Which team would crash the hardest if you took away their one best player? I'm thinking, in no particular order, Houston (Harden), OKC (Westbrook), Portland (Lillard). Conversely, which team would be least affected? Perhaps Memphis (Parsons lol)...
Take away LBJ from the Cavs and replace him with an average SF (Ariza, Loul Deng, etc) and they are still a playoff team out in the East. They'll probably get past the 1st round and outed by the 2nd but they are still a pretty good team. Take away Harden and replace him with an average SG (Danny Green, Monta Ellis or even Gordon) and I don't think we will make it to the playoffs at all. Same could be said for WB and the Thunder but it's can be argued that even with WB, the Thunder is somewhat of a fringe playoff team.
Harden and Westbrook obvious choices but I'm really thinking about the least fragile team... Nuggets maybe? They have a bunch of solid young assets but none of them heavily stand above the rest.
Id say the Nets technically are the least fragile because they're all terrible. Suns or Nuggets after them. We'd be in the medicority treadmill without Harden. Atlanta sans Dwight is pretty bad. As is Indiana without Paul George.Maybe Bucks without Greek Freak.
Sacramento If Boogie went down, the 24 hr fitness pick up dudes can probably beat them with Rudy Gay chucking 200 shots
I think that's an easy question to answer. Philadelphia 76ers Edit: Misread the question, but I'm still sticking to the 76ers. They will crash the hardest no matter what!
Definitely the Warriors. They could beat every team in the league other than San Antonio, Clippers and Cleveland with Curry sitting
Interesting thread. OKC is much more "fragile" than Houston. Cavs without Lebron would still make the playoffs..if they picked at least one backup pg. Rockets without Harden would miss the playoffs but they wouldn't be in high lottery. Provided we changed the MDA system. OKC without Westbrook would be in high lottery Top 5 pick for sure. The Blazers without Lillard because of their depth wouldn't fall to high lottery, though definitely out of the playoffs for sure. The Bucks without Giannis would be worse than BKN. The Kings without Cousins wouldn't see much change than right now. They are a mid lottery team and they would still be a mid lottery team. The Pelicans without AD would be winless. The Celtics without IT wouldn't be able to score at all. Out of the playoffs. So the most fragile team compared to where they are now, is the Thunder. From a playoff team to high lottery. They right now have 8 wins they would have without him probably 1 or 2. So -6 wins already. The least fragile is GSW, Clippers,Utah Lakers and Nuggets. GSW would still be a contender. Clippers would still be a playoff team and not a 7-8 seed. If Hill and Favors are back if they miss Hayward they still would be where they are now. The Lakers same. Nuggets have some of the best depth so if one of Nurkic or Jokic would miss time they probably would be the same. In fact if Harris, Chandler and Barton were healthy you can take whichever is considered the best player out of their team, and they would end up with better record than now. They had too many injuries.
