What's wrong with today's franchise players?

[mr. dee]

their teams suck.

If they get help they'll be fine.

Just like KG in Minny. Just like Pierce in Boston.

Like Wade when Shaq left.

Lebron couldn't get past the Celtics on his own.

Does Jordan win any championships without Pippen? Does Kobe win any without Gasol or Shaq? Unlikely.

- Pierce have taken the Celtics deep in the playoffs by himself and Toine as his best supporting cast.

- So does KG and he won an MVP with the Wolves. His best supporting cast was Sam Cassell and aging Sprewell.

- Lebron took carried his team to 50+ with bunch of scrubs.

- Jordan's team was gradually improving even before Pippen came. His first few years was slowed down by injuries.

- Wade only missed the playoffs due to injury.

This thread is not about winning championships. It's about bringing impact on the team.

[jdz101]

I think players are called "superstars" and "franchise players" far too early because theyre talented scorers. IMO unless you're a top 20 player in the league, you're not either of those things.

[mr. dee]

Funny thing is the Celtics already leapfrogged teams that have been tanking over the past 10 years in rebuilding. And we didn't even need a top 3 pick for that.

[chambers]

their teams suck.

If they get help they'll be fine.

Just like KG in Minny. Just like Pierce in Boston.

Like Wade when Shaq left.

Lebron couldn't get past the Celtics on his own.

Does Jordan win any championships without Pippen? Does Kobe win any without Gasol or Shaq? Unlikely.

- Pierce have taken the Celtics deep in the playoffs by himself and Toine as his best supporting cast.

- So does KG and he won an MVP with the Wolves. His best supporting cast was Sam Cassell and aging Sprewell.

- Lebron took carried his team to 50+ with bunch of scrubs.

- Jordan's team was gradually improving even before Pippen came. His first few years was slowed down by injuries.

- Wade only missed the playoffs due to injury.

This thread is not about winning championships. It's about bringing impact on the team.

yep so look at the 'help' guys like Davis and Cousins have had.
Their help doesn't even remotely match Cassell and Sprewell or Toine and the crew.
The fact is that to impact winning, you need multiple strong players AND a strong coach who knows what he's doing.


Also, as you said, the game is more about ball movement and 3 point shooting now, whereas before, it was about giving the ball to your stars and and letting them go ISO or dumping it Shaq in the post.

The overall 'team' is far better now, but stars still win in the NBA. That includes star coaches.

[action781]

When you look at the young stars today, they would look really impressive as their stat sheets imply. But their team record are exact opposites. You'd expect that they will gradually improve year by year and have at least respectable record in the near future, especially with lottery picks in their team's arsenal. They end up disappointing instead.

It's like their flashy stats doesn't have impact on the team. Sure, they win some games, but not enough to take them to playoffs. Players who instantly impacts winning like Embiid now seems like a rare breed these days.

Meanwhile, teams without superstars are having more success than most of the teams with one. Just look at the Hawks, Raptors, Jazz and Grizzlies. Even our own Celtics is more team-oriented than a superstar-focused. Even guys like IT, Kawhi and Curry are more of a product of a system than a sheer individual talent.

Even with terrible coaching, you should expect some fight to them and have respectable record. I mean, Lebron with Mike Brown and bunch of scrubs won 66 games. Larry Bird and David Robinson instantly transforming lottery teams into 50 win teams.

Guys like Cousins, Wiggins and Davis on the other hand, have disappointing teams. And it's not like they didn't have decent players on their roster.

One big difference is the age that superstars are coming into the league at now compared to before.  Superstars today like Cousins, Wiggins, and The Brow came into the league at 19 years old.  They come in very mentally and physically immature compared to the other guys they are going up against.  That's a very difficult task.  Larry Bird and David Robinson, on the other hand, were already 23 and 24 years old in their rookie seasons.  If you look at even the transcendent superstars of this generation who came into the league at age 19, even Lebron only mustered 35 and 42 wins his first two seasons (and that's a top 10 player in NBA history) and Durant's teams won 20 and 23 games his first two seasons.

Anthony Davis is only 23.  Wiggins is only 21.  Demarcus is 26 but he clearly has maturity issues (he slipped to #5 in that draft for that reason) and his franchise management has been an epic disaster.  Pelicans have been managed pretty poorly too, but even in the face of that Ant has already carried a team on his back to a playoff birth while having battled injuries for most of his short career so far.

Lastly, I agree with whoever said that there has been a general emphasis in a lot of the NBA on developing individual scoring ability rather than team play and that has hurt the success of those teams big time.

TL;DR Mostly, I think you're being too harsh on them and need to give these babies some time.  They are all still years away from their primes.

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

I think with some of them, the question is more "what's wrong with today's front offices?"  Some of the young stars play on truly incompetent franchises.

Some franchises have no clue. Sacramento, New Orleans. Others have embraced a losing culture with little leadership, like Philly and the Lakers.

Minnesota seems to be the team that is building the "right way", but even with building blocks, coaching and good drafting, they're a long way from winning. It goes to show just how hard winning is.

I would love toknow how Minny is building the right way and Philly is not.

Especially given that Philly plays better defense, has a non-insane coach that ins't running players into the ground, and both teams have had comparable records in the past 3 seasons.

[mr. dee]

their teams suck.

If they get help they'll be fine.

Just like KG in Minny. Just like Pierce in Boston.

Like Wade when Shaq left.

Lebron couldn't get past the Celtics on his own.

Does Jordan win any championships without Pippen? Does Kobe win any without Gasol or Shaq? Unlikely.

- Pierce have taken the Celtics deep in the playoffs by himself and Toine as his best supporting cast.

- So does KG and he won an MVP with the Wolves. His best supporting cast was Sam Cassell and aging Sprewell.

- Lebron took carried his team to 50+ with bunch of scrubs.

- Jordan's team was gradually improving even before Pippen came. His first few years was slowed down by injuries.

- Wade only missed the playoffs due to injury.

This thread is not about winning championships. It's about bringing impact on the team.

yep so look at the 'help' guys like Davis and Cousins have had.
Their help doesn't even remotely match Cassell and Sprewell or Toine and the crew.
The fact is that to impact winning, you need multiple strong players AND a strong coach who knows what he's doing.


Also, as you said, the game is more about ball movement and 3 point shooting now, whereas before, it was about giving the ball to your stars and and letting them go ISO or dumping it Shaq in the post.

The overall 'team' is far better now, but stars still win in the NBA. That includes star coaches.

Jrue Holiday was an all-star player and still pretty young. Tyreke Evans and Eric Gordon are pretty solid, despite disappointing careers. Look how successful he is now with the Rockets despite health issues. And Asik were brought in as a defensive rim protector who were pretty solid too. I think you're undervaluing his team mates too much. He was injured during the past few years, I'll give you that. But he can't use that as an excuse this season. If they were a perennial 40+ win team every season, that wouldn't be the case.

Cousins is very undisciplined on the court. He is a pretty good defender but have no idea how to anchor the defense. IT is already better than Cassell and was averaging 20 PPG on that Kings team.

[mr. dee]

When you look at the young stars today, they would look really impressive as their stat sheets imply. But their team record are exact opposites. You'd expect that they will gradually improve year by year and have at least respectable record in the near future, especially with lottery picks in their team's arsenal. They end up disappointing instead.

It's like their flashy stats doesn't have impact on the team. Sure, they win some games, but not enough to take them to playoffs. Players who instantly impacts winning like Embiid now seems like a rare breed these days.

Meanwhile, teams without superstars are having more success than most of the teams with one. Just look at the Hawks, Raptors, Jazz and Grizzlies. Even our own Celtics is more team-oriented than a superstar-focused. Even guys like IT, Kawhi and Curry are more of a product of a system than a sheer individual talent.

Even with terrible coaching, you should expect some fight to them and have respectable record. I mean, Lebron with Mike Brown and bunch of scrubs won 66 games. Larry Bird and David Robinson instantly transforming lottery teams into 50 win teams.

Guys like Cousins, Wiggins and Davis on the other hand, have disappointing teams. And it's not like they didn't have decent players on their roster.

One big difference is the age that superstars are coming into the league at now compared to before.  Superstars today like Cousins, Wiggins, and The Brow came into the league at 19 years old.  They come in very mentally and physically immature compared to the other guys they are going up against.  That's a very difficult task.  Larry Bird and David Robinson, on the other hand, were already 23 and 24 years old in their rookie seasons.  If you look at even the transcendent superstars of this generation who came into the league at age 19, even Lebron only mustered 35 and 42 wins his first two seasons (and that's a top 10 player in NBA history) and Durant's teams won 20 and 23 games his first two seasons.

Anthony Davis is only 23.  Wiggins is only 21.  Demarcus is 26 but he clearly has maturity issues (he slipped to #5 in that draft for that reason) and his franchise management has been an epic disaster.  Pelicans have been managed pretty poorly too, but even in the face of that Ant has already carried a team on his back to a playoff birth while having battled injuries for most of his short career so far.

Lastly, I agree with whoever said that there has been a general emphasis in a lot of the NBA on developing individual scoring ability rather than team play and that has hurt the success of those teams big time.

TL;DR Mostly, I think you're being too harsh on them and need to give these babies some time.  They are all still years away from their primes.

You can actually see improvement on Lebron's team each year. You can't say the same with Cousins, AD or Wiggins. I give at least 5 years for a "Superstar" to improve his game and his team. Cousins is already 7 years in the league. AD is closing at 5. At year 3, Lebron and the Cavs manage to reach 50 wins. At year 3, Durant and the Thunder manage to reach 50 wins too. Granted, they have Westbrook and Harden on the roster, but it is pretty impressive for a young and upcoming team. Wolves have the same amount of talented individuals but to no success.

[Who]

their teams suck.

If they get help they'll be fine.

Just like KG in Minny. Just like Pierce in Boston.

Like Wade when Shaq left.

Lebron couldn't get past the Celtics on his own.

Does Jordan win any championships without Pippen? Does Kobe win any without Gasol or Shaq? Unlikely.

- Pierce have taken the Celtics deep in the playoffs by himself and Toine as his best supporting cast.

- So does KG and he won an MVP with the Wolves. His best supporting cast was Sam Cassell and aging Sprewell.

- Lebron took carried his team to 50+ with bunch of scrubs.

- Jordan's team was gradually improving even before Pippen came. His first few years was slowed down by injuries.

- Wade only missed the playoffs due to injury.

This thread is not about winning championships. It's about bringing impact on the team.

yep so look at the 'help' guys like Davis and Cousins have had.
Their help doesn't even remotely match Cassell and Sprewell or Toine and the crew.
The fact is that to impact winning, you need multiple strong players AND a strong coach who knows what he's doing.


Also, as you said, the game is more about ball movement and 3 point shooting now, whereas before, it was about giving the ball to your stars and and letting them go ISO or dumping it Shaq in the post.

The overall 'team' is far better now, but stars still win in the NBA. That includes star coaches.

Jrue Holiday was an all-star player and still pretty young. Tyreke Evans and Eric Gordon are pretty solid, despite disappointing careers. Look how successful he is now with the Rockets despite health issues. And Asik were brought in as a defensive rim protector who were pretty solid too. I think you're undervaluing his team mates too much. He was injured during the past few years, I'll give you that. But he can't use that as an excuse this season. If they were a perennial 40+ win team every season, that wouldn't be the case.

Cousins is very undisciplined on the court. He is a pretty good defender but have no idea how to anchor the defense. IT is already better than Cassell and was averaging 20 PPG on that Kings team.

I don't think young players know how to adapt their games to get the best out of their teammates. They have one style of play and that is it.

Take Tyreke Evans. He is only effective if you surround him with 3+D type players. Guys who will let him monopolize the ball and have everything revolve around him. Put him around other scorers (Cousins in SAC or Gordon, AD, Jrue in NOP) and he doesn't know how to function around them. He still needs the same amount of touches. The same amount of time on the ball. He becomes a ball-stopper / makes offenses stagnant. He can still get numbers but a lot of those numbers come at the expense of his teammates offense. It is no longer a team offense but "his turn, my turn" type situation. Guys like Westbrook and LeBron are guilty of this too.

I'd also go back to under-developing team skills. Anthony Davis should have been developed in a role more similar to what he had at Kentucky. Where he was a facilitator rather than a go-to scorer. A dominant defender. A high level rebounder. A plus passer and jump-shooter who created space for his teammates to work with. A lethal transition player. Instead they focused on his one-on-one game and scoring. Those team skills would have gotten much more out of his supporting cast (Jrue, Tyreke, Gordon) and led to more team success.

So -- in line both with what I was saying with development + with what others have talked about front offices -- young players frequently know only one way to be successful. They are not being taught other ways well enough. And this puts pressure on front offices to surround them with players who will allow them to play that one way. Something that New Orleans has clearly failed to do with Anthony Davis. Good talent around him but the wrong types of players. Which has been further compounded by bad coaching / slow development of team related skills which has led to slower growth for their basketball teams. 

[Moranis]

Nothing's wrong with them, the guys you are talking about have terrible surrounding casts. And your surrounding cast matters more now than it used to.

I already mentioned Lebron's team. Replace him with any of these young guys and that 09-10 Cavs will hit lottery.

Minny have more individual talent than the Celtics.

the 66 win Cavs team was in James' 6th year.  Are these guys you are talking about in their 6th year?  And is it really fair to compare anyone to James?  I mean he is by far the best player of his generation and a top 5 player all time.  Can you really expect anyone to compare to that?

[green_bballers13]

Nothing is inherently wrong with the whole group of elite players in the NBA. Every generation has a different perspective than the next, so its not shocking that people might think that a certain time period is better than the next. We all have biases for certain styles of play, and many have strong memories of good players when they were children.

The game is faster and more athletic than ever. Guys like Curry are breaking shooting records all the time. Lebron is going to give MJ and potentially Kareem a run at their championship and scoring acheivements. Russell Westbrook and Isaiah Thomas are ridiculously fun to watch.

The state of the NBA is good! Basketball is fun to watch and play!

[Rosco917]

Some of the major stars today receive so much of their teams cap space, that the team has trouble surrounding them with enough talent to win consistently. By not winning consistently, ownership balks at paying the league penalty tax for going over the cap. It's a juggling act for a GM to balance the over paid stars, coming free agents, and draft choices all while try to satisfy the fans, and filling a roster.

[RAAAAAAAANDY]

When you look at the young stars today, they would look really impressive as their stat sheets imply. But their team record are exact opposites. You'd expect that they will gradually improve year by year and have at least respectable record in the near future, especially with lottery picks in their team's arsenal. They end up disappointing instead.

It's like their flashy stats doesn't have impact on the team. Sure, they win some games, but not enough to take them to playoffs. Players who instantly impacts winning like Embiid now seems like a rare breed these days.

Meanwhile, teams without superstars are having more success than most of the teams with one. Just look at the Hawks, Raptors, Jazz and Grizzlies. Even our own Celtics is more team-oriented than a superstar-focused. Even guys like IT, Kawhi and Curry are more of a product of a system than a sheer individual talent.

Even with terrible coaching, you should expect some fight to them and have respectable record. I mean, Lebron with Mike Brown and bunch of scrubs won 66 games. Larry Bird and David Robinson instantly transforming lottery teams into 50 win teams.

Guys like Cousins, Wiggins and Davis on the other hand, have disappointing teams. And it's not like they didn't have decent players on their roster.

One big difference is the age that superstars are coming into the league at now compared to before.  Superstars today like Cousins, Wiggins, and The Brow came into the league at 19 years old.  They come in very mentally and physically immature compared to the other guys they are going up against.  That's a very difficult task.  Larry Bird and David Robinson, on the other hand, were already 23 and 24 years old in their rookie seasons.  If you look at even the transcendent superstars of this generation who came into the league at age 19, even Lebron only mustered 35 and 42 wins his first two seasons (and that's a top 10 player in NBA history) and Durant's teams won 20 and 23 games his first two seasons.

Anthony Davis is only 23.  Wiggins is only 21.  Demarcus is 26 but he clearly has maturity issues (he slipped to #5 in that draft for that reason) and his franchise management has been an epic disaster.  Pelicans have been managed pretty poorly too, but even in the face of that Ant has already carried a team on his back to a playoff birth while having battled injuries for most of his short career so far.

Lastly, I agree with whoever said that there has been a general emphasis in a lot of the NBA on developing individual scoring ability rather than team play and that has hurt the success of those teams big time.

TL;DR Mostly, I think you're being too harsh on them and need to give these babies some time.  They are all still years away from their primes.

You can actually see improvement on Lebron's team each year. You can't say the same with Cousins, AD or Wiggins. I give at least 5 years for a "Superstar" to improve his game and his team. Cousins is already 7 years in the league. AD is closing at 5. At year 3, Lebron and the Cavs manage to reach 50 wins. At year 3, Durant and the Thunder manage to reach 50 wins too. Granted, they have Westbrook and Harden on the roster, but it is pretty impressive for a young and upcoming team. Wolves have the same amount of talented individuals but to no success.

Well Wiggins problem is that he isn't a good player. Being bad at basketball has been an issue in any era.

[Moranis]

The other thing that comes to mind in this thread, is there is no real definition of a franchise player in it?  I mean I wouldn't consider Wiggins a franchise player and I'm not sure he will ever be one.  Superstar, certainly has that potential, but a superstar and a franchise player are the not the same thing.

I'd define a franchise players as a guy you could build a successful team around basically in any circumstance and whose team is always going to be a playoff level team.  If that is the definition, the one thing that all of those players have is they are elite on one side of the ball and at least very good on the other.  That means there just aren't very many franchise players (James being the prototypical one, but after him there are what 5 or 6 others i.e. Durant, Leonard, Davis, maybe Curry (clearly one of the greatest offensive players ever, but still a bit lesser defensively), maybe Harden, maybe Westbrook, maybe Cousins, maybe George, with guys like Paul, Wade, and Nowitzki on the tail end of that - I mean there just aren't that many franchise players in the league at any given time). 

A superstar is a great player, but lacks the consistency on one side of the ball to be a true franchise player.  So a guy like Irving is clearly a superstar, but he is also pretty clearly not a franchise player, because defensively he isn't consistently that good. 

You don't need a franchise player to win titles (though it obviously helps), but you do need superstars (as in plural), but superstars by themselves can't carry a franchise (and yeah I know there are the rare exceptions that lack the superstars, but those are very rare). 

[action781]

I like the distinction you made there Moranis, especially the being able to build around as the best player on the team.  If I can add anything to it, a franchise player I think is the player who you have zero questions about what to do with at the end of his contract if it were to end this season -- you resign him for the max.

Who satisfies that in the NBA today?  A lot of the guys you mentioned.  I'd say:  Lebron, Durant, Curry, Kawhi, Westbrook, Harden, Ant Davis, Embiid, probably Cousins, probably Paul George, probably Giannis.  Then come the "maybes" like Wall, Klay Thompson, IT, Butler, Towns(?), and probably a few others that I would consider fringe franchise players.