Most NBA teams go through a rebuilding process, why is Les Alexander so against this?

Duncan.

Do you want me to show how many titles included a #1 draft pick. Some of them included 2 #1 draft picks. And one included 3.

Back to you.

There is no silver bullet.

 

No no no you are analyzing this all wrong. People love to say I don't want to tank because so many teams that tank don't win the championship but that is completely the wrong way to look at it.

What you need to do is look at champions in the nba and see how they got them. As you said only a few players have been on championship teams over the last few decades so lets take a look at them.

Jordan - A result of the bulls being bad
Hakeem - A result of us being bad
Duncan - A result of the spurs being bad
Kobe/Shaq - A result of being the Lakers
KG - Trade but they only got one with him

Now looking at those results isn't it obvious that the best way to win championships is to be bad first. We aren't the Lakers so the great players aren't just going to come to us. It is irrelevant that being bad didn't work for other teams when history shows that it is how you win championships. To say that being bad doesn't normally works isn't even worth saying because 96% of the league has to fail every year.

If you look at the western and eastern conference finals last year all of the teams were the bc they were bad and got superstars. Mavericks with, Thunder with Durant/Westbrook, Bulls wiith Rose (luckier than most but still a lottery team), and the Heat with Wade (There is no big 3 in Miami if the Heat never draft Wade). You gotta be bad to be good in this league. People need to stop looking at the failures and pay more attention to how the successes happened because that's all that matters.

 

Look, what you are saying is the other teams sucked and got TD, Kobe, Hakeem etc however the problem is tanking isn't a guarantee there will be Kobe, Hakeem etc waiting for you when you draft. What makes us so different from teams like Minny or the Raptors with all these top 5 picks who don't do anything?

There is no correlation between tanking and winning rings, because history has shown 14 teams tanking year after year and not one of them has won a ring in over 20 years. If tanking is indeed a viable strategy then why haven't the Raptors, Memphis, Minny won a ring by now? In fact, Cleveland GOT Lebron as the number 1 pick, and they still haven't won anything in the end.

Rather than trying to do the traditional route, DM and his staff are trying to go a different direction, collect assets, trade for upgrades and compete. I think that's a better strategy than gutting the team and hoping the next Lebron is in the draft, and you happen to be able to get him. Life is short, I don't want to waste year after year waiting for the "the one' to appear in the draft.

 

I think DM has been keeping an open mind, which is why I think he and his staff are the best FO in the business. He basketball analytics is all about using what works and discarding what isn't, and I think DM has been open to whatever strategy pops up.

Let's all look at the different strategies his team has been cooking:

1. Win Now mode (the Boston-KG way)
-Battier for Gay, Artest for Donte Greene
2. Trade for young game changers (the Lakers-Kobe way)
-Lowry for Alston, Rubio and Cousins (shot down)
3. FA Signing (the Lakers-Shaq way)
-Bosh, Polish Hammer, Nene (?) (turned down)
4. Trade Assets for Superstahhhh...or whatever's available
-Melo, Gasol, Amare, Chandler (all turned down ouch)
5. Trade for Reject, hope for redemption (the Zach Randolph way)
-2009 draft class

So basically the only thing which DM hasn't done is tank to get high draft pick, which is apparently not only against his boss's order, it would also cockblock strategies 1, 2, 3 and 4 in the future. Considering DM's been amazing getting us lot of nice players at the low end of the drtaft, I'd rather he continue this route and try to go for strategies 1-4, rather than going all-in for tanking and hoping we get a miracle.

 

The team has been rebuilding, just not in the way you want. Let's see how some of the talent Morey has acquired develops. Acquiring a top draft position is not a magic elixir. To "trade away our vets and truly rebuild from scratch" would likely just prolong the rebuilding process and further delay a Rockets championship.

 

Repped

 

Good management. It's not enough to have a high draft pick if you can't make the right picks and if you believe in Morey you have to believe he will make the right picks and his record shows that he normally does. If the Blazers had taken Jordan or Durant they might have multiple rings by now but they made the wrong picks and have paid for it.

Another thing is that people would rather play in Houston than Toronto or Minnesota.

There is a correlation. Hakeem, Jordan and TD rings are all proof. The rate of success isn't very high though because the best players can dominate the league for long periods of time. However, as I explained earlier most teams have to lose so you will never find a high correlation because most teams have to lose. Two or three players will dominate a generation of basketball almost every time.

It is fine to want to go this route but to argue that tanking isn't a good way to go is just wrong based on the history of championship teams.

 

we are in a real good place rebuilding we have two stars and a core of role players. We are trying to acquire a good center.

 

You nailed it. If you decimate your team and don't hit that homerun in the draft, you're screwed. Morey has managed to acquire some players who were drafted very early in the 2009 draft, and he didn't have to tank to do it. There still could be a homerun in one of them. Let's see how they play out. And if one of them does pan out, he'll be playing alongside Martin, Scola and Lowry - who all have shown they're are as good as players who could go in the first round- instead of a bunch of scrubs. Morey damn near got a top-tier player in Pau Gasol, too, without tanking, were it not for Stern. He's putting together the team intelligently.

 

Trading for a 31 year old 2nd tier star (on a max contract) is how you pick up that last piece of your puzzle. It is not how you build a contender when your a lotto team.