are we purposely building a non 3 max contracts team?

[IMHO]

Since it's becoming so hard to keep 3 max deals under the new CBA, it seems like we're purposely drafting solid role player but not superstar potential players.

Tristan Thompson was a solid pick, and is looking to be 2nd best player from 2011 draft, however Jonas V had more star potential, and is a center (all star centers are always max players).

But with Tristan even if he pans out to be an All Star, I could see us signing him to less than 10 per year.

Same with Waiters, Drummond was available at #4 but if he was to play to his potential, we're looking at a sure max player.

Now it's not all that bad to have 3 max players, and I think our ownership would actually pay them, but as we know there's different kind of max players, both Roy Hibbert and Carmelo Anthony are max players, obviously would rather have one than the other, I think we passed on some players to prevent having to overpay them down the line.

But that's just a theory.

[tidho]

lol!

I really don't think the team is intentionally avoiding drafting superstars. Even if they wanted to avoid the 3-max 'problem' it would stand to reason you would impliment such a strategy after you acquired two, not one.

SImple fact is, there aren't a lot of superstars to go around, even when picking really high in the draft.

[ThirdEyeSharp]

You don't avoid drafting superstars.

If it came down to it, we would trade this second superstar before we had to extend him before we would avoid it all together.

[BossHoggin]

You just wanted to rehash the same concept in a different way. The Cavs drafted Kyrie so they wouldn't have to pay Derrick Williams all that money!

[Kaner]

haha, no way. What "superstar" did we pass on in 2012, aside from POSSIBLY Drummond (who the verdict is still out on, he's beasting against 2nd stringers and still only shooting 50% from the FT line)... Waiters is gonna be a very good NBA player, TT is proving to be one of the better picks in 2011, and we have a superstar in Irving. I think Grant is just making calculated moves that leave us with flexibility for the future; something we didn't have before.