Too much wasted time and energy is being used to try to create a team that can overtake the Cavs and the Warriors starting next season.
Not gonna happen. They are too good. There is no one in the universe who can stop LBJ and his squad, except maybe the Warriors, a team of 4 All Stars, and 3-4 All NBA players. Each of whom is still on the good side of 30 years old.
We need to change our mind set. There is no miracle trade out there like there was in 2007. The NBA elite was not so elite then. Plus our only shot was to try to build quickly around a guy who had just turned 30 (Pierce). The pressure was on then.
We are under no such pressure now. We don't have a nucleus that is going to overtake CLE or GSW for the next 2-3 years. That is the reality. What we do have is a platform to continue to win a lot of games with over-achieving group (Horford, IT, Bradley) while grooming young guys (Brown, Smart, Fultz, 2018 Nets pick, Zizic, Rozier, Yabs) to become the next Warriors team.
Stop wasting all this time trying to build a team that is somehow going to overtake the Cavs and Warriors next year. Stop kidding yourselves.
You overestimate the Cavs.
The Warriors are a more difficult challenge, but they still have a lot of youth on their side so they aren't going away any time soon - and you can't avoid them forever.
Lebron and the Cavs, however, are very much beatable.
Lebron has been defeated in 3 of their last 6 trips to the finals. Would have been 4 of their last 6 if he hadn't been bailed out by a ridiculous Ray Allen game winner against the Spurs.
The past two seasons in Clevleand, the Cavs havn't been that far above other teams in the East as far as win record goes (unlike the Warriors and Spurs, who have been dominating the West).
Lebron is also 32 years old, and he's reaching the end of his prime. He's still going to be effective for years to come, but the Cavs have the highest salary in the league and have limited flexiblity for adding future talent to help him out. They are gong to get worse before they get any better, and that has already started this year (struggling to end the season and giving up the #1 seed to Boston).
Cavs have a championship window of this season, and maybe one or two years after it - that's it.
You absolutely do not lie down and give up. We have a 30 year old Al Horford earning $30M a year, and we have a 27 year old Isaiah Thomas putting up 29 PPG. You wait until the Cavs' championship window closes, and you are wasting those guys. We need to strike now while those guys are ballin' at their best, and we need to do it in a way that allows us to contend now while still maintaining future flexibility.
This move does exactly that.
Thomas and Butler are both 27. Those two guys have 3-5 years of prime basketball left in them. By the time they fade out, Fultz should be a legitimate superstar worthy of building the next great team around.
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Topic: Hayward + Fultz OR Hayward + Butler addition in the offseason? (poll) (Read 4138 times)