I don't by the "losing culture" argument at all. Just doesn't hold water, but sounds good to crusty commentators. More likely, tanking doesn't work because tanking is rarely intentional (other than toward the end of the year trying to go from 3rd worst to 1st worst) but rather because the players are just bad (not "conditioned" to losing, just bad). Furthermore, as correctly pointed out, it's not definite that you'll get a franchise player. So you have a bad team of bad players and add to that a possibly not franchise player (and even franchise players can't do it all; Kobe missed playoffs when alone, KG before the trade, etc). It then takes several years to purge those bad players and actually have the base of a team that can contend.
For us, trading rondo to tank would likely be stupid. But trading hem and getting excellent value in return (whatever that might be) and ensuring a higher pick AS WELL is a different issue.
Alternatively, this could end up being a Spurs '97 year. Hold rondo back, take a chance at a franchise changing top 3 player to add to rondo, allow sully and olynyk some advancement, pray Green shows us something he hasn't in 6 years, and go from there.
Right, this is pretty much how I feel about the situation.
And to be clear, I don't just mean tanking in the sense of benching good players, but I mean the GM deciding "Oh, we'll let some of our good players go so we can be really bad and have a 'rebuilding' year" form of tanking.
1) Teams do that all of the time and it rarely works
2) I also don't buy the "losing culture" argument as it's stated, BUT (and this is a HUGE but, and my main point, in fact) free agents want to play for teams that are good. So when you "rebuild" and design your team to intentionally be bad, no free agents are going to want to sign there. Why did Dwight sign with the Rockets and not, say, the Wizards? Hell, the Wizards have a #1 draft pick on John Wall, was Dwight crazy? No, it's because the residue of crappy players left over from sucking enough to GET Wall in the first place deterred Dwight from going there. No free agent wants to walk into a rebuilding process, they want to go to a team that's already a contender or team they know they can make a contender simply by showing up.
How many big name free agents can you think of that went to a non-playoff team? I can't think of any.
The point is, I think Ainge was far too content to pick up bad players and bad contracts simply so the Celtics could get a high draft pick. Signing washed up players with horrible contracts like Gerald Wallace is going to screw us a lot more than he thinks.
Since you have the recipe for a championship team, take a look at the last 20 championships. How did the teams that won them- or even the teams that made the NBA finals- get there?
How many of them did it like the 2014 Rockets?
Also do you understand that in order to make the salaries work and get the assets in return for Pierce and KG/Terry we had to take back Wallace/Humphries/Bogans? Without those guys we don't get any Nets picks. Humphries has one year on his deal, as does Bogans.
Wallace is the only longer term and at 10 million he could be dealt fairly easily if we do work out a trade for a true star.
Once again remind me of all those championship teams without a home drafted star and those without one. I eagerly await your list.
You could also make a list of all the free agents or disgruntled stars we could attract with our current roster.
For example, tell me what we currently have that the Wolves would take from us for Kevin Love or the Blazers would take for Aldridge?
Hit me.
Well at least we both agree that the team, as currently constructed, sucks and lacks assets with any trade value, and that it's paramount to acquire more as quickly as possible.
The difference between us is we both disagree on the best way to do it - you think it's the draft (conventional wisdom) and I think it's through free agency and trade (the Rockets strategy).
But first, let me answer your question regarding that list of teams you wanted me to make. How many teams won without homegrown stars, I believe it was? I'm going to answer your question with another question - how many of those homegrown stars succeeded without airdropped help acquired via FREE AGENCY or TRADE?
Were Lebron or Bosh drafted by Miami? Nope.
Gasol or Shaq drafted by the Lakers (or Miami as well, in Shaq's case)? Nope.
Was Tyson Chandler drafted by the Mavs? What about Jason Terry? No.
KG, Ray Allen? No.
Billups or Ben Wallace drafted by Detroit? No.
The list goes on. The one and only freak exception to this rule has been the San Antonio Spurs, who got the best2nd round pick of all time in Ginobili, the greatest 28th pick ever in Tony Parker, and the almighty Tim Duncan due to injuries. They are the one and only, and exceptionally freakish, exception to the rule that championship teams are formed via free agency and trade.
Work backwards with me:
1) To win a championship, unless you're the Spurs, you need to acquire an impact-player (or two) in order to win via trade or free agency. This point is somewhat beyond argument, as I think I just demonstrated. The only team that has done otherwise has been a team that got two Hall of Famers at the 28th pick and 57th pick. Every other team has had the final pieces of the puzzle added via trade or free agency.
Ok, so how did they pull that off?
2) By trading valuable assets, and being a good enough team so as to be attractive to free agents.
3) So where do these valuable assets come from? You want to get them from the draft, whereas I want to get them from trade. The key difference between these methods is that acquiring assets through the draft requires your team to be BAD which drives away potential free agents, as opposed to getting them through trade. Therein lies the advantage of getting assets through trade, and the reason why I'm in favor of it - you can acquire assets while
still remaining good. An additional advantage is that you acquire assets that are known entities, as opposed to rolling the dice and crossing your fingers in the draft. In other words, the draft is an elaborate coin flip, while trades allow you to essentially "outplay" other GM's.
The main con with acquiring assets by trade is that, well, your GM has to be better than the other GM's. Fortunately, the league is still chock full of suckers and idiot GM's who rely on things like "the eye test" to determine how good a player is. These traditional GM's are basically garbage, and are just waiting to get swindled. The reason I keep bringing up Morey is because he knows this and takes advantage of it. It's funny, because every time he makes a trade people are like "hmm, I don't know about that trade" until the results speak for themselves. Is it magic? Nope, Morey is just smart enough to use the correct advanced stats to evaluate players, while idiots like Presti and Michael Jordan continue to rely on the eye test, or garbage stats like PER and advanced +/-. It's laughable how GM's who are supposedly qualified to do their jobs rely on those stats even after their flaws have been massively exposed.
For example, non-crap advanced stats had clearly shown that Harden was a better player than Westbrook, way before it became obvious to people who only look at PPG when evaluating players. The problem for Presti and the advantage for Morey is that Morey has been forward-thinking and gutsy enough to rely on these better stats.
You know what the guys over at wagesofwins.com predicted last year? Their model had the San Antonio Spurs winning over the Miami Heat in 6 games. That prediction was made before the season even started, and people thought they were insane and that there was no way the Spurs would even make it to the finals. Well guess what? They were one Ray Allen buzzer beating 3 away from being correct. What was the second most likely outcome, according to their model? The Miami Heat over the Spurs in 7. QED.
Etch this in stone: this year their model predicts the Rockets to have the best record and go to the finals. I'm saying it here and now before the season starts that that is exactly what will happen (of course barring major injury to one of the key Rockets pieces). I have complete confidence in this prediction, and I will be sure to remind everyone that I called it after it happens.
