MagicMatic wrote:JF5 wrote:MagicMatic wrote:
100%
I don't like the narratives being spun without full context.
1. Kevin Durant is one of the best offensive players ever and in general.
2. He's playing on arguably the most offensively talented teams ever.
3. Giannis doesn't necessarily have a secondary scorer on his team like Kyrie Irving or Dame Lillard. He has Middleton but he's a 3rd option at best with a whole bunch of other guys who are average scorers.
Also, Joker just won MVP and he's without Jamal Murray who is the teams 2nd Offensive Option. If Murray plays there is a very real threat with Joker as the main guy.
Also, Jokic just defeated a Perimeter Heavy offensive team in Portland with Dame and CJ (With MPJ as his Second Option while missing other key rotations players on a pretty much overhauled roster) and they made the WCF with him as the best player last year.
I agree you need great offensive Wing men to balance out the roster. That's always been the case throughout NBA history. But to say that especially now with guys like Embiid and Jokic being lead guys on contending teams puts this argument to bed.
This argument is similar to how people thought in the 70s/80s that a perimeter guy couldn't be your best player to win a championship. The guys like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan happened. Then also people believed you couldn't win by shooting the 3 ball an insane amount of times. Then Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson happened.
If you choose a perimeter player over a big man because of a trend rather than talent, then you're the same type of guy that wouldn't select Doncic over Ayton because he's "a European player". Its very nearsighted and not logical.
That’s nowhere near the same argument.
Also, I love how the case to spend a top 5 pick on a big comes down to Jokic - pick #41 in 2014. Who by all measures has a skill set the nba has never seen at this level. Not the greatest example when there are more that prove to not be the case. Also, Mobley is nowhere close to Embiid or Jokic as a player.
The argument isn’t about taking “guards that shoot”.
The argument is that the league is run by playmakers, which Orlando has zero. Turk was the last true SF we had that was anywhere capable of that title.
Having a go-to guy that can draw players to Orlando is the goal. That’s never going to happen if they continue to draft bigs and never embrace how the game is played now, whether fans love it or hate it.
The “narrative” has context. You just don’t like it. You simply don’t draft complimentary players if you have the opportunity to draft a go-to primary option with a top 5 pick. There doesn’t even need to be an example to point to with that logic.
Did you not just watch the last 7 years of Orlando featuring a big without a clearly defined primary playmaker?
There is truth to both sides here.
In a vacuum one side is always right. In reality both sides are half right. For Orlando, the other side is more right.
It’s probably a debate best tabled until after the lottery. If we have a top 3 pick and a guaranteed choice of a top guard then we can hopefully forget this. If we have the #4 or 5 pick it becomes interesting. If we sadly fall to #6 or 7 we can have a much more difficult conversation.