carayip wrote:I could just point out as many teams with mega stars that went nowhere. Having a mega star didn't guarantee you anything, just as not having a mega star didn't guarantee complete failure either.
I didn't say it guaranteed a title, but the absence of such a player is a MUCH more reliable barrier to title contention than is their presence a guarantee of contention. These are not related arguments.
If P, then Q.
Not P, therefore not Q? Nah, that's not the way it works.
I don't get the total pessimism. If you are talking about one of 3-4 best players in the world, how many teams do have those players? Yes, realistically at most 3-4 teams only. So you mean the other 26 teams should all give up trying to build a team because the odds are against them? Then what's the point of competitive sports?
The question was about title contention; realism isn't friendly.
What teams who don't have such a player do is try to remain competitive and then look for an opportunity. Look for a chance to stockpile assets, take advantage of what comes their way.
Realistically, though?
In the last 32 seasons, how many teams have won the title?
In that time, the Lakers have won 10 titles. The Bulls have won 6. The Spurs and Celtics have won 4. The Pistons have won 3. Philly has won 1, Houston has won 2, Miami has won 2... and look what ties these teams together... Magic/Kareem, Kobe/Shaq, Kobe/Pau/Odom, Jordan/Pippen, Duncan/D-Rob, Duncan/Manu/Parker, ensemble Pistons squads, Dr J/Moses/Toney/Cheeks, Hakeem, Wade/Shaq, Lebron/Wade...
A level of talent that Portland doesn't have.
It isn't pessimism, it's accuracy. Portland isn't even an average team at either end of the floor, let alone top 10 in both (which is a rough thumbnail guide to a potential contender, though by no means perfect). They lack an elite offensive player and their best young hope is a PG... and PGs struggle more than most positions to lead their teams to legitimate title contention, with very few exceptions.
Titles come from lucking into a superstar talent and then making the right moves after that happen. Even if you broaden out and look at the Finalists involved and not just the winners, you'll still see mostly more of the same, a level of talent that's essentially unreachable for the Blazers at this time. Unreachable for most teams. Like I just noted, 8 teams have won the last 32 NBA titles; it is not a league where titles are typically shared all that broadly, we tend to see dynastic runs a little more often, then down periods in weaker decades, then right back to dynasties. Between 1980 and 1998, of the 19 titles, three teams won 14 of them, 4 more were split between 2 others and Philly snuck in there to claim the last one. Thereafter, the Spurs won the first of 4 titles in 9 years, followed by an L.A. 3-peat, then sandwiching two Spurs titles around a Detroit title, then a Miami title, another of the Spurs titles, Boston popped in there, then repeat Lakers titles, Dallas and Miami. It's hard not to see the developing theme here, and 3 decades is hardly an insignificant sample size, to say nothing of the 11 titles in 13 years Boston won in the 60s (and still had the juice to win 2 more titles in the following decade, while the Knicks won 2 as well and Washington/Seattle dueled it out at the end of the 70s).
Titles follow talent, mostly, unless teams bumble around at building when they find a superstar, like Cleveland did with Lebron or the Magic did with McGrady (for a lesser example).
In Portland's case, and they're hardly unique in this regard, upon what will they base their contention? It won't be lights-out offense, and it certainly won't be quality defense. They need to blow it up, but of course a blow-it-up rebuild only works if the draft falls your way in terms of slot and player. They don't have a great cap situation, they don't have a major star, they don't have great success on either end of the floor (let alone both) and the chances of the talent they have taking a sufficiently large quantum leap forward are limited in various ways. The idea that they'll contend in the next 3 years isn't really a strong one with a lot of support, it just doesn't mesh with the facts at hand, nor does it square with historical likelihood.
Is it possible?
Sure, yeah.
They can't quite Boston it because they don't have the assets or a Pierce-level star, but the notion of stockpiling assets for a bit and then making a big move or two is at least theoretically in reach. They might take an injury in a timely year, then luck into drafting a game-changing talent, so there's a possibility. Similar possibilities abound, but none of them are very high-percentage odds. Yeah, every now and again Detroit happens or Dallas happens, but we'd later learn that Chauncey would turn into a 5-time All-Star, Sheed was a fading star, Wallace is one of only two 4-time DPOYs in league history, Corliss Williamson had been 6MOY but 2 years previously and Rip would go onto be a 3-time All-Star, plus they had COY Larry Brown. Not exactly a team without talent, and the Blazers aren't really matching that level of punch... Notably, while the Pistons were a mere 18th on offense, they were the 2nd-best defense in the league that year. They had more in common with a better version of the current-year Pacers than they do with the Blazers because they could at least parlay their defensive dominance into wins and they had breadth of talent. Also, their seasonal stats are skewed because Sheed only played 22 games for them.
Dallas had Dirk, and the Blazers don't have anything like him on their team, talent-wise. Meanwhile, he fits the theme of big-time talents anyway, and he fielded Chandler, who was the DPOY the year after the title and a host of other talent, plus a better coach.
It's unfortunate, but most teams don't contend; they fly a holding pattern and try to keep their fans interested. Hell, I'd feel for you but I'm from Toronto: all our teams DO is fail or hold at mediocrity, for the most part. The Raptors most especially, with heavy weight to the "fail" aspect. Portland's a respectable team that contends regularly for a playoff berth, and that's more than can be said of most. The Blazers have the 12th-most playoff appearances in NBA history... and of the 11 teams above them, all of them started before they did, some considerably farther back in the past. The top 6 all started in 1950 or earlier. 29 playoff appearances is pretty good. They missed the playoffs last year, but had made them the three previous seasons. They missed the playoffs for 5 seasons before that... but made the playoffs every year from and including 82-83 through 02-03, their last playoff berth. And even then, they missed in 82, but made it in the five previous seasons.
They have 1 Finals victory in three appearances (77, 90 and 92) on the backs of Walton and Drexler (with due credit to the rest of the squad/management/Jack Ramsay/Rick Adelman and what-not, of course) but have otherwise made their bones on playoff appearances. In that run from 83-03, they exited the first round 7 times, or a third of the time. At one point, they made and exited in the first round in six straight seasons with three different coaches (Rick Adelman, PJ Carleisimo and Mike Dunleavy).
But they kept coming. That's plenty to ask. They usually won a decent number of games, played a decent brand of basketball and then occasionally made it farther. That's as much as any non-L.A. franchise can ask for without being generally delusional and in the absence of the blinding luck it takes to hit the superstar jackpot.
Denver, Phoenix, Utah, Cleveland, Orlando, New Orleans, the Clippers, the Wolves, the Grizzlies, the Raptors and the Bobcats have all yet to win a title. Some of them haven't even made the Finals (some even the conference finals, at that).
Portland's doing great as a franchise; little to weep about as far as the fact that their prospects for immediate contention aren't really very high. Coming back to this:
I don't get the total pessimism.
It's the total lack of counterpoint that keeps it that way; the crushing weight of history and honest talent analysis comes to this conclusion: in order to win, and to a slightly lesser extent, to even MAKE the Finals, you generally need either an extreme breadth of talent or a still-talented team built around one of the top 5 players in the league (and more like top 3). Portland has neither of those things and while 3 years is a long time, it's a stretch to imagine them assembling all of that on the back of the assets they have now. As I said, it's possible that something happens, there are plenty of variables, but they're all long shots. They'd be extreme dark horse contenders. Even if they do luck in to drafting a superstar, the building time is usually several years and they're working with some notable disadvantages. Look at the Cavs or the Thunder, for example. Heck, on a less successful example, look how long it took Chicago to rebuild after Jordan and how even after drafting Rose, they haven't made the Finals yet (injuries obviously playing a role, years of lottery drafting also being worth consideration).
*shrugs*
C'est la vie. You play to win and as players, you can't focus on the ridiculously long odds of actually winning a title without one of those superstar-type players, but that doesn't change the presiding reality of NBA title contention.
