Why the Rockets Can't Lose: The McGrady Trade and the Myth of Team Building

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1. Does anyone in the world believe any American Olympic Basketball team can be beat in a best of seven games series? I say this because THIS is why we consider ourselves THE World Champions. It does not matter what reasons are given from the rest of the world--at the end of the day they would not bet their life savings on their arguments. I would bet everything I have that a USA Olympic team would win every seven-game series.

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2. Yao only wants to play for China due to his PRIDE in his country. It has nothing to do with him thinking that its the REAL Championship game.

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3. The following in only my personal opinion and does not reflect the opinions of Americans in general:

No offence to soccer fans, but soccer is only so popular throughout the world, because its the easiest sport to play in a third world country. Even thousands of years ago, it was easy to just kick a round object on the ground between two sticks and their you have it. Any number of people can play and height/strength are no great advantages.

This is by no means an insult to the GREATLY SKILLED athletes currently in the soccer world.

It just was an easy sports concept to get anyone, anywhere, in any environment to start playing and therefore it caught on and became popular.
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Great post OP

I agree with your 3 franchise defining attributes.

1. The ability to score against a defense totally committed to stopping you from scoring. IMO this is the least rare of the three but almost always forms the basis for entry into the discussion.

2. Shut down defense. This is very subjective but IMO it is a very obvious attribute to spot when a player has it and it goes hand in hand with item 3. I don't think you can be a truly great defender without a desire to crush your opponent.

3. Ultimate competitive drive. Killer instinct. This IMO is the most important and most rare attribute to being an ELITE franchise player. Jordan, Hakeem, Isiah, Moses(this may just be meanness in Moses case), Kobe, Bird etc. It is also the most difficult to quantify and by far the most subjective.

IMO many of the players on your list do NOT have attribute 3. Shaq, Magic(maybe), LeBron(has it on occasion), Howard, Ewing, Durant, Pierce, Nowitski, Roy. No coincidence IMO that Shaq, Magic,and Pierce all had either borderline francise players (KG) or unbelievable other tallent Kobe, Wade, Worthy, Kareem, Ray Allen, to help them win their championships.

There is one other attribute.

X. Having unmatched(for your era) physical advantages at your position. Mikan, Wilt, Shaq, Magic(6'9" point guard is just sick in any era), LeBron(PF playing 2G is pretty sick).

Somebody more creative than myself should come up with a thread that allows the board to "elect" an Elite franchise player list based on weighting the above criteria for each player submitted. I think the list will be very short if you have to have at least an 8 out of ten on any 3 of the above attributes. Say, a combined score of 24 out of 30 gets you in. I think IMO there are only 2 that score a 30 out of 30... Hakeem and Jordan.

 

great thread
simply a franchise player dominates in both ends of the floor and makes his teammates better
but one thing you forgot to mention is that you need HELP from your teammates

Kobe in 2006 for example was just shut down cause he didn't have the good players that can help him to win the champ

 

You just spouted what I've been saying for nearly a year now.

 

Yes it was well written and entertaining. However no matter how interesting it does not change the fact that the OP is wrong though. Everything he said was wrong, from his chances of getting a franchise player to building in the draft is a sure fire way to become a dynasty. The Lakers and Celtics have the most amount of titles and while it is true that they drafted a core player, the majority of their guys were traded for. The fact is, building via draft takes too long.

You can get away with it if you somehow end up with multiple lottery picks in the same or consecutive drafts, but if you're only getting a lottery pick a draft don't expect a dynasty unless you trade for it. If you're a lottery team and you somehow acquire a Duncan or a Garnett or an LBJ, that guy will be good enough to put you into playoffs, but that same guy will prevent you from getting good picks anymore.

The point is, it takes both solid drafting and trading to build a contender. And IMHO everybody knows that in the first place.

 

Tyreke Evans is definitely the franchise player of this draft.