I don't understand what everyone is complaining about. Tanking by no means equates to instant success. It's not as simple as "worst is best". The worst team only has a 25% chance at the best pick. Furthermore, there's so many factors surrounding the draft. Scouting the right players, having that right player develop the right way, and more. For every Oklahoma City, there's also a Charlotte, Minnesota, Sacramento, Washington... The list can keep on going.
indeed. You cant just build a team around 31 draft picks. Eventually you gotta have players that can gel and play together and that may mean adding vets.
Yes, to eventually have solid players you can build around is the goal isn't it? But why can't you build through the draft? It takes some luck and a lot of scouting, true, but what doesn't? Trades and Free Agent signings also need some luck, timing and scouting. Point is, there's no one surefire way to build a contender (because if there was, all the teams would be doing that), but the lottery is definitely one of the ways. Trading those picks is another way. Signing a big free agent is another. But a surefire way to NOT build a contender is by remaining middle of the road and having no assets (e.g. picks, expiring contracts, salary cap flexibility) to trade or significantly get better.
I guess it's impatience kicking in with many, but rebuilding is a process. If you get lucky, you don't have to rebuild as much. For example, if the Spurs didn't get Ginobili and Parker with those late picks in the draft, i am sure Duncan wouldn't be having the success he enjoys now. and if you're going to rely on late-round picks to be a franchise player, then isn't that a riskier strategy than relying on early picks to be a franchise player? Besides, we weren't dismantling a near-contender coming off a monster 50-60 win game season nor a team coming off a close, heartbreaking 2nd-rd or conference finals exit. We lost to the barely-a-contender knicks in the first round. And even at full strength, we were still hovering around just the .500 mark.
i don't understand why many people treat our current situation as if we're never going to have players in here eventually, or we're going to keep trading away all our good players for draft picks and every year we'll just keep getting more and more draft picks while trading away any good players we drafted for more draft picks and be happy losing year-on-year while giving out max contracts to the Gerald Wallaces and Kris Humphries of this world so that we can keep getting good draft position.
What team is Rondo on again? How about Jeff Green? Exactly, we still have good players who are terrific building blocks. Adding solid draft picks (especially from a deep draft) helps set this team up for the future.
