dougthonus wrote:League Circles wrote:I know you have reason to think you're being objective with Wagner at #8. My point is that I trivially came up with something just as objective that had a far, far worse outcome than yours.
Except that I used a site that I trust more than you, and Mitchell wasn't in their next four guys and was taken later in reality, so actual draft intel and actual results would point to it being far less likely we would take him. Your "just as objective" pick at #8 is to take the worst guy available who actually went 12th. That is called cherry picking.
I used NBA.com and now I've posted the 9 mainstream sites they consolidated from to make theirs. Hardly cherry picking. Mitchell went 9th, not 12th. But you were the one who swore that just taking whatever consensus mocks said to take at 8 would have absolutley crushed what we have instead. You conveniently stick to Wagner who isn't even special anyways and ignore Mitchell and James Bouknight, who NBA.com consolidated consensus mock had at #7 (went 11th). Sure it's possible that your site has a "better" methodology than nba.com to identify average/consensus mock positions, but it's obviously not an exact science either way.
Yes, it was the consequence of getting lucky and already having a group of young, supporting stars coming into their own. Let's see if we had Wagner, Lauri, Coby, and then got lucky and got a star in the draft, would we have an era similar to the Rose era again? Sure seems like we would, because we'd have all the pieces ready to compete for a long time.
Hmm, I don't think most people in 2010 would have called Noah or Deng "stars" and many NBA fans would never call them that throughout their careers. I'd say they were very borderline despite, like Drummond, Vuc, Jamal Magloire, etc etc being "all stars". As for this hypothetical, it all depends on who the "star" in question is. But considering you think the team would be better than it is now when you think we're doomed, obviously odds would be even more heavily against us drafting a star with a middling pick. Lauri is simply no where near what Rose was as a piece. Higher TS%, sure. Impact on the game the same? Absolutely not. Derrick Rose would have scored 50 points a game without teams focusing their entire defenses to stop him, because he was an all time great threat to score at the basket on every play. He was also a better defender than Lauri among other things.
I would generally lump together the post Rose ACL tear into one era, it wasn't all defined by Butler, but those 5 seasons before you rebuilt only in 2 of them:
2012-13: 2nd round exit (no rose)
2013-14: 1st round exit (effectively no rose)
2014-15: 2nd round exit (With Rose as ~3rd or 4th best player)
2015-16: missed playoffs (with Rose as ~3rd or 4th best player)
2016-17: 1st round exit (no rose)
The Butler as best player era is probably the final 3 seasons of that grouping, which is still a playoff series win, and two playoff appearances, which is still a hell of a lot better than what we have going on now. We also maintained cleaner books and weren't out future assets which we still are now.
I mean, sure, we had one nice season in those three years. Which was the first one and was entirely built of old aging vets around Jimmy in Rose, Gasol, Noah, etc. But yeah, the team was better, but very very hard to argue it had a better future, as was proved in the following two years. At least now we have Caruso and maaaybe Zach and Patrick and Ayo to support him, vs having only old, peaked guys to support Butler. The results proved me correct.
Again, I'm not sure what you see in this current regime that you think is even remotely good. We are missing the playoffs regularly while making win now moves when 16/30 teams make the playoffs. Assuming we miss the playoffs this year, we are going to be out of the playoffs for three out of four years and have the worst cap situation and worst asset situation that we've had since the end of the Krause era. He loses on everything. He loses on money. He loses on success. He loses on future asset base. He has not advanced any reasonable goal that one would have for their front office. He has experienced no success and made the future worse.
When and where have I indicated that our regime is good? I've consistently said they're below average. I like aspects of their philosophy, like I did with Paxson, but disagree with many of their specific moves. I just don't buy into the fantasy that winning in the NBA is simply a matter of getting a few prospects simultaneously who are about the same age, extending them to whatever deals you have to, and then watering the garden and watching. Again, I firmly believe that MOST young players that look like they're going to be good never end up being that for the bulk of their career. That's why I'm always so hesitant to extend guys on contracts. Teams that aren't good (let's say 20/30 teams) should really never be signing guys to multiple year contracts who aren't clear long term above average starters. About 5 of those guys enter the NBA each year, and then take on average about 5 years until they achieve that for their prime. That's why draft picks outside the top 5 are laughable in expected return. The most likely outcome is that you get a guy that sucks, who you commit to for 4 years, and then overpay, who is inferior to guys you can trivially sign in free agency. Then with the cap space that those teams aren't wasting, they should be trying to absorb contracts of expiring guys and reevaluate every single summer and try to get actual good free agents. Kind of like the Jabari Parker plan but by absorbing in trade instead so that you have bird rights if they pan out.
If we don't have success this year we should probably clear some of these guys off of our books instead of pretend that we have to cling to them. Let Demar and Patrick walk or S&T them. Try to use Caruso to dump Vuc, whatever. At least then we'd have actual huge cap space to try to add to Coby and Zach in 2025. We can even have something like 20 mil in cap space this summer if we want without trading anyone, but given that it's a weak class, probably best to not stretch-waive Ball and instead position for 2025 when Coby will still be on a dream contract.
