HeartBreakKid wrote:red96 wrote:HeartBreakKid wrote:
Not really, if they had kept Goran Dragic it would have been better then what they actually got.
New Orleans ended up getting Eric Gordon who wasn't good in NO, and was worse than Goran Dragic was during those years.
New Orleans got a draft pick in the trade with CP3, but wasted it on Austin Rivers who sucks.
So really, Goran Dragic alone would have made the trade better for NO then what actually ended up happening. Hindsight is 20/20 though.
And no AD. Regardless of what Pelicans management did afterwards, none of those guys are or ever were more valuable to a franchise than AD. Owners said no, so no trade happens. Not really all that unusual, it's just that it happens to a spoiled as s#!+ fanbase so now they won't stop crying about it.
Well, chances are they would still be a lotto team. As for whether they would have won the lotto, who knows? It wasn't likely they would get AD either way.
Yup, odds were low either way, but they got lucky, and in the NBA, you always take your luck and run. 1997 draft, Duncan the clear cut #1, if SA got the #2 pick, even if they pass on KVH and take Billups for example and develop him, it's not the same. The other top 5 options were Antonio Daniels and Tony Battie. They would still be good, very good, but Billups is not carrying a franchise for many many years like Duncan did.
Even teams who draft young players who make them just good enough too quickly. The guys who are not just very talented young guys, but high impact ones. Yea, it's awesome to have a really good young player that is already impacting but it screws up your ability to stack more cheap top talent around him. There are definitely teams who are better then others and put themselves in position to succeed more, and teams who just waste everything, but many times, luck is a differentiating factor.