2013-2014 NBA Thread - IND @ WAS and OKC @ LAC on ESPN

[shoeking2101]

You want to ignore the draft and put a priority on free agency and trades, you'll end up like the Knicks the past ten years and Lakers the last three-four years.

No one is saying ignore the draft. But the emphasis on it IMO is far too high. The Draft only is great when you can land a franchise changing player. Otherwise, you're getting a bunch of players who will ultimately lead you down a road to mediocrity.

 

[sea manup]

 

without wade already being there shaq would not have won anything in miami, lebron and bosh would have never came

chris paul is not staying with the clippers with out blake griffin already being there, without blake the team is as bad as his hornets teams

washington would be extra trash right now if they didnt have wall to build around

ask any kings fan if whether or not their team is better off after drafting demarcus

iverson wanted to go to denver because carmelo was already there


when you draft a top 10 player in the league it will attract other top players and make your team better than it was before

This much is true. However there are like 60 or so players drafted every year. Most of those players will not amount to a top 10 talent.

I get what you're saying, but we're talking about being championship level competitive. So unless you get lucky and draft a player that pans out, you'll end up being average anyway.

You said Washington and The Kings. Perfect examples. They've been in the cellar for years, lucked up and got DMC and John Wall. Neither of them had made the playoffs and The Kings aren't even close. So by your logic (And I may be using it wrong) they are actually worse off with those guys because in all likelihood, the ceiling on a John Wall or DMC led team is the 2nd round. And that's if everything goes perfect. Now if they draft well, then maybe that changes but DMC and Wall prove my point. Tanking does not guarantee anything especially if you have championship aspirations.

no one expects them to get good right away after drafting wall/demarcus but there is no way you can say that either of the teams are better off without them. you put IT and rudy gay around demarcus which isnt that great of a supporting cast and they were playing borderline 500 ball when everyone is healthy. the wizards are playing 500 ball while being led by wall and in both cases each player isnt even close to reaching their full potential. in free agency if you were to get a guy like wall or cousins it would cost at least 15 mil a year, right now washington is paying wall 7 mil this year (13) next year and the kings are paying demarcus 5 mil this year AND they didnt have to give up anything for either player because they got them through the draft.

there is no rebuilding strat that guarantees anything but building through the draft has proven to be the ONLY way to build a championship team, a lot of teams that tank dont end up with anything useful but you have to roll the dice to win

 

[captainjackson]

The Pelicans is one team that's been pretty stupid IMO. Instead of them building off the Anthony Davis draft, they decide to use their #6 pick and traded a future 1st (top 5 protected) to acquire Jrue Holiday. In their case, they rushed their rebuilding process. They matched the offer for Eric Gordon, went and offered $11M a year to Tyreke, traded for Jrue using their #6 pick. I mean, why are you rushing?

Why not draft Trey Burke or MCW? Why try to rush the rebuilding process for a player like Holiday that's not going to change your franchise? A solid draft pick last year and another solid pick in this year's draft would finish off their rebuilding process. NOW, they can add those veterans around Davis, their 2013 pick, 2014 pick, Ryan Anderson and others.

they should have let gordon go to the suns and never signed tyreke. now they're stuck with two awful contracts.

i'm ok with the jrue trade, i would rather have him run the point guard position over burke or MCW.

 

[sea manup]

 

how is it random? there is more information than ever out there about each of these prospects, i can probably spend an hour on google and know more about wiggins and jabari than i do any of my highschool classmates. there are teams that get great picks every year, rockets, thunder, spurs, indiana to name a few. if there is a competent front office, there is less need for luck. 

it is impossible to win a championship ONLY through trades and free agent signings, drafting is the most important but not the only factor that is needed to build a good team

It's random because no matter how much research you do, you have no idea how these players will pan out in the league. And I guess I'll just disagree with you on this because Drafting is not the most important factor in building a champion IMO. Sure, if you land a home run in the draft like a blake griffin or a Lebron James or a Dwyane Wade then yeah it is because it's a cornerstone to build around. But how likely is that to happen? How likely are you to draft a player that is that great?

going to use what i posted a while back in the lakers thread

 
its not that building through the draft is the ONLY way to build a championship team, and that if we dont to that there is no other way (the "this or that" you were talking about). its that drafting a franchise player and building a team around that franchise player is proven to be the best way to build a championship team

is there a 100% chance that we will get a decent draft pick? no

is there a 100% chance that if we do get a decent draft pick he will end up being a great player? no

is there a 100% chance that if we do get a great player we will be able to build a championship team around him? no

no one can predict the future, what we can do is look at the past and see how things have worked before and make an educated guess/choice based on the knowledge that we have gained from the past.

someone can say "it is possible to win a championship without an allstar draft pick, look at the 04 pistons!" (unrelated but its super ironic that the only team that has won without an allstar draft pick picked darko in one of the best drafts ever the same year they won)

to that i would say "wouldnt it be smarter to take in the previously stated information and come to the conclusion that it is very very hard to build a championship team without a good draft pick, in fact since it has happened only once ever one could say that its near impossible to pull it off"

of course that doesnt mean that we CANT win a championship if we dont get good player out of the draft, but history says that it will be highly unlikely that we will.

when talking about draft picks:

can anyone be 100% sure wiggins will be better than the guy picked 10th? no

can anyone be 100% sure embiid will be better than the guy picked 10th? no

can anyone be 100% sure parker will be better than the guy picked 10th? no

but that doesnt mean its a shot in the dark, we have access to more information about each of these draft prospects than ever before and nba teams have everything we have plus even more information and the ability to invite each prospect over for interviews/physical testing. using this information we can take an educated guess about which guy is going to be great and more times than not the first pick of the nba draft is a very good player. again this doesnt mean this years first pick will be great but looking at the past (all we can do at the moment) its more likely than not for this years top draft pick to be great.

 

[black migo]

Nah the heat started that. Them ****** all contacted each other before hand and talked about what they were gonna do. They knew they were all free agents and all wanted to play together, now everyone wants melo to call up another big name player and ask to be teammates.

They had to team up or the celtics wouldve been running the east like detroit did

 

[bhzmafia14]

No one is saying ignore the draft. But the emphasis on it IMO is far too high. The Draft only is great when you can land a franchise changing player. Otherwise, you're getting a bunch of players who will ultimately lead you down a road to mediocrity.

Exactly.

It is much easier to say "do it the OKC way" than to actually pull it off. Orlando is probably the closest to building a team from the draft and they don't have a player close to the level of OKC's 4th best player they drafted in the last 7 years (Ibaka).

 

[$tacy]

They had to team up or the celtics wouldve been running the east like detroit did

Which leads to player x and x teaming up because miami will run the east and so on

 

[pmatic]

You want to ignore the draft and put a priority on free agency and trades, you'll end up like the Knicks the past ten years and Lakers the last three-four years.

No one is saying ignore the draft. But the emphasis on it IMO is far too high. The Draft only is great when you can land a franchise changing player. Otherwise, you're getting a bunch of players who will ultimately lead you down a road to mediocrity.

Touché.

But I feel the ineptitude of certain franchises like the Kings and Wizards of recent memory stems from ownership and trickles down to scouting, player development, coaching. All an inexact science really.

 

[sea manup]

mike conley was the 4th pick of the draft and a huge reason for why memphis has been good these past few years

no, it doesnt need to be a superstar player for tanking to be worth it

 

[uncharteddrake]

Nah the heat started that. Them ****** all contacted each other before hand and talked about what they were gonna do. They knew they were all free agents and all wanted to play together, now everyone wants melo to call up another big name player and ask to be teammates.

It doesn't stop the fact that the first team up was the celtics, you don't know what was going on behind the scene.. foh

 

[pmatic]

bhz, you know got damn well if Heisley keeps Love instead of dealing for Juice, you'd speak of the lottery in a much better light.

 

[Peep Game]

No one is saying ignore the draft. But the emphasis on it IMO is far too high. The Draft only is great when you can land a franchise changing player. Otherwise, you're getting a bunch of players who will ultimately lead you down a road to mediocrity.

Agreed, with the Pre-Harden/Post-Yao & T-Mac Era Rockets being a perfect example

 

[shoeking2101]

bhz, you know got damn well if Heisley keeps Love instead of dealing for Juice, you'd speak of the lottery in a much better light.

Really? Because Minnesota sure has benefitted from Trading for Love right?

 

[mister friendly]

A generational talent is a player like Duncan, Kobe or Lebron

Before that its guys like Jordan, Bird, Magic, Hakeem and Shaq

DWade and Dirk arent a generational player like those guys.

Says Kobe is a generational Talent but then says Dirk and Dwade aren't. Not sure if serious.

I'm not even saying that those guys are better than Kobe, but come on. Dirk is something we've never seen before. He's literally a once in a generation/lifetime player. D Wade is the same. In his prime? Are you serious?

You're watering down the term "generational"

You cant have 10-15 generational guys playing in the NBA at the same time

A generational player is a elite superstar who does things the rest of the NBA marvels at.

A generational player is a guy, who people who have no interest in the sport would know about

To be a generational player you've have to been to considered best or 2nd best player in the NBA for a period of time.

 

[pmatic]

bhz, you know got damn well if Heisley keeps Love instead of dealing for Juice, you'd speak of the lottery in a much better light.

Really? Because Minnesota sure has benefitted from Trading for Love right?

If the T'Wolves had half the talent and luck the Grizzlies have had the past fives years, who knows?

 

[kal-el-8]

Putting Kobe and wade in the same sentence is goddamn disrespectful to Kobe.


But this is niketalk and Kobe was no one without shaq Gasol fisher and Phil Jackson.

 

[sea manup]

 

bhz, you know got damn well if Heisley keeps Love instead of dealing for Juice, you'd speak of the lottery in a much better light.

Really? Because Minnesota sure has benefitted from Trading for Love right?

they absolutely benefited from getting love, but getting a franchise player doesnt mean a team will be any good if the gm is an idiot

love is the only reason the wolves have more than 14 wins this season

drafting 45 pgs in the past few years and giving rubio a huge contract is why they are not going to make the playoffs

 

[bhzmafia14]

bhz, you know got damn well if Heisley keeps Love instead of dealing for Juice, you'd speak of the lottery in a much better light.

But, who's to say the Grizz would be the same team over the last few years with Love and no ZBo? What happens to their identity? The fact that Love can't lead the team to wins and not the big time clutch player like ZBo is at times, Memphis could very well still be much further away from a championship than they are now. The core of Conley, Love, Gasol would definitely be something I would love to keep for another 4 years, though.

Either way, I'm not downing the draft. I just see a lot more teams that are grabbing guys from the lottery and not doing anything with the talent. Its a combination of coaching, who the players are surrounded by and other things that factor in to how well things fall in place. OKC just had everything fall in place perfectly.

 

[shoeking2101]

Putting Kobe and wade in the same sentence is goddamn disrespectful to Kobe.


But this is niketalk and Kobe was no one without shaq Gasol fisher and Phil Jackson.

Longevity is only real thing that separates the careers of Wade and Bryant. Besides, what's blasphemous about putting Wade and Kobe in the same sentence? No one said Wade was better, but Wade is up there as far as all time 2 guards is concerned.

 

[sea manup]

the most important thing needed to build a good team is a smart front office and coaching

then it is drafting

then it is trades/freeagents

you cant use the cavs as an example for why drafting doesnt work because they could have drafted lebron, jordan and magic 3 years in a row and still found a way to mess it up.

there is no helping poor management 

 

[shoeking2101]

You're watering down the term "generational"

You cant have 10-15 generational guys playing in the NBA at the same time

A generational player is a elite superstar who does things the rest of the NBA marvels at.

A generational player is a guy, who people who have no interest in the sport would know about

To be a generational player you've have to been to considered best or 2nd best player in the NBA for a period of time.

Fair enough. I actually would agree with your points except that you said Dirk wasn't a generational talent. That's just flat out wrong to me.

 

[100027]

You're watering down the term "generational"

You cant have 10-15 generational guys playing in the NBA at the same time

A generational player is a elite superstar who does things the rest of the NBA marvels at.

A generational player is a guy, who people who have no interest in the sport would know about

To be a generational player you've have to been to considered best or 2nd best player in the NBA for a period of time.

Dirk has obviously done that considering he won MVP.  

There were times when Wade was in that conversation for second best.

 

[sea manup]

 

Putting Kobe and wade in the same sentence is goddamn disrespectful to Kobe.


But this is niketalk and Kobe was no one without shaq Gasol fisher and Phil Jackson.

Longevity is only real thing that separates the careers of Wade and Bryant. Besides, what's blasphemous about putting Wade and Kobe in the same sentence? No one said Wade was better, but Wade is up there as far as all time 2 guards is concerned.

longevity, defense, scoring, work ethic, size

i dont mind putting them in the same sentence but kobe is/was better than wade in pretty much every aspect of basketball

 

[shoeking2101]

the most important thing needed to build a good team is a smart front office and coaching

then it is drafting

then it is trades/freeagents



you cant use the cavs as an example for why drafting doesnt work because they could have drafted lebron, jordan and magic 3 years in a row and still found a way to mess it up.


there is no helping poor management 

The Cavs, Kings, Wizards, Bobcats, Knicks, all the bad teams in the league the draft does nothing for them unless they get a franchise changer. If they don't get a franchise changer then they'll probably end up with a player who can lead them to the 2nd round at best. And then the cycle starts all over again. It only changes if one of these teams draft a Tim Duncan, or a lebron james.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

You're watering down the term "generational"

You cant have 10-15 generational guys playing in the NBA at the same time

A generational player is a elite superstar who does things the rest of the NBA marvels at.

A generational player is a guy, who people who have no interest in the sport would know about

To be a generational player you've have to been to considered best or 2nd best player in the NBA for a period of time.

Dirk was the best player in the league, Wade arguably was a number of years.

all those things apply to Dirk, Dwight and Wade.

The league is stuffed with talent right now, the idea that people don't marvel at the things that Dirk does as a shooter or that Wade did as ball handler is just silly.