Sorry for chiming in. Not willing to dedicate a few hours of my work day is not an indication of intelligence. I'd rather have the assets, and cap room to bring in a proven commodity, make a trade to bring in that proven commodity than take my chances in the draft.
The TWolves were going nowhere with KG so after wasting two years of his prime they finally picked a direction and decided to rebuild. There rebuild project hasn't taken that long at all.
I suppose Chicago tanked and it worked. But man....those were lean years. . LAL, and Dallas didn't tank. But very diff circumstances. And payroll. Maybe Boston? Hard to gauge when the league is dominated by so few players. Do you envy where Cleveland is now? The Rocks have had some pretty exciting, if unsuccessful seasons these past 10 yrs.
Not to butt in on someone else's argument, but I believe the Rockets are positioning themselves in the same scenario the Celtics were in before the big 3 trade. Not saying they or we should think they could turn that big of a corner that quick, buts its the model they are choosing to follow. It shouldn't be surprising since Morey was working for their front office at that time, and had a hand in both of those trades. The Celtics, given they were not a very good team before the trade, never openly did anything as disgraceful as the Bobcats are doing. You could probably say the Rockets roster if equal in talent if not worse then the Celtics roster before the trade despite the results of the 2006/2007 that netted them a top 5 pick that spawned the Ray Allen trade. That one asset started the chain reaction of deals made to essemble the big 3. You can argue whether this is the right or wrong comparison to where the Rockets are right now because Boston's summer of 2007 assets where slightly better than Houston's now, but I think this is the model they are gunning for. The evidence was right there with the Gasol trade in how that was modeled.
What are you talking about? It's been 5 years since they blew it up and they haven't even sniffed the playoffs. That's a long time.
As I said earlier, they used a top 5 pick on a player that didn't come over for two years but when he did they became a significantly better team. If Rubio doesn't get hurt this year the Wolves would have likely made the playoffs.
Nah, it happened to the Rockets once (nevermind that took 10 years), so it'll definitely happen again. There is no possible way anything would ever ever go wrong if they just decided to play Dragic at the 5 spot and lose 66 games in a row.
2007-2008 first season of rebuilding 2008-2009 terrible 2009-2010 terrible 2010-2011 terrible 2011-2012 finally show signs of improvement 2012-2013 can probably make the playoffs if all goes well and incremental improvement continues 2013-2014 earliest chance to actually contend So...minimum of 7 years before contending. I guess it just depends what everyone's definition of not that long is.
By the way, you can tank AND still try to trade for a Star. Morey pretends these two things are mutually exclusive. They aren't and he knows it.
Doesn't matter, you were talking about the time frame. 5 years, not even close to playoffs, let alone contenders. That is a long time to rebuild, injuries or not. Everybody has to deal with that crap.
This is a load of crap! The playoffs are not what you freaking play for. You play for a championship. I know you have to make the playoffs to win a championship, but i am so freaking tired of the playoffs constituting some end in itself. Give me a freaking break! I want to contend, not go out in the first couple of rounds! They are absolutely high. F-Les and F-Morey if he's just going to go along with this irrational thinking. I guess some people are just too stubborn and stupid. Blind adherence to a strategy that isn't working is freaking dumb. And we are all playing a long, protracted, painful price for this stupidity! -Grumpy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Tanking" to mean doesn't mean having the 6th worst record (and only 2 spots out of the playoffs). They didn't even use that top 6 pick, they traded back for #9, Nowitzki, and we all know how that turned out. They didn't tank, they were just bad, and they drafted smartly and got good because of it.
I'd say the Bucks have been anti-rebuild. http://www.nbauniverse.com/teams/records_milwaukee_bucks.htm Assuming you don't count 1st round bounces as a success they've got their last ring in 1972 with good string of wins in the 1980s and a good year in 2001-02. But the bottome line is they haven't won a thing without Jabbar (game changer back in 72).
How are you supposed to suck purposefully and have any realistic way to trade for a star? Those two ideas run counter to one another. If you suck, nobody is going to want your pieces.
They had the #1 pick a few years ago, so that means they should've won a championship by now, correct?
It hasn't taken that long. The first year after KG left they got Love and the next year Rubio but it took them two extra years to get Rubio over here. The Wolves are a playoff caliber team with Love and Rubio on the court.
Err, Wrong! Former high draft picks hold a lot more value then really good role players. ex: NJ Nets landing Deron Williams!
Seriously? You don't think Toronto and New Jersey would be considered tanking teams this year? Those teams have both won 2 two more games than the Mavericks did in 07 and played 16 less games. As far as them "using" the 6th pick they used it to trade for Dirk and Nash. Their success began when they got a high pick and flipped it for two all star players.
