Curry, Thompson, Green, Barnes, Ezili.... Notice how the best players on their roster are players that they drafted and developed? No starchasing, but building a solid foundation from the ground up. Apart from Curry I don't see Morey paying those guys---and that's assuming he did have the acumen to draft them in the first place.
The problem was on the GS side. They were in no position to take on a soon to be max contract. Only way a trade could have happened would have been if OKC would have been willing to take on a bad contract and that wasn't going to happen.
That article is by a pretty well known Bay Area writer and he's pretty specific. He says there were no draft picks to trade and that GS was in no position to take on a max deal. He's also very specific that there was no back and forth discussion on a trade. Both sides knew that wasn't possible.
Curry and Barnes were both the 7th overall picks and Thompson was #11. Barnes and Ezell are still on rookie deals and its unlikely that both will be back with GS next season. There's multiple ways to build a team, especially for teams that aren't picking high in the lottery. San Antonio is a great example. Here's their last 10 first round picks: 2004 - Beno Udrich 2005 - Ian Mahinmi 2007 - Tiago Splitter 2008 - George Hill 2010 - James Anderson 2011 - Corey Joseph, K. Leonard (trade) 2013 - Livo Nean-Charles 2014 - Kyle Anderson 2015 - Nikon Milutinov How many of their picks are still around?
Many holes in your argument. I'll start with SA. You're talking about the team that has made the post season the most times out of a 2 decade time span...and had the lowest picks to go off of as a result. Despite all that, they built their team through the draft even after Duncan had become a mediocre player. Yea a lot of them didn't end up staying but how can you possibly use that argument against a team that has the highest winning % in the regular season, one of the highest in the post season, and 5 rings to back it up----as your point? They aren't and never were in the same position as the rockets. If the rockets had that sort of success could you really fault them for making any sort of move, considering that they had the results to back it up? The rockets are broken, and are the antithesis of the spurs in most ways. Also, you can't cherry pick what you're going to leave in and out, they paid Green a handsome amount too...what pick was he? Did they treat him like a "simple role player" that Morey treats everybody not named Dwight and Harden as? I'm not implying that we have certain individuals on our team at the moment that warrant that sort of compensation, but you know just as well as I do that none of those transactions would have happened on the rockets. Lastly, even if we were to go by the thinking that Morey didn't have a top 10 pick, does that mean any pick he makes under that threshold should be free of judgement? 3 consecutive 14th picks that were thrown into the wind. Patterson, Morris, White. Up until last year, Morey was still confident that Rubio was some sort of gem to be had years after it was obvious that he lacked the fundamental shooting tough and was a grossly overrated player. You can't fault anybody for claiming that the guy with the least amount of on the court experience ---and bad draft choices to show for it ---will continue to draft in the same manner he always has.
If you don't like the SA example then there's plenty of other examples. How about the Big Three Heat? 2011 Champion Mavericks? You can go all the way back to the Rockets two championship teams. Of course GS signed Green to a max deal. They had just won he NBA title and he was a key contributor. Do you think that any GM would do differently? The point that I think you are missing is that a team's strategy is different when you are building a team than it is when you are already a contender. If you aren't a contender then you're first priority is to obtain stars. If you don't have stars in place then you aren't going to lock yourself into roll players at high salaries. Once you have your stars and you feel that you are a contender then you try and keep your roster intact. That's exactly what the Rockets did this past offseason. They had a good playoff run and they brought everyone back. Do you really think that we'd be significantly better if Morris, Patterson or White was still here? None of those guys performed on the level of a Draymont Green, Thompson or Curry. Do you think that any GM in the league wouldn't have resigned any of those players? On the flipside, if Barnes gets a huge "Parsons-like" offer, do you really expect GS to match? If we had broken up a championship level roster then you'd have a point but we didn't. We were good but not really contenders until last season and then we did keep our team together.
The Warriors starchased Dwight. But he chose us. The irony is if he'd chosen them, they wouldn't be The Warriors now. Sometimes you get a little lucky. And the next time the Rockets get the opportunity to sit a Hall of Famer so they can tank for a once-in-a-lifetime foundational player like Tim Duncan, I surely hope they will build their team The Spur Way. Sometimes you get a lot lucky. See how great The Spur Way works out when Duncan retires.
Y'all are focusing too much on the acquisitions. To me it's about the coaching, rotations, scheme and in-game strategy - all rooted in analytics with GSW.
Didn't we gave up Thorpe (a key contributor for championship) to get Drexler (a star), and a year later we gave up Horry and Cassell (TWO key pieces of our championship team) to get Barkley (another star)? The irony of those two trades was that Rudy T had said that he always wanted to keep the championship team intact so that the same group of players could have a chance to defend what they had won.
The philosophies don't even correlate either. Draymond would not have the same authority. And we would never keep a hard nosed fundamental player like Speights. Curry would never be this humble either
in my view : its not Curry , or Clay or D.Green or any single player .... the difference maker is : Steve Kerr. he made every good player look great..even if that player is just a recent waived player hardly used, known by his distinguished hair style but not his skills . I have no doubt in my mind , he might be regarded as the best coach of all time (if he stay long enough )
What do those trades have to do with resigning Draymont Green to a max deal? Do you think that if Green had been on the '94 team then we wouldn't have resigned him? Of course we would have. You're talking about trading core guys for better players. Most every GM would do that too. If GS got offered Lebron for Klay Thompson, you don't think that they do that deal?
Except that the Warriors got off to a historically great start with Luke Walton as coach. They're very talented.
