mitchweber wrote:When you look at all of the champions outside of well, any Detroit team in the last few decades, they have all had guys that could make an argument for being a top 10 player ever (and in almost all cases, it's a consensus).
If you add in teams that were close to winning (Kings, Jazz, Knicks, etc) they all also had great players (Top 50 alltime I would say).
What does that say? It says that a championship team is extremely hard to come by and it takes a perfect combination of coaching, offense, defense, rebounding, bench, 3 point shooting, etc.. It requires every aspect of the team to be near perfect, which is why teams like Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, Portland of late 90's, why teams like these have no true shot at a title.
mitchweber wrote:The only guys that have been drafted since Duncan that might have a chance of reaching that point are Lebron and Dwight--maybe an outside chance for Paul, and Wade or Oden (if they can stay healthy, but I do mean an outside chance).
This I agree with. But, we just have to beat the best players currently playing. It doesn't matter how good the players are relative to Duncan/Jordan/Shaq but how good the players are relative to LeBron/Wade/Durant/Bosh/Howard etc.
Which is why I say, a team NEEDS at least 1 top 10-15 player in the league at the time.
mitchweber wrote:But wait! There is still that 04 Pistons team. There is still that possibility of trying to just get the best players we can. Maybe we won't get what is typically called a "franchise player" and maybe we will. But in all likelihood, we won't get one of the guys I listed up there--even if we do really try to suck for the next couple of years.
When the Pistons won.
Billups was a top 15-20 player. Rasheed/Ben/Rip were all top 20-30 players. They had a top 5 coach in Larry Brown. A a top 5 bench which included (Corliss (6th man of the year), M. Okur, M. James, E. Campbell, L. Hunter)
Every player was superb on defense, and the team had a perfect balance in every area of basketball. This may be possible, but it is just as hard and rare as getting a Duncan/LeBron/Jordan type of a player.
This, you cannot argue.
mitchweber wrote:So all we can do is the best we can. We can be aggressive in trying to constantly improve our situation, but tanking for somebody really good isn't going to help our cause any more than trying to find a great piece to add in a trade.
There is a
HUGE difference between tanking and rebuilding through the draft, the two are not the same.
Tanking - Losing on purpose, trying to get the most ping pong balls, only to have the system rigged against you (rightfully so). Tanking means a team is trying not to win. Like Miami and the Knicks.
Rebuilding through the draft - Just because a team that trades all veteran assets for cap space, future picks, and prospects, doesn't necessarily mean that the team is tanking.
Would you say Seattle or T-Wolves or Bobcats tanked this year? No. They tried to win, just its hard to win when the best player is 23 or so.
I agree, we need to obtain the best assets to hopefully be able to one day create a 04 Pistons, or even possibly trade to obtain a 06 Miami type of a team, but keeping veteran players just isn't the way to do that.
Artest/Moore/Miller's values will decrease with every year simply for the fact that they are starting to approach the end of their careers.
If we want to obtain the best assets and best possible future for this team, we have to trade these three players (Although, I'd like us to keep Artest), and in return receive picks, young prospects, or cap space.
Cap space however doesn't necessarily mean spend it on a free agent once you have it, but you hold the cap space until the perfect opportune moment. (7 million in cap gave Sonics what 4 picks?)
We must rebuild through the draft. Doesn't mean tank every year, but it means possibly getting a team where the oldest member is 26 and starting from there.
kingsfan10 wrote:I think we are still a big time player that would make this team formidable. Like mitch said adding a player like Sheed would make this team an auto playoff team. And from there, we know Petrie would improve that situation by adding pieces to the puzzle... There is one trade in the trade board that I found kind of interesting. The trade between Boston/Kings. It has us trading Artest/Miller for Pierce/Scal. Adding arguably a superstar to this team will do wonders in our current situation IMO... (I have stated in the other thread that Im still on the fence on whether we should rebuild completely or try to improve our current situation).
You can only add so many pieces to a puzzle. My hypothetical was that we would receive Sheed for like Kenny Thomas and Shareef.
Our team becomes
PG: B. Udrih/Q. Douby
SG: K. Martin/F. Garcia
SF: R. Artest/J. Salmons
PF: R. Wallace/M. Moore
C : B. Miller/S. Hawes
Is this a championship team?
No
Can this team become a championship team?
Most likely not. Why?
It all is because of how much a team can flucuate. A team can differ in 4 ways, a) free agency b)trade c)draft d)player development.
a) we would have no cap space, meaning we could only add a MLE player or so, no mle player is going to turn a 6/7th seed team into a 1/3 seed team.
b) To trade for a player you have to give up a player. Typically trades level out for teams (which is the idea). Any trade would involve us giving up a key part, (Phoenix with Marion), so there is only so much a trade can improve us.
c) Draft. Draft doesn't help contending teams during contention years, it can extend the years, but it doesn't directly help much.
Adding Pierce would do nothing for this team. Pierce couldn't lead a team to win in the east, he will do less in the west.
Artest + Miller > Pierce + Hawes
