[In Retrospect] Which event in the past 20 years has set its respective team back the most?

The Boston tank for Duncan "surprise" is a little silly because they were still underdogs vs. the field. Cleveland wasn't winning any championships if LBJ had stayed. That's why he left.

Shaq leaving Orlando is the only case where his team would have been in the top 2 or 3 teams in the league if he stayed.

The Oden injury hurt Portland but the guy was always overrated. At his best, he was a slower Dwight Howard with twice the foul rate.

 

28. I don't take it the wrong way.

I understand the implications of tanking. But, even if their intent is to land a franchise changing player, your team has to be either really bad in the first place or have star players out in order to even consider tanking (Spurs). So, I would have to really look at the Boston team that tanked and how they did it. But, typically you're not the only team to tank and a team shouldn't risk their next 10 years on a 25% chance of landing a player.

I have only started following basketball since '93, so, I am not stating this as a matter of fact, but more or just raising the question/making the argument. Admittedly, I wouldn't try to argue it too hard since I really didn't get into the deeper details of basketball about 10 years ago. Thanks

 

Trading Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley and Cato for TMac and Flotsam

Rocket River
. . . yes I am Serious

 

That would make sense. I guess I was making the argument that it didn't set the team backwards, since they really didn't seem to lose any players of significance to tank or weren't a playoff team to begin with. You are making the argument that they would've had a totally different team with Duncan, so the opportunity cost was great and changed the franchise. But, I don't know if I would say it set them backwards.

Although, if they would've drafted Duncan, they still wouldn't have been instant contenders and they would have never drafted Paul Pierce, who is quite the player himself. If you replace Duncan with Pierce, does that team win against the Lakers or other teams that were competing at that time? Whereas, with San Antonio, they were already a top team who had Robinson out for the full season. So, losing out on Duncan might've cost San Antonio all of their rings, by that stance.

Either way, I don't think it set Boston backwards, and if so, not the most.

 

Celtics tanking for Duncan; maybe also Denver not getting Lebron and getting Melo instead or Len Bias dying.

 

And the Rockets hire ...

 

Well IMHO the most franchise-breaking event in the last few years has got to be Greg Oden over Kevin Durant. A team featuring Brandon Roy, LMA and KD would have been champions easily.

If we're talking about the worst moves ever though IMHO NYC has to take the cake. It wasn't just one move but everything from Starbury to Eddy Curry to head case Z. Randolph and recently signing Amare and Melo to the super max...yeah, that team is horrible.

 

Nobody mentioned "basketball reasons" yet?

We still don't know how many years Stern set the Lakers back by not letting them have Chris Paul.

 

Interesting to refer to not drafting Carmelo as a setback rather than good fortune.

 

Blazers - Passing up - K. Durant & taking G. Oden

Side note:

30 Yrs ago - Blazers - Pass up M. Jordan & take Sam Bowie

Would suck being a Blazers fan. More bad luck than bad picks, IMO.

 

At the time
You had the Best young Backcourt in the league
They had the Best Up and Coming Center
You had a servicible PF in Kelvin Cato [he was not a GREAT anything but next to Yao he was servicable because on offense you did not ask much from him and on defense he was strong enough to make it work]
You had The Veteran Jim Jackson helping to guide the team

You had FIRE
You had HEART
And they team was learning and coming together
Went into the Lakers home Court and Took the game to them.
I was SO EXCITED after that season.

We went with Mr. Pure Talent . . .No Heart . . .
Won more regular season games. . but nothing else

Rocket River
Operation shutdown

 

1. Considering Len Bias death put a foreseeable halt to an aging Celtics powerhouse, during the 90s to the early 2000s...it's something that lead to an NBA crackdown on illicit drug use, which effected alot of players from the late 80s to early 90s.

Reggie Lewis... died on July 27, 1993 ... 21 years ... sorry for being off by one year.

2. It took New Orleans another twenty years to attract a team.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Jazz

 

Selling Kyle Korver for a new copy machine

 

This is true. Although the two championships before helped blunt the pain

 

20 years from now we will all be saying that the Lakers Dynasty ended forever with the death of Jerry Buss.

 

Thought this was a joke. Looked it up. Lol'd.

 

Not arguing with your analysis, it's very good.

But I've noticed that really good teams will be more set back by a bad decision than a really bad team.

It will cost a god team a championship. It will cost a bad team, well, not much really.