Explain these teams. Or is their sole existence to be the island of misfit free agents or to be used as a trash dump for bloated contracts.
Kings were so fun to watch at the end of the 90's and early 00's. Pistons have a history with the "Bad Boys" and "Bad Boys II" Jazz had a great run with Malone and Stockton , and also those D-Will teams were quite good. Just not good enough to make the WCF on a consistent basis. Bucks had a awesome big 3 with Allen,"Big dog",Cassell in the early 00's. These teams haven't mattered much lately , but Pistons seem to be the closest to relevancy IMO.
Pistons could easily be relevant. They shouldn't be in this. Detroit is a good market when successful. HOWEVER, you could easily put the Cavs, Hawks, Bobcats, and Suns. The NBA should probably be a 20 team league.
Jazz makes sense to me: They have committed to rebuilding around Kanter, Burke, Favors and Hayward. Logical to let Jefferson and Millsap go and essentially rent their cap space for future draft picks. The only thing I quibble about is the price-- It seems that Daryl Morey got as much out of renting the Knicks $7M in cap room (i.e. Jared Jeffries) as the Jazz did out of renting $24M. Maybe they actually value Brandon Rush or even Biedrins? The other teams? It seems like a case of bad teams thinking they may be better than their record said they are and that a "pretty good" free agent would make them a borderline contender in the next year or two. Or maybe team owners and fan bases just got tired of rebuilding/tanking. People talk about the "OKC plan" like it's a recipe you can just duplicate. Doesn't happen that way. Most teams don't land Harden, Durant and Westbrook in 3 straight drafts after tanking even if you do get talent. Often a team keep losing with their youngsters and the owner and the fan base lose patience and decides to sign some free agent that make them a 40-45 win team with no cap flexibility for a season or two... then they get tired of mediocrity and start rebuilding/tanking again. Vicious cycle.
Those teams have to draft their stars and then keep them as most free agents don't want to play there. Tough situation.
I wonder what Detroit has up its sleeve. Dumars is very hit and miss, but he has built a championship team before. I think Detroit is in the beginning stages to building yet another contender. One of Monroe or Drummond will be moved, but just for who is the question at this point. Best guess would be Rondo, but probably need to wait to see if he's healthy. Monroe/Knight for Rondo/Sullinger makes a lot of sense. Rondo-KCP-Smith-Drummond starts to look like a serious team. Plus they'll have cap space next offseason with a couple bad contracts coming off the books (Stuckey & Villanueva). Detroit has something up its sleeve, Drummond or Monroe as centerpieces to a blockbuster deal could net Detroit an all star.
Their goal is to #TankForWiggins except for the Pistons...they're going to be stuck in mediocrity, but not terrible enough to have a good position in the lottery.
Detroit isn't in a a bad situation. Their primary quintet of Smith, Drummond, Pope, Monroe and Singler will still leave them a lot of cap room for next year. I'm not sure how good Drummond and Pope will be, but if they are good they could make an attractive destination, but it is detroit the American Wasteland Utah is tanking, hoping to win the lottery and have basically and empty payroll for FA. I actually like this approach, but it's Utah who wants to play there. Saremento starting 5 of Cousins,Landry,Salmons,McLemore,Thomas could be good, with cap space. But it's Sacramento The bucks are the only one of the 4 who seem to genuinely have no clue Its hard to build a true title contender in the NBA, especially when you are in a market where no FA is likely to sign. We should be thankful we live in market where great players are actually willing to play.
Agreed. The Jazz at least have a clear direction and figure to be major players next summer with the 2014 free agent class. Dennis Lindsey is doing a pretty decent job with the hand he was dealt.
I know his star has faded lately, but Joe Dumars is trash as a GM. Don't forget how big of a fluke it was to ever land Rasheed Wallace mid-season during their lone title year.
I'm gonna give Dumars credit though. Every single move to land that core which won the title was made by Dumars. He traded Grant for Big Ben/Atkins He traded for Rip He drafted Prince He signed Chauncey He traded for Sheed He signed their depth pieces I wouldn't call that a fluke year. He did build a legit contender basically from scratch (that team was a FORCE in the East for quite a long time). Since then, he has been terrible. Signings like Ben Gordon, Charlie Villanueva, even the Smoove one is questionable.
I don't get Utah... I know they are finally going full rebuild, but they should've done that the moment they traded Dwill. And Corbin should NOT be an NBA head coach!
How many teams did Lebron say he wouldn't mind their being? I vaguely remember hearing about this on Sports Radio 610 a few years ago, how he didn't think it would be a bad idea to trim the league to 10 or maybe even like 5 teams? I don't remember exactly, but something along those lines.
If the NBA would stop rigging things to helping certain teams, some of this wouldn't be happening. Think about it: - The Kings get royally screwed in handing the Lakers the Western Conference finals and they begin to fall off. It's a small market, and the screwjob costs them everything they had. - The Bucks get royally screwed in handing the Sixers the Eastern Conference finals and they begin to fall off. It's a small market, and the screwjob costs them everything they had. I'm not sure the Jazz or Pistons qualify here, but the formula is clear. The NBA manipulates to get their preferred team in, and the team suffers. If its a bigger market with a great GM, like when Vujacic raped us and wasn't called for anything a few years back, the team becomes mediocre before bouncing back. If it's a small market team, though, of course they can't survive that. You're setting them up for failure. Until the NBA stops meddling so they can cater to their big city bases, don't expect small market teams to stay competitive for long. Teams like the Spurs are the exception to the rule, and only because they are too good to pull the wool over fans' eyes.
Kings: No sympathy for them in any regard ... the owners' mismanagement of the team, while holding the city for hostage to the extenuating coaching carousel, Bucks: They are actually on the horizon, a primary star and versatile role player away from being an annual playoff contender. Pistons: The right coach will get them into playoffs, and in reality they've only being bad for about 4 seasons after total overhaul. Jazz: Not that bad in reality, simply average. It's kind of hard to recruit players to go to Utah. Though, they still have some promising young players on their roster, which validates the competency of that organization.
