The Big Risk We Should Consider (not a short post)

I think they would do it for a top 3 protected 2020 pick or 2021. Which would be smart for them, because everyone but Harden and Capela would be way past their prime and we would have had no money to add good players - so the pick has a great chance of being good. But do we really want to give that pick up? I'd rather bet on Cousins than Batum, despite the nature of Cousins' injury. Batum is not going to disturb the Warriors offensively or improve our defense. We don't lack another exterior playmaker, we lack an interior playmaker imo.

 

But why would someone trade us a guaranteed better player than Capela for Capela?

Capela is young, will be locked up for 4-5 years, and keeps improving. The Knicks and Celtics are trying to draft Capela clones. Players better than Capela are healthy stars on good contracts.

Realistically, to get a better player than Capela, you have to take a risk. It has to be someone who might be better than Capela. There has to be some potential flaw in the player we're getting in order for the other team to offer us a player with a higher ceiling than Capela.

Cousins' injury is the worst. But we wouldn't be locked into it for more than 2-3 years if he doesn't end up being one of the best success stories from this type of injury. And you have to acknowledge that, as time passes, science is going to make recovery from this injury more likely.

 

Father time is undefeated. We are literally the oldest. The team had great chemistry. Only 1 player in the playoff roster might improve. The rest will almost certainly stay the same or decline.

Actually, I don't know why I'm debating this, the most common response to the post has been an acknowledgement that this is a problem. Standing pat would be a death sentence - we were a whisker better than them when healthy. Capela won't be able to negate Tucker, Ariza, Paul's age. Harden and Gordon are unlikely to improve.

Not to mention luck is an incredible factor for all champions. Can we deal with some bad luck in the second round next season? You have to be prepared for the future.

 

They had incredible chemistry, filled with friends off the court and they are all vets. Even given teams will improve from playing one season together, we will likely have the least such improvement out of any team to stand pat.

Think about it for a second. We are the oldest team in the league (especially if you only include rotation players), we won more than anyone expected, the chemistry was tremendous and the guys had no locker room problems. We also have a coach who prefers to play these guys huge minutes so our old players are more likely to decline. This is no longer hocus pocus. Teams have been hurting us with this. Harden has been going to the line 10 times a game for several seasons now and has been incredibly healthy. It's time to cut his minutes load a bit more (yes, MDA did this a bit, as if he had a choice).

I'm always ALWAYS optimistic about in-team improvement especially with good organizations, but let's be realistic about what we have. If we are going to improve, then the Warriors will improve more, and Philly/Boston will improve much much much faster in one summer. We're not in a vacuum. Improvement should be measured relative to league. You can accelerate your performance, while having the slowest acceleration of all teams in the league. We are heading for JUST THAT right now.

Even teams like the Wolves, Jazz and Thunder - they can improve more than us and have flexibility to add pieces at least through MLE's that won't destroy their cap flexibility.

If we look at this thing objectively, this team's only avenue for internal improvement is Capela's marginal yearly improvement and the minor uptick in chemistry. That has to be measured against the entire rotation's age + the rest of the league's higher ceiling for internal improvement. Please pause here for 10 seconds. For real. Our improvement has to be measured against the entire rotation's age + the rest of the league's higher ceiling for internal improvement.

Many people seem to take this personally, but I'm sure it's on Morey's mind and I'm sure he will struggle to make the case to MDA. Morey has gotten us here with shrewd, objective decisions. I understand him and he is always taking care of things that no one seemed to worry about. At the very least, we will have to take risks by forcing in Zhou Qi, Hartenstein and/or RJ Hunter while pushing out Green, Ariza and/or Nene. This will cost us regular season games if we do it faithfully, but it could get us a shocking blossoming talent by the end of the regular season. I'm not sure those young guys have the potential to shock us.

I genuinely hope we defeat the odds, but that's not how management should operate. Management needs to worry about the objective world.

 

You are talking about what's possible, and I agree that it is possible.

But my post is about what is likely. Harden has been a top 3 player for 4 of the past 5 seasons. The best season any player in the NBA has had in the past 5 seasons is not going to be much better than Harden was. Gordon is not going to improve - the reason his % is lower than his career average is because his attempts are dramatically higher than his career average. He is not likely to become as prolific as Steph Curry, which is what he would be if he shot late 30's percentage on this many attempts per minute.

I've said it a few times: we will improve by standing pat. Everyone in the NBA would improve by standing pat. The likeliest scenario is that we improve less than pretty much everyone else. I don't think we should accept the odds on beating that. We worked as hard as a team can possibly work. We had great chemistry. We revolutionized a couple of ideas. We were a whisker better and only when we were healthy. I don't want to go into next season betting on the oldest core in the league outpacing the younger core Warriors - with both teams making minor improvements due to flexibility issues.

We should take a risk. You avoid risks when the odds are in your favor imo.

 

I don't assume GS will improve. I assume the likeliest scenario: they will stay roughly the same (it's not like they're young) and we will get slightly worse (we are the oldest).

I don't know why you're assuming I'm saying these things? Everyone would improve by standing pat. We are likely to improve the least out of anyone who decides to stand pat, because our core consists of players who are least likely to develop due to their age. Older players are less likely to improve. We have the oldest core in the league, and the Warriors core are not old.

Last year, we got Chris Paul. We outplayed everyone's rational expectations except a small faction of always-over-optimistic fans. The amount of effort it took to finish 1st in the regular season and take the Warriors to 5 games (before losing Paul) is enormous, and the guys are old.

I feel like you're asking why the oldest core in the league shouldn't have their future looked at as: 50% likely to be better, 50% likely to get worse. It's not 50-50. If they improve, it would be a statistical surprise. Yes it is possible. Things that have a 10% chance of happening are possible. I'm just describing what is likely. It's not debatable. The oldest team is least likely to show internal improvement, unless there was a chemistry problem like for example with the Thunder.

I'm not even describing what I believe. What I believe is that this organization/team will continue to beat expectations. But I believe that they are that way whether we take a risk or not. Whether we stand pat or we take a huge risk, this team minus Dwight Howard has outplayed expectations for damn near a decade now. But that's a characteristic of the organization which I'm suggesting we direct towards taking on a risk that most other organizations can't take on: nursing the achilles injury of a phenomenal individual talent who has thus far been unable to connect his skills to winning.

 

I mentioned all of this, have definitely taken it into account. I think I'm taking both things into account: the likely improvement from staying together + the likely loss in athleticism via age + minutes erosion.

I feel like you are ignoring age for some reason? Why wouldn't age matter AS WELL AS what you've described? Also your scenario seems to be by far the most positive outcome that could happen. There are dozens of possibilities at least. Why would the best thing in the world happen i.e. nothing gets worse except we just get better at playing together?

In case you think I'm being most pessimistic, here is the most pessimistic: The team gets slower + they have peaked in terms of executing these strategies + Chris Paul strains his hamstring in game 4 of the first round + we're locked into this team for the long term.

Between the worst and best outcomes, there are lots of other outcomes. I'm describing just the most likely of those things to happen while you keep typing out things that are possible. Yes, it's possible Clint Capela makes an incredible leap in his offense. Harden has a significantly better season. Paul has his most injury free season in years. Yes these things are possible. Those things are as likely as us losing in the first round. They would be ill-advised bets.

The best bet is: we barely improve at executing these strategies + Capela gets slightly better + everyone else in the core is the same or slightly worse. This is what you would expect if you had no bias towards the team + full knowledge of its history/assets.

Anyways, I guess we disagree.