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04-11-2016, 08:08 PM
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#901 | |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: Georgia
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Which is exactly why I proposed a full random lottery with no weighting. Say there are two teams in the same situation as Philadelphia was in 2012-13. It's absurd that the team who tries to win would be in a worse situation than the team who doesn't try to win. That's a bad design for a sports league.
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Top 10 Songs of the Year 1955-Present (1976 Added) Franchise Portfolio Draft Winner Fictional Character Draft Winner Television Family Draft Winner Build Your Own Hollywood Studio Draft Winner |
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04-11-2016, 08:14 PM
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#902 |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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I'm sure I've ranted it about here a lot, but one of the main things that turned me off from the NBA was how much losing is rewarded. And the sentiment seems to be increasing every year. It used to be that you didn't want to be a pretty good team that just missed the playoffs. Now 45 wins is the bad place to be. Maybe there's only 4 teams that have a chance to win a championship in a given year and the other 26 should all try to lose. I don't know where the line is, and it's frustrating to even try to figure that out and follow an NBA season.
When I'm watching a sporting event, I generally want the winner to be better off than the loser after the game. I want to know that both teams, and their fanbases, and their front offices, want to win. But for so many NBA games, it's apparently the opposite. (If that way of thinking is correct - I certainly hope the 76ers are dead forever to prove that way of thinking wrong, because it ruins basketball for me). I stopped following the Celtics when sentiment among the fanbase seemed to be 50/50 whether they wanted to them to win or lose any particular regular season game. What's the point if I don't even know if I'm supposed to root for my own team to win the games or not? I don't want to have to make that choice. If I'm not even sure that I'd rather my team win than lose, it's hard to care. I'm back in it a little bit now because I'm 100% sure they're trying to win every game, and everybody seems to be on the same page with that. But if they slipped a bit next year, decided to "blow everything up", and then I'm supposed to root for them to lose as much as possible for the next 5 years and hope they'll be good in 2021, I'm out. So ya, I love the idea of a totally random lottery, 1-30. Why is it so important that the crappy teams be given extra help? It wouldn't be the end of the world if a rising team, or even a really good team, got some luck in the lottery even though they committed the cardinal NBA sin of winning too many games without winning a championship. It's just so backwards that NBA teams can hit this wall of as a franchise BECAUSE they won too much, whereas they would have been in a much better position if they played worse, or just tried to lose. Smaller market teams, especially, I think are hurt by this system, because they can do the sucking part (really not that much of an accomplishment, as much as it's valued in the NBA), but then they struggle with the endgame and free agents once they're outside the lottery. With a random lottery draft, a good 45-win small market team has at least the chance to add some top prospects. Last edited by molson : 04-11-2016 at 08:27 PM. |
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04-11-2016, 09:05 PM
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#903 | |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Maryland
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Yeah, not many do.  Seriously though, they come off as an afterthought here. No doubt some of this is from Snyder having control over a few media outlets, but the Redskins suck up about 90% of the air in the room, it seems to me. (And they suck!) Right now the Caps probably get much of the remaining percent. I think people like some of the young players here (when they can stay healthy), and there was some excitement over winning a playoff series (not doing so for what, 20 years will do that), but I think there's also the realization that barring a major FA coming here the team has pretty much reached its limit (and even regressed this year). But, who is going to want to come to DC? Kevin Durant maybe because he is from here. But that's far from certain. It's the same thing Philly has to deal with -- it's just not a marquee destination. So you either have to either be a really shrewd organization (Ernie Grunfeld is ok, but eh. He may not even be in town next season.) or be really lucky. They've been neither. I get the once every thirty year thing. I think of that angle regularly; opening night when the Royals played, the broadcast got wistful over how it had been 30 years. Well, that's going to be the average! That's what you get for having a huge league. Basketball seems worse than other sports though. For one, the divisions seem to be damn near meaningless. So you win one. *shurg* The regular season is just a slog that has to be endured to get to the playoffs. The main focus is on where you fall 1-8. And really, if you are 5-8 -- good luck. And, there is little parity in the NBA. In 15 years, only twelve teams have made the finals. Teams don't catch fire and have lucky runs. You need stars.
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04-11-2016, 09:11 PM
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#904 | ||
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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That's simply not the case. There are currently 10 teams with 45 wins. If you were to assume the playoffs were chalk all the way through, which of those teams would feel as though they're in a bad place? Cleveland, Toronto, Golden State, San Antonio, Oklahoma City - obviously not, even though Toronto and Oklahoma City fans would surely have rationale to think 'is this as good as it's going to get with the current roster?' with large impending free agent decisions. Clippers - possibly going to blow it up following a second-round exit to the Warriors and have certainly have not significantly upgraded their roster over the last few years despite being in a win-now position with Paul, Griffin, and Jordan. Boston - anything they do is gravy with the Nets' picks they got, which they acquired as a result of moves that were made 10+ years ago. A first round playoff loss would certainly have people wondering whether they're the kind of team that gives it their all during the regular season and doesn't have that extra gear for the playoffs. Atlanta - another tough decision in terms of either likely taking a step back by losing Horford or maxing him out until he's 36 even though the current team is not likely to achieve greater heights than the conference semis going forward. Miami - maxed out Bosh until he's 36 years old, traded 2 future firsts for the ability to sign Dragic (who's 29) to a big deal, will have to pay big money to Whiteside, who's been their best player since he started getting playing time. Nucleus of the team is not getting any younger and guys like Winslow and Richardson would have to get much, much better to make up for that decline. Charlotte - great success story considering how much the franchise has suffered in the past. Nic Batum (who they traded a recent top 10 pick and a decent veteran drafted in the 2009 lottery for) has been crucial to their improvement from last season, and he is about to be a free agent. Portland - probably said enough about them. Hit on as many young veteran free agents as you could possibly expect to and still look to be in that first round loss + no first round pick dead zone. They should actually look to sign Whiteside to a big deal to keep the momentum going, and if you know anything about Whiteside that's just as much a risk as hoping the lottery balls bounce the right way, that nobody gets injured, or anything else. Memphis - their current reign of success, which is certainly nothing to be ashamed of, was built upon the players they acquired during a 2006-09 stretch of winning 22, 22, and 24 games. After a first round loss would have to decide between losing Conley/blowing it up versus re-signing him to an aging core. No first round pick this year either. Oh yeah, and Marc Gasol is 31 with the same injury as Embiid; who's saying he will never play an NBA game again? Outside of the true contenders, there's ample fluctuation from year to year based solely on stuff like injuries. If the Cavs make the finals, LeBron's team will have won 18 of the 42 total playoff series played in the Eastern Conference the past 6 years, so that leaves 14 teams playing for a really small piece of the pie. Assuming that holds this year, every team in the East will have made the playoffs at least once during this stretch. From year to year, you can have a 28-win team the previous year surprise everybody at the start of the year and make the playoffs, but they still lose to the better opponent in the first round. Quote:
When watching a sporting event, I generally want the winner to have played better than the loser after the game. Basketball offers that more than any sport. A 5-11 team can be an 8-8 playoff team in football if a few fumbles or tipped passes bounce its way. It can just take a few bloop singles for worst baseball team to beat the best team on any given day. In basketball there are enough games and enough chances for the better team to assert itself over the course of a contest that bad teams can't rely on that fantasy. Think of how many close games Philadelphia has lost down the stretch this year (this is an area where had Sam Hinkie been a sufficiently charismatic figure to swing his dick around saying 'I expect us to contend for the playoffs this season OR ELSE,' the Sixers' offensive execution down the stretch of several winnable games, when examined more closely, would have left Brett Brown's head very close to the chopping block). Obviously much of that can be explained by teams not taking them too seriously and then turning up the intensity in a close game in the last few minutes, but the point is that Philadelphia went up and down the court 80-90 times with these teams and the score was even, whereas in baseball you get about 40 chances for batters to go up to the plate and score runs and in football you get the ball 10 or so times per game. Last edited by nol : 04-16-2016 at 12:52 PM. |
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04-11-2016, 09:17 PM
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#905 | |||
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Coordinator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Unless you count 'fringe-NBA talent' as a poor fitting part, that's not necessarily true. Sixers have done a good job of bringing in 'metric darlings' who are really good at a few things, but sub-NBA talents elsewhere. Quote:
Wall and Beal are no small part of it obviously, as the team's best two players, but so is the fact that from day 1 in Wall's career the Wizards have tried to surround him with a core of NBA talent. You can question a lot of those personnel decisions in hindsight (some of them even at the time), and you can also question a lot of the picks the Wiz made too. I don't think you can question the value of having young players in an environment when they aren't 10-15 point underdogs every single night of the week. Quote:
Are they? I don't know. I place a lot of value in team culture, and the Sixers have none. The lottery picks have so far netted them two guys with red flags (one I'd class as major red flags, and we've had a story featuring Noel now as well), and none of them look like sure-fire pieces you build a team around. If the Sixers had not thrown the last three seasons away and actually tried to be respectable, maybe they're a playoff team today? Who knows. I sure as hell don't expect them to be a playoff team next year barring a sensational draft and/or Saric coming over and being the Next Big Thing. I don't expect either. Best case maybe they're this season's Timberwolves and begin to show signs of what they are capable of. Maybe 5-6 years down the track they are finally winning some games and challenging for a playoff spot. As a fan, is that a better experience than watching a team play .500 ball? For me, it's not.
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Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. --Ambrose Bierce |
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04-11-2016, 09:40 PM
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#906 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Puyallup, WA
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And what would it matter? If I'm a fan of a team I want that organization pushing to win a title. Not just be a playoff team. Considering the amount of weight people put on titles in sports I think it's safe to say most tend to agree with me. I don't expect my teams to win titles every year or very often at all (Mets fan), but I would like to see it as the ultimate goal of the organization. The lowest seeded team in NBA history to win a title is the Rockets in '95 (only possible because of Jordan's retirement). After that the biggest title winning upset is who? The 69 Celtics (4 seed)? The '04 Pistons (3 seed)? The NBA doesn't operate like other sports. Simply making the playoffs doesn't give you a chance. Philly's situation was so bad when Hinkie took over there's no guarantees they'd be a playoff team now and if they were it's certainly nothing close to a title winning team. The roster was bad, the cap situation was bad, and the draft pick situation was bad. The team was going nowhere. Why not blow it up and patiently wait for the right situation to come along? |
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04-11-2016, 09:46 PM
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#907 | |||
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Quote:
No, I mean that pretty much every player in the league would look better if he were replacing Andre Iguodala as the 5th option in the Warriors' best lineup and pretty much every player would look shitty if surrounded by crappy players. 'Casual darlings' who played for a while, were merely decent, and who cost more do not have an appreciable chance of helping a team. For every Kent Bazemore acquired for essentially nothing, there are 5 guys like Grevis Vasquez and Justin Holiday who make you go "oh yeah, THAT'S who he's playing for now." For every Isaiah Thomas on the Celtics, there are 5 Isaiah Thomas on the Suns/Kings situations. Quote:
Uh, I can't think of a team that would have Otto Porter over Nerlens Noel going forward, but the 76ers are the only team I see getting slammed for missing out on Giannis. I suppose Porter contributed a whopping 2.1 points per game his rookie season to make up for the fact he was ready to go unlike Noel. Maybe if they hadn't already traded away future assets to acquire players like Gortat and Nene, they'd have been comfortable with making that relatively safe gamble. Maybe then they'd have made the playoffs one fewer season (in 2014 I remember them being not even good enough to beat an Indiana team that was in the process of imploding. They were less competitive with the Pacers than the 8-seed Hawks were) but would have had a better chance of enticing Durant with a slightly worse team and a Wall/Beal/Noel core and even more cap space where Durant could pick out an established veteran to join him. You can question a lot of moves teams make, and most GMs get a long enough tenure that it's statistically likely that at some stretch over 8+ years enough moves will have gone well enough to result in a competitive team one of those years. The Wizards had stretches in which they blew picks and signings and were a laughingstock, and then they got a #1 pick they couldn't blow in John Wall and followed that up with a good selection at #3 in Beal, and that's enough talent to make them 'competitive.' There are 18 guys who have been in their position longer than Hinkie was, and the majority of the remaining guys will ultimately get longer than 3 years. You surely cannot say that 25 or more teams are heading in a positive direction. Quote:
You personally didn't know, but that didn't stop me and other people who knew more about basketball from seeing that it wouldn't be the case. Just as there's not much to be gained in being right after the fact, there's not much to be lost in getting rid of players who wouldn't have constituted a respectable team. There was a lot of concern that the Celtics were going to be the last team to realize that KG/Pierce/Rondo was no longer the nucleus to a good team, but Danny Ainge found maybe the one team that was still desperate/dumb enough in Brooklyn. The 2012-13 Celtics with Pierce and KG were 41-40 and lost in the first round; if Ainge waits another six months for Pierce and KG to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're no longer nearly as effective, he gets nothing for them. The Celtics would have been just as bad as they'd have been while 'tanking' 2013-14 and would not have had the picks going forward. Do you think Brooklyn will make the playoffs once over the next few seasons? They'd probably have a better chance than 2013 Philly did if only for the possibility they'd have to throw a lot of money around to hire Calipari, then sign Wall/Cousins to a big market. Otherwise, they also have reached that critical mass of bad decisions where the playoffs are out of the question for the time being. There's a lot of wiggle room outside of knowing that the Spurs, the LeBron team, and the Warriors will be title contenders going into the season, and not overreacting on year-to-year fluctuations that are dependent on random stuff like injuries is crucial. Detroit could have made the exact same moves, and if Washington hadn't been as injured this season, the Wizards are likely in the 8th playoff spot rather than Detroit; does that mean that Detroit is in a much worse position going forward than if they'd gotten swept by the Cavs? The Jazz look to be the 9th place team in the West this year; in other words, they weren't built to withstand an injury to their 5th-best player this season. Does that invalidate the construction of the roster? In the NFL 10 teams out of 32 make the playoffs. In the NBA 16 teams out of 30 do. That's an extra 22.5 percent of teams that can placate their fans with "at least we made the playoffs and played 'winning' basketball" despite being no better relative to the rest of the league than the Eagles or the Lions were this season. In this era, being a 'pretty good team that misses' the playoffs is in large part a misnomer; the Bulls and Jazz are set to be 42-40 and just miss the playoffs, and diehard fans of those teams are able to watch enough games and read enough about the NBA to give you a pretty thorough explanation of all the areas in which the Bulls/Jazz came up short this year. Think of what the perception of Anthony Davis and New Orleans would be if the team hadn't yet made the playoffs as opposed to making the playoffs once and getting swept by the best team in recent memory (oh yeah, and the Pelicans made the playoffs in the first place because Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were both injured for huge chunks of last season), despite trading future first round picks and handicapping their ability to acquire a better supporting cast in the future. The player is just as young, just as talented, but he wouldn't have a "playoffs run" attached to his resume. Last edited by nol : 04-12-2016 at 11:02 AM. |
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04-11-2016, 10:26 PM
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#908 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Sydney, Australia
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You do a really good job of sounding like a condescending asshole nol. Well done. I'll go back to ignoring your wordy posts in this thread again Mr basketball genius.
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Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. --Ambrose Bierce |
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04-11-2016, 10:30 PM
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#909 | |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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Quote:
I want to believe that all of the teams you listed are in a better position than Philadelphia, but the fact that it's even a debate makes me sad. As does how beloved the 76er approach was among 76ers fans and how pissed most of them were when Hinke resigned. An 8-year old could build a crappy team with the goal of losing, win 10 games a year, and then just draft whoever the mock drafts say to draft at the #1 or #2 spot and be in the same position the 76ers are now are, and perhaps better depending on the mock draft they relied on. And as another post says here, you can't win a championship unless you're the #1 or #2 team in a conference. And really, I'm not sure how many championship teams have won less than 55 games. So if winning a championship is all that matters (which I disagree with), those 45-win teams really should have held everybody back, or just lost intentionally, and won maybe 20 games instead. They'd be better off the next year. Every win made their future outlook worse. Edit: for example, the Celtics aren't winning the championship this year - wouldn't it have been better for them to tank, win 20 games, and then have two picks in the top 5 and maybe go for it for real next year or the year after? Last edited by molson : 04-11-2016 at 10:32 PM. |
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04-11-2016, 10:33 PM
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#910 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Sydney, Australia
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Quote:
To me? It would matter a great deal. Championships should be the goal, of course, but without a lot of luck it's just not going to happen - which means for most teams, it's not going to happen. By all means go for it, but not at the expense of everything else. To me, I'm happy going along and cheering for my team if they put a watchable product on the court, finish just outside the playoffs or bomb out in the first round. I love basketball. Winning is great and nothing sucks like watching a team bow out of their last game of the year with a loss, but such is life. I don't go for the championships, but they are the cherry on top. I would never get behind a team doing with the Sixers are doing. I understand what they hope to achieve, but as a basketball fan first and foremost I don't support it or think it's the best way to build a championship contender.
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Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. --Ambrose Bierce |
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04-11-2016, 10:51 PM
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#911 | ||
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Quote:
That's the whole point. Basketball is a sport in which any idiot could have selected Towns/Duncan/LeBron/Durant/etc. with a high draft pick, and that by itself buys you a *lot* of wiggle room when it comes to building an eventual contender. More players on the field = more chaos, and a sport like football is obviously set up for the few difference-making players to have a much higher chance of being injured. There are relatively few things that would have had to break well for the 76ers to be considered an up-and-coming team that's going to destroy the league, and even in the absence of them the team is still set up quite well for the future. The owners of the 76ers are not brought up enough in this. They have the money and certainly have the right to change things as they see fit, but they were quite alright with being terrible, having the lowest payroll, etc., the last two seasons. Now they're essentially gambling on the fact that the picks they'll have going forward will be in a high enough position that any idiot could nail them, while the Colangelos' collective juice ("I'm in charge of selecting the USA Olympic team, so are you sure you don't want to consider signing with us?") could make up for having worse decision making going forward. Quote:
You can disagree on that, believe a consistent peak of 45 or so wins is great for most teams, and STILL know that the 76ers were further from that goal than any other team at the time would've been and it just would not have been feasible for Philadelphia given the situation they were in before Hinkie. It was emptier than an empty cupboard. If every single sub-45 win team honestly believed tanking was the best possible outcome, then there would be a massive advantage to be gained by doing something similar to what Cleveland has done by trading future picks for any non-star player on a sub-45-team (because those players are certainly better than what pretty much any rookie would be over the first couple years of his career), except oh wait, Cleveland acquired LeBron by virtue of him growing up there. Instead, the moves the 76ers are most criticized for are moves in which they got a modest return for mediocre future free agents who would have helped them win 21-23 rather than 18 games during a year in which the team with the absolute worst record in the league got a future MVP with the first pick. The Philadelphia 76ers specifically were in a situation where they could make the playoffs and still be a bottom five team in terms of attendance. That's the epitome of a situation where the brief loss in profitability (during a period in which NBA teams' values went up at an astronomical rate) from really sucking as opposed to kind of sucking is much less than the benefit gained from being a top-tier franchise going forward; do you think any 8-year-old who absolutely *needs* a Steph Curry jersey or any current NBA free agent gives a crap that the Warriors sucked as recently as 2012 and had won a grand total of one playoff series in the 20 years before that? Last edited by nol : 04-12-2016 at 12:01 AM. |
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04-12-2016, 09:07 AM
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#912 | ||
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Wolverine Studios
Join Date: Oct 2003
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You pointed out the attendance numbers for the past decade but look prior to that 2006 21st 677,278 16,518 80.8 2005 10th 732,686 17,870 87.4 2004 4th 788,128 19,222 94.0 2003 4th 807,097 19,685 96.3 2002 3rd 842,976 20,560 100.6 2001 5th 805,692 19,651 (NBA Finals year) So in other words after the team had been to the playoffs for two years and won a playoff series in those years then the next five they were in the top 10 for attendance even though three of those five seasons ended with a first round knockout or missing the playoffs. It's amazing how people will show up when there's a) an electric/star player on the team and b) when the team has a short history of winning something. I think in addition to the numbers that comments in this thread prove out that if you put out a team that at least has the hopes of winning a playoff series you're going to get people to show up especially in the NBA where I think most fans are smart enough to realize that unless you have one of the elite stars you probably don't stand much of a chance of winning it all. Quote:
But they're not a top-tier franchise. For three seasons they've been a complete joke and they've managed to regress in wins every year from 19 to 18 to 10! Nobody else in the league has purposefully gone into seasons with intentions to just flat out suck. Other teams have had bad years and years where they packed it in - sure - but it is always because of injury or the realization with a few games left that they're fighting for a lottery seed so then the tank comes out. Nobody has started out basically saying they don't even care about the results. They have purposefully tanked for 246 games in a row. Had it worked and they ended up with a Durant/Westbrook we wouldn't have this discussion. Hinkie would be a modern day genius with the blueprint for every team to follow and the fans would be selling out the arena for the next decade because that team would win. I think Philly and Detroit are similar sports towns - from 2003 to 2009 Detroit was #1 in attendance every year but one (then they were 2nd). Then drop was fast and steep. Even this year they are 25th in attendance and are a playoff team - but they've been so awful the past few years people are only just now starting to care and take a peek to see if what they have is sustainable. When you have other teams to care about especially if hockey is a viable alternative you can't suck and think people will care. I think you're kind of glossing over that ok maybe they didn't lose a whole lot when they started this process but how long is it going to take for those people to come back unless the team either stumbles onto another Iverson or somehow is a serious contender? Neither of those are the case and there doesn't seem to be a player like that in the draft this year so even if things to start to slowly improve from here what's going to be the financial ramifications of paying Noel and Embiid post-rookie contracts when the team still only has average or poor support. Hinkie played this out like a video game where none of those ramifications mattered and had he "won" and ended up with a Westbrook/Durant they wouldn't have mattered. People would be showing up in droves to see the team. Instead not only are people not showing up but articles say they're not even watching on TV. |
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04-12-2016, 11:16 AM
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#913 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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It's not amazing how that electric star player was the #1 pick in the draft acquired the season after Philadelphia had the worst record in the league. Are you joking with that? Apparently those fans did not hold too much of a grudge over the five-year run of 26, 25, 24, 18, and 22 wins that preceded Iverson's rise to stardom, who would have guessed? It's also not amazing that as soon as that team/player declined into mediocrity the fans didn't show up anymore. Again, no decline in attendance compared to when the team was 'competitive' and winning 35-40 games. The Timberwolves had even worse attendance than the 76ers this season - is it going to surprise you that bandwagon fans will come out of the woodwork to watch number one overall picks Towns and Wiggins going forward? As far as owners go, 'financial ramifications' is a ridiculous notion. The Sixers' owners bought the team for about $300 million and can sell it for at least twice that if they ever feel strapped for cash. If only there were some other revenue streams that have recently opened up that would make up for slightly fewer Philadelphians watching the games now compared to 2007. Last edited by nol : 04-12-2016 at 11:37 AM. |
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04-12-2016, 11:22 AM
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#914 |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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Even with Iverson the 76ers only got to 50+ wins once.
I don't know how many 76ers fans were disappointed with the run at the time (the attendance numbers suggest there was some buzz), but I'm sure today, it would definitely be viewed by more fans as a big failure and there would have been more calls to blow everything up when they slipped to 43 wins after their finals run. Last edited by molson : 04-12-2016 at 11:27 AM. |
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04-12-2016, 11:37 AM
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#915 | |
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College Benchwarmer
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Las Vegas
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Think Iverson was hurt just about every other week in Philly. I guess a good look at how they would react would be looking at the Bulls situation with Rose right now. Obviously Rose missed more time it's 50/50 with their fans on what to do right now with the team. |
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04-12-2016, 11:49 AM
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#916 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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And in retrospect (just as it was at the time), it would have been a much, much better decision than throwing shit at the wall for an additional 3-4 years by acquiring random washed-up guys like Chris Webber and Glenn Robinson to be the 'second star' alongside a clearly diminished Iverson. Last edited by nol : 04-12-2016 at 11:50 AM. |
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04-12-2016, 11:58 AM
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#917 | |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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So 7 years of tanking to finally get lucky and hit on Iverson, then a 3-year run that includes two second-round exits and one loss in the finals, then blow everything up for maybe 7 more years of tanking to hopefully get lucky enough to get another 2-year stretch of 49-55 wins (or maybe not get that good again - players like Iverson don't come around all the time), and then blow it all up again, repeat. Sounds like fun. I'm glad there's sports fans that can be excited today about some small probability of being good in 2022 or 2023, but that's definitely not for me. I think you lose generations of fans with that approach. I got addicted to the teams I root for today because they all had a little success in the mid 80s (only one won a championship, but I remember the heartbreak just as sentimentally). I wonder if I would have been hooked if the teams just tanked for my entire childhood, and didn't play in any meaningful games the fanbase was actually rooting for them to win. Last edited by molson : 04-12-2016 at 12:14 PM. |
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04-12-2016, 12:28 PM
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#918 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Maryland
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You need a star. I was lucky enough to catch the tail end of Dr. J's career, which then lead into Charles Barkley's. The Sixers were very, very good. They only won one ring, but they had (I thought) a legitimate shot almost all of those years. Once Chuck was gone, it was just crap. There was nothing to sell. Hersey Hawkins? Jeff Hornacek? Clarence Weatherspoon? You need a guy to sell jerseys, keep fans engaged, and to get the team on national broadcasts. Do what you need to to get that guy.
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04-12-2016, 12:33 PM
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#919 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: NYC
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I'm glad I'm not much of a fan of an NBA team (thanks for killing that for me, Scott Layden/Isiah Thomas). I have celebrated a championship two times in my life, the last being when I was 11 years old. Now 32, I've very much enjoyed being a fan of teams in all other sports for the past 20+ years.
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04-12-2016, 12:35 PM
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#920 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: NYC
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BTW, I was at an event last night that was related to the MSG charity the Garden of Dreams. There weren't a ton of athletes there, but guys like John Starks and even Herb Williams were getting picture requests; meanwhile I see Isiah walking around, seemingly unnoticed by everyone but me.
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04-12-2016, 12:42 PM
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#921 | |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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Quote:
I loved Barkley from afar, but his teams never got close either. Never even to the conference finals with Philly once it became his team. They peaked at 53 wins. Today they would have blown it up much earlier and then tanked, killing the Barkley years and those memories. (And it wasn't just because the Celtics were in the way, the Barkley 76ers never got far enough to play the Celtics after 1985). Last edited by molson : 04-12-2016 at 12:44 PM. |
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04-12-2016, 12:56 PM
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#922 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Quote:
The Spurs have been good that entire time. The Spurs, Lakers, and Heat have won the vast majority of titles since then, so that doesn't leave a lot of winning for other teams. In other words, you could summarize the last 15 years for pretty much every team in terms like that, especially if you're just using 'tanking' as a generic term for losing a lot of games in a year regardless of what moves the organization is actually making. It's a very silly false equivalence you're making. The Sixers decided to be among the 2-3 worst teams rather than the 5th-6th worst the last 3 years. The Evan Turner/Andrew Bynum/traded away four consecutive first round picks pre-Hinkie 76ers were not going to make any happy memories for young sports fans (Oh dear! When will they think of the children?). Last edited by nol : 04-12-2016 at 01:12 PM. |
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04-12-2016, 01:02 PM
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#923 | |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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Quote:
I think it's going to be longer than a 3-year thing. Edit: I'm not opposed to trading away players and going young. It can be fun as a fan to have that young team with lots of talent, and know that you're going to be better the next year, and then the year after that, etc. That's not really what the 76ers are doing. They've bottomed out in year 3. I'm not a fan of perpetual long-term tanking, the sentiment that championships are the only things that matter, and most of all, the way the NBA rewards losing so much more than winning, and all the weird rooting dilemmas that come from that for so many NBA teams. Last edited by molson : 04-12-2016 at 01:11 PM. |
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04-12-2016, 01:06 PM
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#924 |
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Newburgh, NY
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Yeah, I think at best the 76ers will make the playoffs in year five of the rebuild.
__________________
To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.. - Mr. Rogers |
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04-12-2016, 01:14 PM
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#925 | |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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Quote:
I'm expecting them to blow everything up under new leadership before then. But if they do stay the course, and win a championship in year 8 or whatever, it will be interesting to see what happens when more teams try the same. There will be heated competition to lose tons of games year after year, and only so many losses to go around. The Warriors' record might not last long. Last edited by molson : 04-12-2016 at 01:26 PM. |
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04-12-2016, 01:33 PM
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#926 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Quote:
It's cool that you've just stumbled upon the notion that the worst teams in the league get a higher draft choice, but this is nothing new. You can look at the standings year after year and see that a few teams lose 60+ games each season regardless of how much attention is paid to tanking or the draft or whatever. Perhaps the biggest factor working against Sam Hinkie was that the Knicks and Lakers are the worst they've ever been, and when you add in the Celtics post Big-Three, you had a lot of people who never thought much about the draft before (why care about the best young players heading into the league when you can just sign them or pull off a lopsided trade for them a few years down the road?) learning about how it works all at once. The Lakers could very well end up with higher draft selections than Philadelphia over the last three seasons, but nobody got too worked up about it because it's just good old-fashioned incompetence going on there. Last edited by nol : 04-12-2016 at 05:53 PM. |
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04-12-2016, 01:45 PM
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#927 | |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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Quote:
It seems as though the draft is more of an exact science, and thus, more predictable and important, than it was a few decades ago. The Clippers could get high draft pick after high draft pick but they still always sucked because their team management sucked. Or maybe teams have always tanked and only the media and fan perception has changed, but we used to mock the teams that sucked, rather than celebrate the genius of their GMs before they won anything. And we used to more uniformly root for our teams to win basketball games. Like I've posted, if you look back at some of the memorable stars and teams that didn't win championships, I think we'd look at them a lot differently today. Everything looks different when there's a huge conflict between winning games and winning championships. Last edited by molson : 04-12-2016 at 02:11 PM. |
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04-12-2016, 02:06 PM
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#928 | |
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Behind Enemy Lines in Athens, GA
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Quote:
Dammit, you would go & make me curious 2015 GS 67, final four 53+ 2014 SA 62, final four 54+ 2013 MIA 66, final four 49+ 2012 MIA 46 (projects to 57), final four 48+ (projected) 2011 DAL 57, final four 55+ 2010 LAL 57, final four 50+ 2009 LAL 65, final four 54+ 2008 BOS 66, final four 56+ 2007 SA 58, final four 50+ 2006 MIA 52, final four 52+ 2005 SA 59, final four 54+ 2004 DET 54, final four 56+ So the answer is once since Lebron was a rookie. 5 of 12 have won 62 or more Of conference finalists, 11 of 12 years have had no team with under 50 wins
__________________
"I lit another cigarette. Unless I specifically inform you to the contrary, I am always lighting another cigarette." - from a novel by Martin Amis |
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04-12-2016, 04:53 PM
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#929 |
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College Prospect
Join Date: Nov 2014
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That 2006 Miami team got atrocious refball. Pretty sure Wade averaged around 15 free throw attempts in the series against Dallas and got so many phantom fouls called for him. The last two games of that series I know Wade had over 40 free throw attempts. Dallas lost both of those games with a combined margin of less than 5 points.
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04-12-2016, 07:03 PM
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#930 | |
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Quote:
There's possibly more continuity at the top of the league than there has ever been. Consider the West, where the only thing preventing the same 8 teams from making the playoffs the last 3 seasons is Westbrook and Durant being injured for most of last year, which allowed New Orleans to make the playoffs on the last day of the season via tiebreaker, get swept, and promptly regress. There have seen no serious discussions about the Clippers, Thunder, Mavericks, Rockets, Grizzlies, Blazers, Spurs, or Warriors needing to completely blow things up over the past few years. The Blazers are the only one of these teams to even go as far as not re-signing every single key player, and that wasn't for a lack of trying. So much for "it's only about winning championships and teams would rather be last place than make the playoffs." Take any non-playoff team in the West at the time Hinkie was hired (and restating the obvious that all these teams had rosters that were better set up to be competitive over the next three years), and even with the extremely modest goal of "be more competitive at some point over the next few years," how many achieved even that? The rising cap, the new CBA, and the new TV deal have made decisions like "is Gordon Hayward worth a max contract?" much easier over the past few years; James Harden would have never been made available in today's financial climate, so that and buying first round picks are two big "stack your team for the future without tanking" avenues that are simply not available anymore. For all the talk about "oh no the agents hate Hinkie," it would have been one thing to put on the bravado when every team is throwing money around and another to talk a client out of going somewhere that's offering significantly more money and a bigger role. So, it's easier for teams to hold onto their good players than it's been since free agency became a thing (and Philadelphia in 2012-13 had fewer good players to hold onto than any other team thanks to Hinkie's predecessors) and the talent that has come into the league has not been particularly strong. No player drafted from 2013-15 has been named to an All-Star or All-NBA team yet, which is pretty rare when talking about players who are in some cases 3 years into the league. Had the Sixers actually been competitive by now, it would have made Moneyball look elementary. Last edited by nol : 04-12-2016 at 07:28 PM. |
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04-13-2016, 08:14 AM
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#931 |
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Death Herald
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Le stelle la notte sono grandi e luminose nel cuore profondo del Texas
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The Houston conundrum:
Win tonight and make the playoffs, only to face Golden State in the first round Lose tonight, miss the playoffs, and keep their lottery protected first round pick.
__________________
Thinkin' of a master plan 'Cuz ain't nuthin' but sweat inside my hand So I dig into my pocket, all my money is spent So I dig deeper but still comin' up with lint |
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04-13-2016, 08:17 AM
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#932 |
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Head Coach
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: North Carolina
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Kobe's last game and the Warriors going for 73 are scheduled against each other. Seems kind of crazy that the NBA didn't move one of the games to an earlier slot.
If this were the NFL, they would have figured out a way to play each quarter of each game separately and make it into an eight-night event with each night having a different sponsor and musical guest. |
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04-13-2016, 09:41 AM
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#933 | |||
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Wolverine Studios
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Quote:
You keep saying this but its not really the case. That Sixers team had Jrue Holiday who in his 4th season in 12-13 made the All-Star team with averages of 17.7/8.0/1.6 spg. He was a 22 year old all-star and injuries had not yet been a problem in his career. They also had Thad Young, 24 at the time, who went for 14.8/7.5/1.8 spg that season. There was still also expectations for Evan Turner who also at 24 averaged 13.3/6.3 rpg/4.3 apg. You had your future star in Jrue and two 24 year old guys that would at least be decent starters. But above all that there was one injured big man the team pinned all its future hopes on (sound familiar?) - Andrew Bynum. We know how it turned out but had he gotten healthy towards the end of the season you know Philly would have had to lay out a huge contract for him or at the very least he would have been a S&T asset. Even as it were they still had to consider whether or not to take a chance on him getting healthy - otherwise they traded an awful lot for literally nothing which of course turned out to be the case. Hinkie did not inherit a glorified d-league squad that was light years worse than anyone else and a healthy/engaged Bynum changes everything making Philly among the best teams in the East with two all-stars 25 and under and one of them being the best big man in the league. Teams equally bad or worse at that point - Cleveland (Kyrie/Waiters/Tristan), Charlotte (Kemba/MKG/Gerald Henderson), Phoenix (Dragic/Gortat/Markieff), Orlando (Vuc/Tobias/Afflalo) Quote:
There's only a handful of players who can be all-stars and even fewer all-nba - who did you think someone could draft that would leap LeBron, Durant, Westbrook, Curry, Paul, Harden, George, Blake, Duncan, Melo, Kobe, Cousins, Gasol (both), Wade, Kawhi, Bosh, Millsap, Wall, Butler, Kyrie, Klay, Draymond and even the 2012 class of Davis, Lillard, Drummond... etc? Anthony Davis is one of the best players drafted in recent history and it took him 3 years to make All-NBA. The league has had the most talent its had in a LONG time so it is going to take time for Towns, Wiggins or whoever else to jump ahead of any of these guys. Quote:
Sure - had it worked at least a handful of other teams would be willing to punt multiple seasons to end up better. But since after year three they are still on the bottom I don't think too many more GMs are going to risk that sort of plan. Kind of ironic though that blowing valuable assets on an injured big man opened the door for Hinkie's experiment and in the end was one of the downfalls of it. |
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04-13-2016, 11:29 AM
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#934 | |
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Grey Dog Software
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Phoenix, AZ by way of Belleville, IL
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Quote:
There's so much randomness with winning a title and the breaks required to make that the end all be all for NBA team success/enjoyment. It's nice to be in the title mix, but you can have a run of sustained success, enjoyable basketball for your fans and just not have players who can beat Jordan/Duncan/Lebron/Curry. That doesn't mean you should tear it up and stink for 3-4 seasons - you just need to hope for some breaks while you try to incrementally improve each season. There's such an advantage to having the best player (two of the top 5) in the NBA that you may just be SOL for the primes of guys like Jordan/Pippen, Shaq/Kobe, Duncan/Parker/Manu, Lebron/Wade and Curry/Klay/Draymond. But that doesn't mean you should just pull a Philly and be terrible for 4-5 seasons since you are facing Golden State in their prime. It just means you keep trying to get better and maybe FA or an injury opens the door for you. But even if it doesn't, there's no shame in having an extremely entertaining and competitive team for a 6-7 year run that never wins a title. Last edited by Arles : 04-13-2016 at 11:34 AM. |
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04-13-2016, 12:25 PM
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#935 | |
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Hall Of Famer
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Newburgh, NY
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Quote:
Especially if multiple teams do this. There are very few superstars, so if ten or fifteen teams decide to tank, most of them won't even be successful.
__________________
To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.. - Mr. Rogers |
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04-13-2016, 12:30 PM
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#936 | ||
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Coordinator
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Puyallup, WA
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Quote:
You mean the Phoenix teams that won 62, 54, 61, and 55 games? An Orlando Magic team that went to the finals? An Oklahoma City team that's won 50+ games 6 out of 8 years (it would be 8 out 8 if not for Durant's injury and a shortened season), Barkley's Suns that played for a title, Webber's Kings that were one of the best teams in the NBA, and the Clippers who have been one of the best teams in the NBA? I'm fairly certain every single team you mentioned would easily fall under "pushing to win a title". None of them were trying to be a 6 through 8 seed in their conference. Quote:
Of course there's a lot of randomness. Which is exactly why it's absurd to expect a title. Asking your team to have it as its ultimate goal isn't absurd. The randomness in the NBA is far less than MLB and the NFL where by simply making the playoffs you have a legitimate chance at winning a title. In the NBA if you're not building a team to be a top 3 seed you have to ask yourself what the hell you're doing. Last edited by Atocep : 04-13-2016 at 12:31 PM. |
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04-13-2016, 12:33 PM
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#937 |
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Dark Cloud
Join Date: Apr 2001
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Didn't realize how many Kobe fans there are/were until I hit the hashtag. It's sort of bizarre to me, but I'm not an NBA fan like that...and maybe it's because he's so polarizing.
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FBCB / FPB3 Mods |
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04-13-2016, 12:38 PM
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#938 |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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I think every team wants to ultimately win a lot of games, some are just trying to do it this year, and others are trying to do in in 2022.
But don't you have to be good before you can be great? Not a lot of teams are going to go from 20 to 60 wins in one season. At some point you have to put out a team where the high-end of expectations in just getting to the playoffs. The 76ers aren't going to win 15 games for 5 years and then suddenly decide - OK, this year we're a championship team. I also wonder if there's a human factor at play that can hold back the 76ers and the long-term tanking strategy. I was listening to Bill Simmons talk about that this morning. The players in Philadelphia aren't really a part of a team gaining momentum, they're "assets" in an experiment who probably are not going to be there very long. And they're not going to play in any meaningful games that the fans or the front office actually want them to win. It's different in a standard re-build where you might win 20, then 35, than 50, then contend for a title, all with mostly the same core of players v. winning 10-20 games for 5 straight seasons or however long phase one of this genius experiment is. I can't know for sure how much that impacts human beings on NBA teams, or free agents who may consider signing there, or whether you can just turn on a switch after playing 5 years of meaningless games that your fans and employers want you to lose, but it was interesting to hear it discussed. Edit: And if winning and competing for a title is all that matters, and only the top 3 seeds can do that - the NBA season and even the majority of the playoffs are a huge waste of time, aren't they? Maybe the season should be 50 games and only the top 3 teams in each conference make the playoffs. Last edited by molson : 04-13-2016 at 12:48 PM. |
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04-13-2016, 12:52 PM
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#939 | |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Nov 2006
Location: Puyallup, WA
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Quote:
Using teams in the example above: Suns: '87-'88 won 28 games. '88-'89 won 55 games and stayed in that range until their title appearance season of 62 wins. The Suns again under D'Antoni: '03-'04 won 29 games. In '04-'05 they won 62. The Clippers: '10-'11 won 32 games (.390 winning percentage) and in '11-'12 won 40 games (.606 winning percentage in a shortened season). Oklahoma City: '08-'09 won 23 games and in '09-'10 won 50. Sacramento Kings: Probably the only example of a team that built themselves steadily upward. Every other team either had a big 1 year jump or a jump over 2 years (Magic and Heat). |
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04-13-2016, 01:02 PM
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#940 | ||||
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Quote:
If your three best players top out as 'decent starters' that's an awful, awful team! Thad Young is the 2nd-best player on the 21-60 Nets (who did not even have incentive to be bad) right now. Evan Turner does not start and is not even a Sixth Man of the Year contender. Holiday was traded for not one, but two players you'd rather have than him going forward. You could look at what those guys have done since leaving Philadelphia, or you could use common sense and know that a 24-year-old player on average is not going to get very much better. Quote:
Yeah, there's a pretty significant difference between using one first-round pick and trading your best player, two most recent first-round picks, and two conditional future first round picks for a guy who earns 5 times as much as the #3 pick makes. Joel Embiid did not affect their ability to acquire other players (and in fact even helped it after considering Philly was 2 losses away from picking Towns). Quote:
Finally, some examples to show how screwed Philadelphia was! Cleveland had the first overall pick in the draft, and all three of those players (even Waiters) have gone on to be paid much more than Young and Turner. Even if you were to assume that Holiday would be completely healthy going forward and was an equal to Kyrie, Kyrie had more value going forward by virtue of being younger. In Phoenix (5th pick, not 11th), Dragic went on to be 2nd team all-NBA, which is a far cry from what Thad Young has done for the Timberwolves and Nets over the past couple seasons, and they got Bledsoe for Jared Dudley, a guy who the Clippers desired due to his skillset and cheap contract. In other words, even if Philly had somehow decided that a Holiday-Bledsoe backcourt was going to be the path to relevance, there was nothing to trade that the Clippers would've wanted. Can't even throw in a future first to sweeten the deal because those were already traded to Orlando. Charlotte had the 4th pick. Al Jefferson and Kemba Walker have done much more than any player on the Sixers has gone on to do. Kidd-Gilchrist was (and still is even with the injury this season) a younger and more valuable player than Turner. He's younger right now than Evan Turner was upon entering the league. Orlando: picking 2nd, not 11th. Their best player you listed was traded from Philadelphia for nothing! All players you listed since free agency have earned significantly more money than the Philly players (4/$64 for Harris, 4/$53 for Vucevic, compared to 2/$6.7 for Turner and 4/$50 for Young). Add to that the handful of teams that were in even better situations in 2013 and somehow are ending 2016 with a worse future outlook than Philadelphia. Quote:
My point exactly. There are a lot of really talented guys (many of whom were at an All-Star/All-NBA level by their second season) in the league right now, and how many of them have been even close to changing teams over the past 3 years? If you're going to hammer the draft choices (who again are 20-22 years old and still have any number of possible future outcomes), keep in mind that almost all of the alternatives are quite a ways away from being able to consistently help an NBA team compete in games. The fact that nobody from the 2014 draft had a phenomenal rookie season, and nobody has made a huge leap forward this year makes it more likely that none of the alternatives would have resulted in a competitive team. Think of it this way: when it was announced that Embiid was supposed to have a bone graft and miss the season, you probably could have said something along the lines of, "Now Marcus Smart has a much higher chance of ever becoming a future good starter/future All-Star/whatever than Embiid because Embiid is probably not gonna ever play whereas if Smart were to have a nice little breakout season of 12-14 points per game on good defense for a playoff team I could totally envision people talking about him as a real up-and-coming star." Over the past 6 months, those odds have certainly shifted. Embiid has rehabbed without any setbacks or stories about his lack of focus, while Smart has not improved (and regressed significantly in terms of his three-point shooting) following one year of experience. Same thing with comparing Saric to the alternatives: once it was known he wasn't coming over this season, he's certainly improved his future outlook by improving and playing well in Europe. Last edited by nol : 04-13-2016 at 01:08 PM. |
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04-13-2016, 01:06 PM
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#941 | |
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Torchbearer
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: On Lake Harriet
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Quote:
I've never been a Kobe fan, but living in LA for so long, I'm weirdly moved/intrigued by tonight. |
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04-13-2016, 01:07 PM
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#942 |
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General Manager
Join Date: Oct 2002
Location: The Mountains
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So under the Sixers plan, what year do they expect to make the jump to 60 wins and championship contention? Are they saying, "we're going to intentionally have the worst team possible until 2019, and then win it all in 2020?" Or are they trying to build a team that improves every year, but have just failed at that so far? Edit: If 20-50 wins is the terrible place to be, and most great teams skip that range, it would seem like under the Sixers plan they really have to pick the year they stop tanking and get that year right.
Last edited by molson : 04-13-2016 at 01:16 PM. |
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04-13-2016, 01:30 PM
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#943 |
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Coordinator
Join Date: Nov 2003
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This argument just goes to show how the NBA has a really stupid model and should probably be contracted by 10 teams. Why would I be a fan of a team that has zero chance of being a contender in the next 10 years unless they hit a 1% lottery of drafting a superstar?
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04-13-2016, 02:01 PM
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#944 |
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"Dutch"
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Tampa, FL
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The NBA sweet spot was probably 16 teams.
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04-13-2016, 02:11 PM
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#945 |
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Go Reds
Join Date: May 2001
Location: Bloodbuzz Ohio
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16 teams? What?
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04-13-2016, 02:31 PM
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#946 | |||||||
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Wolverine Studios
Join Date: Oct 2003
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Quote:
I didn't say the three best were "decent starters" - I said that was Young and Turner. I said Holiday was poised to be a star. He was 22, averaging 18/8 and an all-star. You really think assuming he didn't get hurt that what he was there was his ceiling? Quote:
First I thought financial matters meant nothing? Who cares what you would have paid Bynum - had he been healthy and continued on from what he did in LA then Philly and everyone else in the league would have gladly maxed him because he was the best big man in the league and getting better. I would argue Embiid did affect their ability to acquire other players - first off his attitude/actions towards his injury has been suspect. Second his selection showed the rest of the players and agents in the league that Philly wasn't serious about competing anytime in the near future. Maybe without that problem then Porzingis would be a Sixer right now. And what on earth does "2 losses away from picking Towns" mean? You're really arguing that part of what made Embiid a good pick is that because of him they almost were able to lose the most games in the league and almost were able to pick Towns? Maybe if they would have picked someone who saw the floor they could have won 4 more games then and ended up with the 2nd pick, right? Quote:
Who cares what Waiters or Thompson have been paid. From a talent standpoint I would take a bag of balls over Waiters any day so Turner was clearly better than him and Thompson is 2 years younger but I can't say I would rather have him over Thad Young. Quote:
Why are you comparing Dragic to Young? Dragic should be compared to Holiday - the best player both teams had at the time if you are comparing who had it worse. And what difference does the 5th vs 11th make in that draft? Its not like there were 5 good players and Philly was stuck at 11 - there was Dipo and Noel (who was hurt) and that was it for any real interesting players. Quote:
What? They didn't desire Jared Dudley - they wanted JJ Redick. They loved Dudley so much and were willing to give up a future star for him that they benched him midway through the year and traded him along with a 1st round pick for two guys that would never play for them after that, right? This is EXACTLY the kind of deal the 76ers or any other team could have made. The Clippers knew they weren't paying Bledsoe and had to deal him soon. Turner's contract was pretty similar to Dudley. The problem is Philly never even considered this sort of thing because it meant *gasp* paying someone and *double gasp* bringing in a good player might make them win some games now. Quote:
So in other words except for had they got Towns (or maybe if Porzingis wanted anything to do with them) there was nothing they could have done in the last 3 years anyways to prevent them from being an abomination and being the worst team in the league at this point anyways. Gotcha. Quote:
Obviously you're a big Philly fan so for your sake I hope it works out but what you've essentially said here is we've completely sucked for three years but we have Noel and there's hope for the future - Embiid might get healthy, Saric might translate to the NBA, they might win the lottery, maybe that Lakers pick will end up being ok still or... Noel could also leave after next season (or could at least sign a huge offer that Philly would then have to match). Embiid may or may not be healthy and if he's healthy will he have a full career? Playing well in Europe is no indicator of NBA success assuming Saric does come over. What if Philly gets boned in the lottery and is staring at Buddy Hield with the 3rd pick? What if the Lakers don't give up the pick this year and they turn their way into the 10-15th pick next year? Everything you're banking on and talking about making Philly a desirable team is hope. Noel (and I guess Okafor although I don't like him) is what is real and what they actually have right now. I think they're going to be lucky if two out of Embiid/Saric/lottery/Lakers pick actually works out and that's just not going to be enough to make them competitive let alone anywhere near a contending team. |
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04-13-2016, 02:46 PM
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#947 | ||
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Grey Dog Software
Join Date: Nov 2000
Location: Phoenix, AZ by way of Belleville, IL
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Again, you can choose to model off OKC like Philly did and put all your eggs in the draft basket. But, what if you don't win in the lottery or make a few bad picks? You're screwed. You can use an occasional lottery pick to help, but you need to also build via FA and trade to get a solid infrastructure. Then, when you have a shot at that transcendent talent, you can either trade or tank for the one season. Continually tanking just reduces your options and makes you an eyesore on the league. And refusing to add good players via FA and trade is just stupid. There's no reason Philly shouldn't have gotten into the sweepstakes for many of these up-and-comers on the market with all their assets. They could have landed guys like Bledsoe, Isaiah Thomas, Crowder, Tobias Harris and Reggie Jackson in trades. They had more assets than everyone, but they never even tried. Last edited by Arles : 04-13-2016 at 02:49 PM. |
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04-13-2016, 04:14 PM
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#948 | ||||||||
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Banned
Join Date: Oct 2003
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I already mentioned that he was an all-star in a historically weak conference and only because Derrick Rose was injured. I forget who said this first but it's stuck with me: there are 80 points and 40 rebounds to be had every night just by showing up, and somebody on the team has got to get them. Players are much closer to their peak production at 22-23 than you imagine them to be. Chris Paul put up his statistically most impressive seasons at that age, so you're chastising the Sixers for relying on hope while saying that the obvious alternative move was to hold onto a guy who ended up playing half of the games over the next three seasons while hoping he would massively improve (and become what, the best player on a team that wins 25 games? If James Harden or Damian Lillard were subbed for that optimal, fully-healthy version of Holiday, the Blazers and Rockets would not be particularly close to making the playoffs). Additionally, an organization full of pencil-pushing nerds would not need to reach too far into its bag of tricks to see that the "18 and 8" were achieved while playing more minutes per game than a player of his stature probably should have been and that as a result, future health and stardom were less likely. Quote:
$17 million is much more significant in the context of a salary cap versus the balance sheet of an organization that has increased in value from $300 million to $700 million by virtue of being in the NBA. Quote:
Because I have faith that a marketplace of 30 teams, all of whom employ people who are well-compensated to acquire the best basketball players on the planet when billions of dollars are at stake, will in general do a better job of assessing a player's future value than some schmoe going "this guy scored 14 points per game, he's good!" The same organization that made the Durant and Westbrook and Ibaka selections we all know and love also chose to trade a first round pick for Waiters (who is about to be a free agent) when Evan Turner was quite available; you think Danny Ainge is having any second thoughts if some team were insane enough to offer a first round pick for Evan Turner? Quote:
Did you seriously just ask why it's better to have the 5th pick in the draft than the 11th? I laid out that all but the absolute best combinations of players drafted from 2013-15 would not have resulted in a competitive team, so it follows that if one had been hellbent on making the 76ers competitive in the 2013-16 period, going full Brooklyn and trading even more young players and picks would have been the option. Maybe with the 5th pick instead for the 11th, a trade package looks marginally better and you get some veteran who is able to slide Holiday/Young/Turner/etc. down a notch; then you may make a run for the 8th seed with a capped out team that would have had zero first round picks from 2010-15, but hey, competitive! Your point about Bynum is a great example of what the Sixers did very well under Hinkie. For all the 'hurr hurr it's a Ponzi scheme designed for infinite job security,' talk, if he'd really wanted job security keeping Bynum around would have been his best possible move. 2012-13 was full of all sorts of melodrama about what Bynum was doing off the court; he's the perfect scapegoat have signed to a long-term deal so you could say "yeah we could've been something if he'd given a crap about playing, but look at him goofing around and taking all our money after how much we sacrificed for him. He really screwed us over." Hinkie saw it was a sunk cost and moved on. Quote:
You didn't follow along very well. Dudley was thrown in the deal because he was a cheap role player. The Sixers did not have any such players, so even had they hatched a plan to be 'competitive' and use their cap space to acquire Bledsoe and max him (which with Bynum still with the team would have essentially put them at the cap) their best offer was beaten by Phoenix. Quote:
Yep, it's a very convincing argument supported by lots of data. There are things they could have done to win 15-20 games this year and 20-25 games last year. Just like it didn't require going out on much of a limb 2 years ago to know that Brooklyn was going to be in for an extended run of suckiness. Quote:
I suppose if you disagree with the radical line of thinking that says it's better to have the 5th pick in the draft than the 11th pick, you'd also dispute the notion that a player performing well is a better sign for the future than that player performing poorly. What if Minnesota or Portland get boned by Andrew Wiggins or Damian Lillard getting injured in the playoffs or while competing to qualify for the Olympics? What if Atlanta and Memphis get boned by Al Horford or Mike Conley leaving in free agency? Everything has its odds regardless of whether you choose to focus on them. You don't get to claim stuff like 'odds suggest the Lakers will keep the pick this year' and 'what if the Sixers fell out of the top two?' You worry about both things or neither. Quote:
No, 2013 started with Philadelphia having far fewer assets than everyone. It's explained pretty clearly how they couldn't have gotten Bledsoe. Even if Philadelphia had wanted to do something extremely foolhardy and offer the 11th pick and some other future draft choice to max Bledsoe, the Clippers are built for the present to such an extent that Doc Rivers still would have preferred the veteran offer. Crowder was acquired for Rondo in a panic trade based on Rondo's name and his past reputation; the Sixers had nobody with that cachet. You are declaring a lot of these teams to be resounding successes even though the most significant games of the season have not been played. If Detroit ends its five-year playoff drought getting trounced by the Cavs, the Pistons go into the offseason trying to sign one max player, then max Drummond like what San Antonio did with Aldridge and Leonard. If they don't get that guy, they max Drummond and that's essentially going to be the team going forward. Nothing wrong with that for certain, but you are essentially saying that had the Sixers nailed every move they'd be in that position at best (and likely lower because they didn't have Andre Drummond on their roster to start). Last edited by nol : 04-13-2016 at 05:47 PM. |
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04-13-2016, 04:31 PM
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#949 |
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Pro Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
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Just a quick thing: I think Saric will be great in a supporting role, with the way the league is shifting i can definitely see him play the small-ball 4 really well.
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“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” Last edited by whomario : 04-13-2016 at 04:35 PM. |
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04-13-2016, 04:34 PM
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#950 |
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Pro Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
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yeah, that´s a well done video. Every story needs a "villain", Kobe was certainly good in that regard. Personally i always admired his ability and drive, as well as his fundamentally sound abilities. Yes, he was a relentless chucker but also developed phenomenal footwork, added tons of skills SGs don´t naturally have and certainly dominated for a time. I also doubt we´ll see another 6´6 SG operating from the ellbow and through isos any time soon with the shift in playstyle. On the other hand, he certainly was an egotistical maniac who gave a whole new meaning to "hero ball", which i basically despise out of principle. In the theme of the Nike ad: Thanks for everything but good riddance, Mr. Bryant.
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“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” |
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