure Scottie can be The Man, and probably needs a comparable to better talent onboard to get excited about being real contenders built around our young talent. But as is he’s head and shoulders above anyone on the team despite being younger, because that’s how actual ~ franchise level players do. Do people think Quickly or Barret are going to do complete 180’s as defenders/playmakers? And if not do you see their offensive talent as great enough to overcome the other flaws to the point where they are better than whoever you think the average players at their position…so not too far below 10th best in the league? Who do you have as the top 10 at pg and sf in the league and who amongst them do you see IQ or Barrett equaling or surpassing? (Saying top 10 for several reasons, primarily as you get lower you tend to get more guys splitting time as opposed to straight up starting and to simplify but make it 12th/13th if you feel that’s fairer.)
define core.
every franchise should try to have two pillars to build around/with. to me those pillars are what i would call "the core". Scottie is 100% one of those two pillars or core players. they're still trying to find the other one imo.
so contending team = core (2 or 3 players) + rotation (5 or 6 players)
every contending team has about 8 players roughly that make up the playoff roster.
rj + iq fall into the rotation category. if those guys are somewhere between 3 to 8 in the rotation then that's perfectly fine.
using the 2019 team as an example.
core = Leonard + Lowry
rotation = Siakam + Gasol + Ibaka + Green + Van vleet + Powell + (OG)
current team
core = Barnes + ?
rotation = Barrett + Quickly + ? + ? + ? + ?
and it's all still in flux since this team is no where near ready to compete. if one of Barrett + Quickly establishes themselves as a core piece it would be like with DeMar where at some point the team parlays that player + additional assets to upgrade the core.
Don’t think we disagree too much in terms of how we scale things. I’m maybe more of the opinion that acquiring rotation players is much, much, much easier than acquiring core guys, much more interchangeable and therefore not even something that should be on our radar until we have our core. Especially if they are established enough to marginalize your lottery capital, though I still haven’t figured out how much the new rules broadly speaking affect lottery results and therefore value.
It is much much easier to acquire rotation pieces than core pieces and I agree they are far more interchangeable.
There are two paths to getting that second guy to go along with Scottie. One is through the draft with a lot of luck. That player can be drafted 1st overall or even in the 2nd round. Either way it requires a lot of luck. The other is through asset consolidation. Also very difficult and requires a lot of luck.
So RJ and IQ are necessary before and/or after establishing a core. The hope is they continue to progress and become viewed as valuable to both this team and others.
Your franchise is either in asset accumulation mode or asset consolidation mode. This team pivoted to asset accumulation mode for the first time since the Ibaka trade in the last two months. IQ and RJ are just the first step in that pivot. They are lucky to already start building with one core player. The rest are just potential assets for now at least. Same thing happened last time. They already had a core player although it wasn’t as obvious at the time. Then they spent four years accumulating assets between 2013 - 2017.
That’s my hope at least. Keep accumulating assets and by 2026/27 they’re ready to start consolidating towards contention.
