A lot of other players didn’t — you’re not making a very good point. There have been HOFers in mid teens. There have been A LOT of busts. MOST lottery picks turn out to be busts. It’s not like some guarantee to get a star.
You could have the smartest front office in sports history and it won’t due a bit of good if you are picking in the late teens and 20s when true cornerstone players hit the draft they usually go #1, or at least top 10
Doesn't change the fact that most of the higher end talent is concentrated near the top of the draft. Also, you are missing the forest through the trees.... getting high draft picks to trade for a star/superstar.
hard to tell sometimes We aren’t good because of injuries right now. Hard to say what we would have been had Dipo and Wood not gotten hurt. If you’re celebrating losses and deliberately trying to hinder your chances to win, you’re going to develop a losing culture. The Knicks have a losing culture. They occasionally take a little step early in a season and fool you into thinking they are finally moving forward and developing but then they just flop. I predict the same will happen again this year. my main concern is we aren’t likely to get a top 4 even if we tried.
We aren't good because of the talent as well. It's a covid season plus normal injuries. Knicks are an example of the extreme. Right now we can't win games if we tried.
Cool. Let's just wait for the next time a team doesn't want/doesn't recognize that they have a franchise player as their 6th man and is willing to trade them for peanuts. That definitely happens all of the time.
Busting on high draft picks happens far more frequently than you realize. I’d rather have and cheer for a team that fights with what they’ve got rather than throws in the towel and chases draft picks.
Isn't that how we got Wood? Uh... erm.... yes, it is. Isn't that how Jimmy B got to Miami? Eh... um... yeah. It is.
And we are still far away with Woods..... Trades do happen but the entire tenure of Harden.... we got Howard (after back injury), an aging CP3, a washed up Westbrook, and a comeback Wall. Those trades are pretty infrequent.
For every example of that, someone could counter with. Did the spurs not get Duncan tanking? Did the rockets not get hakeem by losing a sht ton, etc. etc. Fact stands is that your odds of getting a superstar is a lot higher by tanking. Lakers were able to obtain AD not just b/c of lebron and its market power, it had a sht ton of assets accumulated over the years by being sht.
And we don’t even really have the assets to swing a major trade right now.... What the mediocrity lovers can’t even acknowledge is that we need to restock our assets cupboard.
No the Lakers were able to obtain AD ONLY because of LeBron tampering. It didn't matter how much asset the Lakers have, AD was not signing an extension with any other team and he put it out there. It was either the Lakers or NO lose him for nothing. Pretty sure Boston could have offered Tatum and trumped whatever the Lakers had, but AD said he wouldn't sign there. You really think no one else in the league could match Lakers offer of ingram and Ball?
I know it won't happen now, but the best case scenario would have been to finish above the Heat and OKC so there's no swap.
Well sure, but you still need assets, which we don't have...... Lakers still needed to give up a lot for appearances: Lonzo, Ingram, Hart, 4th pick, and 2 unprotected FRP.
You know you tankers it might be destiny. Minny is about to get a coach bump, we might not catch them anyway but hey...Washington is getting it together...funnily enough, 1.5 games back from the 10th seed and I'm sure they know this.
