i mean, i'm including james harden in our talent level since we're talking about morey. that fleecing of OKC is the only reason we're even talking about surrounding talent. when was the last time someone traded for a young player who became mvp? you either draft that guy or sign that guy in FA as a big name destination. nash is the only other person i can think of, but that was mid-career and he's a lower-level mvp. we used kevin martin and a #11 pick and got a pre-prime mvp. plus, based on reading clutchfans, harden is terrible in the playoffs, so the supporting cast must be pretty good to compete with the warriors. chris paul was pretty clearly better than a lot of the people included in those lists. the twolves, pelicans, and wizards somehow having 2 is hilarious (even 1 for the wolves and wizards). i mean ainge is considered a good gm. this is part of the reason why. and even that team was built on the back of the brooklyn trade that looked "meh" at the time it was made and only later became amazing because brooklyn fell apart in historic fashion in a way that i'm sure ainge wasn't dreaming of when he made the trade (brooklyn somehow beat out a bunch of tanking teams for worst record in a year where they didn't even have their own pick, that's almost impossible). how do you factor in risk, though? toronto traded for a guy who missed the entire previous season and he stayed healthy all year and they won a championship. if they factored in injuries they would have never made that trade. the lakers are currently beating us with one of the most injured guys in the league in AD. everyone is praising sam presti for getting one of the most injured guys in cp3 who just happened to stay healthy. if winning it all and not being close is your goal, that often comes with these types of risks. again, unless you can just say "we're LA" and have superstars show up. chris paul is who was available to make us capable of beating the warriors. he also came with injury risk. either you just admit defeat or take the chance like the raptors did. it works sometimes, it doesn't other times. but none of that happens if they aren't in los angeles. they traded basically nothing for AD. all they traded was the right to overpay brandon ingram whenever his rookie deal ends. AD wanted to go to the lakers, which means NO had no leverage. tons of teams could have offered a better package. and you only waste several years of your franchise for lebron if you actually think lebron will sign there. they were a 1st/2nd round playoff team and then traded chris paul for some nice role players and they were a 1st round playoff team. it's not like they came from nothing. and they still only got kawhi and george because they were literally born there. we'd all rather have those guys than russ, but those guys weren't elevating us like cp3 did. 18/19 was just a championship contender because we definitely took a step back that year. i'm only talking 17/18 when saying they could beat most champions from history. maybe so, but scottie pippen has to be available. teams with a pippen usually aren't looking to move them, and usually only do when pippen says he is only willing to play in los angeles. yeah, but 14 good years. never a losing record, built an amazing team around yao/tmac, who both immediately turned into dust. built up a WCF team following that devastation, then built another WCF team (and really rockets/warriors was the finals) within 2 years of dwight leaving. the list of people doing any better is a short list. let's be honest, we completely F'd it up, but we seriously lucked out that we F'd it up. all parsons has done since that day is be overpaid.
I think small ball works, but not small ball + short rotation. Someone will win it all with small ball soon. Wish we could trade Russ for two legitimate two way nba level players.
lol imagine being gassed after having so many months of rest, how exactly are we going to get through an 82 game season playing smoll boll?
