Presti puttin' in work.

This is a false. Harden and Westbrook both went within 2-3 picks of where they were projected to go. Presti is a very good GM but isn't perfect. He let Landry slip through his hands and the contract to Perkins may kill their ability to keep Harden and Ibaka.

 

Its not just that though, among those "repeat lottery guys" which ones ended up resulting in a guy of Durant's level? And KD was a gift by Portland's FO, if they had gotten Greg Oden instead where would OKC be now? Would they still be finals material?

I don't think anybody is saying Presti is a bad GM, obviously he's one of the better GMs in the league. However, unlike an FO like say, the Spurs or Celts, Presti's pieces around KD weren't draft gems like Rondo/Perkins or Manu/Parker, they were top 5 lotto picks like Harden and WB. In fact, Photoblue's idiotic post shows he might not be as good a drafter as everyone seems to give him credit for, Ibaka was a great pick but then he has guys like Aldrich+the dudes on Photoblues list who didn't do anything.

Outside of morons like Kahn, I think a lot of GMs could have buiilt a comparable if not better roster if they had KD+capspace+multiple high lottery picks.

 

This, I remember harden being slotted behind tyreke but Westbrook I'm almost sure all mocks had Bayless going to okc

 

to be fair to the Bulls (although Jerry Krause was way overrated), their top 5 lottery picks (outside of Brand and Rose) came during very weak drafts.

99-1st Elton Brand, probably the best player in that draft (Manu was late in the second round).

00-4th // 7th Marcus Fizer and Chris Mihm who they traded for the 8th pick, Jamal Crawford. that draft is considered the worst draft in the history of the lottery. the best player was second rounder Michael Redd, followed by rookie of the year Kenyon Martin. no real solid starters beyond that.

01-4th Eddie Curry. this draft was the sleeper draft with Tony Parker the final pick of the first round, Gilbert Arenas in the beginning of the second round, Zach Randolph and Gerald Wallace late and very late in the first round. Joe Johnson was the 10th pick. they barely missed out on Pau Gasol, the 3rd pick, although they traded Brand for the second pick, Tyson Chandler, which if they held on to him forever, wouldn't have been the terrible trade that it was. i think it's still fair to say that most GMs had no idea how good Tony Parker, Zach Randolph and Gilbert Arenas were going to be, and in hindsight no one would draft Shane Battier or Eddie Griffin (and maybe even Jason Richardson) over Joe Johnson and Gerald Wallace.

02-2nd Jason (Jay) Williams. another very weak draft. already had drafted/traded for big men and probably passed up on Amare for that reason. Caron Butler was the 10th pick, Boozer fell to the second round. the Bulls would later overpay for Boozer. Jay's one year in the league was inconclusive on how good he could be and there was no way they could have prevented that freak motorcycle accident that ended his career.

03-7th Kirk Hinrich. in the one truly deep draft the Bulls had a decent lottery pick, most of the higher teams picked right (outside of Detroit). by the 7th pick, Hinrich was one of the better options. Josh Howard was an early second round pick, Mo Williams was a late second round pick and the 18th pick, David West, didn't seem any better than what the Bulls already had at PF.

04-3rd Ben Gordon. like 2002, after Dwight (Yao), the draft thinned considerably, with the next best pick probably Al Jefferson at 15th or Josh Smith at 17th. Andre Iguodala was the 9th pick. the Bulls actually traded for the 7th pick and got Deng, who was one of the top 5 players in that draft.

06-2nd Lamarcus Aldridge. the Bulls missed out on a good draft the previous year and actually picked the third best player in the draft the following year (the second best player if you factor Brandon Roy's early retirement). unfortunately, they traded that pick for Tyrus Thomas, the 4th pick and a third year scrub named Viktor Khryapa. even worse than their earlier Brand/Chandler debacle. Rajon Rondo dropped all the way to 21st. a very weak draft.

07-9th Joakim Noah. what a difference one year makes. again not a very deep draft, but if Durant was allowed to go to the NBA right out of high school (the CBA prevented him and Oden from doing so) the Bulls would have been able to select KD in 2006. instead the Sonics got him in 2007 and there was nothing really good left after him except Al Horford (3rd) and Marc Gasol (48!) and of course Noah, whom the Bulls rightfully picked. Morey and Presti actually picked the next best available players (besides Gasol) in Aaron Brooks and Carl Landry.

08-1st Derrick Rose. the Bulls usually do well with the first pick, unless anyone thinks Westbrook, Love or Ibaka would have been better picks.

just noting how the Bulls didn't do nearly as bad as it may appear with the exception of Aldridge for Thomas, and the sleepers which just about everyone missed. of course they still stunk it up and lost a ton of games which helped them get a lot of high picks. if they had their very high picks in '05 (Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Andrew Bynum), '07 (Durant, Durant, Durant) and '09 (Harden, Griffin and Curry), they might have done as well or even better than the Thunder. they still have a very competitive team (when healthy) that's not way over the cap.

the Wolves seemed to have done pretty well with their picks; '07 and '10 were not deep drafts at all, although they should have picked Demarcus Cousins or Paul George instead of Wesley Johnson. however, it's still a bit early. Memphis and Atlanta have done very bad though.

 

Another Garbage thread by fake dream

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Good work on the Bulls breakdown. +

The list was a rebuttal of "While Presti has done an amazing job, what you seem to be glossing over continuously is that their franchise had four top 5 picks in the span of three years."
Obviously, a lot of luck, hard work, and stupid gms are needed. (Every one of their top 5 picks has a bust drafted before them.)

Relevant to the topic - (included only the pertinent information, but there is additional backstory at the link.)

Why your team almost certainly won’t become the next OKC Thunder

http://blogs.thescore.com/tbj/2012/...t-certainly-wont-become-the-next-okc-thunder/