What's The Consensus?

[KB21]

8 hours ago, nathan2331 said:

 

 

 

So, when the Sonics/Thunder bottomed out to draft Durant, Westbrook and Harden, according to your logic they should've held onto Rashard Lewis and Ray Allen in 2007 just to keep losing in the playoffs.

 

The Millsap and Howard tandem was going nowhere, our run was over. Would you still like to see Howard on the roster? Would you like to be currently paying Millsap 30 million a season? It was about time we hopped off the treadmill. Most likely we'll end up where we started. It doesn't take much to be a playoff team in the East. We very well could turn into a legitimate contender though. It's a risk worth taking. The reality is that the NBA team's that contend year in-year out are usually led by lottery talent because that's where you're most likely to draft a high-caliber player. It took us getting Horford at #3 to propel us into our 12 year playoff run.

 

Hopefully Trae and whoever we draft next year can surpass that. You're right that a losing team is not an ideal situation for a rookie to come into, but that doesn't proper development cannot still occur.

The reality you continue to ignore is that those championship teams lead by lottery picks did not bottom their team out to get those lottery picks.  They were either bad for an extended period of time before finally getting it right in the lottery (Golden State - one playoff appearance between 1994 and 2011) or they signed/traded for that lottery talent.

[nathan2331]

 

 

The reality you continue to ignore is that those championship teams lead by lottery picks did not bottom their team out to get those lottery picks.  They were either bad for an extended period of time before finally getting it right in the lottery (Golden State - one playoff appearance between 1994 and 2011) or they signed/traded for that lottery talent.

 

So the Sonics/Thunder didn't "bottom out"? If you say they didn't, then I don't know what else to tell you.

[KB21]

21 minutes ago, nathan2331 said:

 

 

 

 

So the Sonics/Thunder didn't "bottom out"? If you say they didn't, then I don't know what else to tell you.

Did the Sonics/Thunder win a championship?

[AHF]

43 minutes ago, nathan2331 said:

 

 

 

 

So the Sonics/Thunder didn't "bottom out"? If you say they didn't, then I don't know what else to tell you.

KB doesn’t think any team that won a championship bottomed out even when you have an example like the Astros.  Because championship teams don’t bottom out what they did must not be bottoming out.  No matter how many vets they traded off for minor league talent.  They didn’t bottom out.  Period.  Please stop discussing he specifics of their roster and payroll.  They won a ring so they didn’t bottom out.

If Philly wins a ring you can be sure they won’t have bottomed out.  Until they win a ring they did bottom out and they are ruined forever.  Like Cleveland post LeBron.  Since they won a ring they didn’t bottom out when they were routinely one of the worst teams in the league and at the top of the lottery.

[EazyRoc]

10 minutes ago, AHF said:

KB doesn’t think any team that won a championship bottomed out even when you have an example like the Astros.  Because championship teams don’t bottom out what they did must not be bottoming out.  No matter how many vets they traded off for minor league talent.  They didn’t bottom out.  Period.  Please stop discussing he specifics of their roster and payroll.  They won a ring so they didn’t bottom out.

If Philly wins a ring you can be sure they won’t have bottomed out.  Until they win a ring they did bottom out and they are ruined forever.  Like Cleveland post LeBron.  Since they won a ring they didn’t bottom out when they were routinely one of the worst teams in the league and at the top of the lottery.

It’s really interesting because we didn’t actually bottom out. We refused to overpay a veteran PF on the tail end of his career. We got rid of an overrated center who’s since then been bounced around the league. We traded off older vets who were ultimately net negatives. Until this team trades Baze for peanuts, the whole bottoming our narrative doesn’t really have legs. 

[nathan2331]

Did the Sonics/Thunder win a championship?

They very easily could have if they kept Harden. They definitely have been much closer to winning one than we ever have in our enitre history in Atlanta.

[sillent]

19 hours ago, KB21 said:

Those players you mentioned will definitely have more room to get on the floor and fail, not grow.  

Cause KB says so.... I admire your positive attitude towards negativity. What's life without balance right?

[sillent]

15 hours ago, MaceCase said:

Any mountaineer will tell you that you risk suicide if you attempt to ascend under unfavorable conditions, a lot of the time you have to go down in order to go up.  

 

But ill throw in an anti-tanker dig while I’m at it.  Anti-tankers are content taking photos with the mountain in the background, struggling to catch the perfect angle where it looks as though they are pinching  the summit.  

That is their championship.  

That pinch however also serves to symbolize their actual chances of reaching the summit.  

True anti tankers understand that every great team had to overcome some of the greatest teams to become great. The Bulls went thru many battles against the Pistons before reaching greatness. Lakers , Celtics, Miami, Cavs, Warriors all had to overcome something before they got there and the only way they got their is by climbing a mountain. You don't go from bottom all the way to the top by tanking. Spurs weren't tanking when they got Duncan just injured. Point is you have to be in it to win it and most tankers elect to not even try expecting some magical turn around after being horrible for years. There's no magical helicopter to the top of this mountain every team has to make the same climb. Some survive some fall off until there's only one.

It's a Marathon and you can't win a race that you haven't even started. There's no end before the beginning and less gratitude in skipping steps. How sad was it for Karl Malone and Gary Payton to still not get a ring chasing it with a super team in those days in LA ? Boogie may very well get one with the Warriors but it will be short lived.

As an anti tanker I'm not a fan of mediocrity either but how do you know what you're capable of if you don't even try to put forth your best effort? We call those quitters aka losers. Winners never quit just ask anybody that's ever done anything great.   

[sillent]

16 hours ago, nathan2331 said:

20 hours ago, KB21 said:

Actually, the pro tankers are content with being at the bottom of the mountain if they don't feel their is a chance to win a championship.  It's basically championship or bust to you guys.

 

Why would you keep a team together if you think they will never be able to win a championship? That's a waste of time. Once you've maxed out, it's time to hit the reset button.

Exactly and the only way to know if you've maxed out is to put forth maximum effort!!

[macdaddy]

2 hours ago, EazyRoc said:

It’s really interesting because we didn’t actually bottom out. We refused to overpay a veteran PF on the tail end of his career. We got rid of an overrated center who’s since then been bounced around the league. We traded off older vets who were ultimately net negatives. Until this team trades Baze for peanuts, the whole bottoming our narrative doesn’t really have legs. 

We have different definitions of bottoming out then.  I get what you're saying about Sap and Howard but we didn't replace them.   We just grabbed a bunch of unwanted free agents and journeymen and fielded a team.  Then mid season we waived the only two that were legit nba vet rotation players and gave minutes to a bunch of guys not even in the league now.   I don't know how much more you can do to bottom out short of just holding open tryouts at the Y.  

[EazyRoc]

35 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

We have different definitions of bottoming out then.  I get what you're saying about Sap and Howard but we didn't replace them.   We just grabbed a bunch of unwanted free agents and journeymen and fielded a team.  Then mid season we waived the only two that were legit nba vet rotation players and gave minutes to a bunch of guys not even in the league now.   I don't know how much more you can do to bottom out short of just holding open tryouts at the Y.  

My thing is and what I can get anyone to answer is..who should we have gotten to replace Sap and Howard ?

Its obvious that Sap got paid much more than his true value and Howard has been a journeyman for about 6-8 years.

[JayBirdHawk]

16 minutes ago, EazyRoc said:

My thing is and what I can get anyone to answer is..who should we have gotten to replace Sap and Howard ?

Its obvious that Sap got paid much more than his true value and Howard has been a journeyman for about 6-8 years.

We replaced Howard with Dedmon.

Replacing Milsap would be harder, Zach Randolph, Glassinari, Taj Gibson are the 3 PFs I can think of off hand that were available that would have been cheaper than Sap (not advocating, just stating).

[EazyRoc]

Just now, JayBirdHawk said:

We replaced Howard with Dedmon.

Replacing Milsap would be harder, Zach Randolph, Glassinari, Taj Gibson are the 3 PFs I can think of off hand that were available that would have been cheaper than Sap (not advocating, just stating).

That’s kind of what I’m saying. It’s like Yeah we could’ve added any of those guys, but would they have made a difference in the win column ? So it’s not like we cut everyone who might be good, put together a historically bad NBA team, and purposely try to be the worst team ever like Philly did. 

[macdaddy]

22 minutes ago, EazyRoc said:

My thing is and what I can get anyone to answer is..who should we have gotten to replace Sap and Howard ?

Its obvious that Sap got paid much more than his true value and Howard has been a journeyman for about 6-8 years.

If you aren't choosing to bottom out then you have to re-sign Sap.   I don't think he got overpaid by denver.  it was 3 year $90 million but that 3rd year was a team option.   Then you have to make some trades or something to build the team or take some shots at a few FAs.  We signed Dedmon.  Tyreke Evans was available. we let Hardaway walk (thank god).   I'm not saying we should have done any of that.   But we chose to bottom out.  I don't know what else you could call it.   

 

[macdaddy]

1 minute ago, EazyRoc said:

That’s kind of what I’m saying. It’s like Yeah we could’ve added any of those guys, but would they have made a difference in the win column ? So it’s not like we cut everyone who might be good, put together a historically bad NBA team, and purposely try to be the worst team ever like Philly did. 

But we did right.  Not worst team ever but we did cut everyone we conceivably could and tried to be the worst team in the league last year.   We were really close actually except some teams chose to actually throw games.  

[EazyRoc]

Just now, macdaddy said:

If you aren't choosing to bottom out then you have to re-sign Sap.   I don't think he got overpaid by denver.  it was 3 year $90 million but that 3rd year was a team option.   Then you have to make some trades or something to build the team or take some shots at a few FAs.  We signed Dedmon.  Tyreke Evans was available. we let Hardaway walk (thank god).   I'm not saying we should have done any of that.   But we chose to bottom out.  I don't know what else you could call it.   

 

Philly bottomed out. I don’t think we went that far.

[macdaddy]

2 minutes ago, EazyRoc said:

Philly bottomed out. I don’t think we went that far.

I guess at the end of the day it doesn't matter much what you want to call it.  Rebuild, retool, bottom out.  It'll be interesting to see how we play it this year.   

[JayBirdHawk]

6 minutes ago, EazyRoc said:

That’s kind of what I’m saying. It’s like Yeah we could’ve added any of those guys, but would they have made a difference in the win column ? So it’s not like we cut everyone who might be good, put together a historically bad NBA team, and purposely try to be the worst team ever like Philly did. 

We could have fielded a competitive team to make an 8 seed if we WANTED TO. Sign one of those guys mentioned above with Illyasova as the back up, bring THjr back which moves Baze to the bench, find a trade for Plumlee using an asset(since we weren'tbottoming put), use that capspace to sign another FA like Kelly Olynyk,  dump DelaneySux, sign Patty Mills to back up Dennis. Bring back Thabo.

It's not like it was impossible to put together a team to make the playoffs in a weak east sans Sap. That just was not the route wr were headed, but not impossible.

 

[EazyRoc]

8 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

We could have fielded a competitive team to make an 8 seed if we WANTED TO. Sign one of those guys mentioned above with Illyasova as the back up, bring THjr back which moves Baze to the bench, find a trade for Plumlee using an asset(since we weren'tbottoming put), use that capspace to sign another FA like Kelly Olynyk,  dump DelaneySux, sign Patty Mills to back up Dennis. Bring back Thabo.

It's not like it was impossible to put together a team to make the playoffs in a weak east sans Sap. That just was not the route wr were headed, but not impossible.

 

Not saying it’s impossible either, but making the playoffs with that team would’ve been unlikely. Baze is a better overall player than THjr. None of those guys really move the needle for us. 

[Buzzard]

14 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

I guess at the end of the day it doesn't matter much what you want to call it.  Rebuild, retool, bottom out.  It'll be interesting to see how we play it this year.   

Really depends on your view. Philly had consecutive seasons of 19, 18, and 10 wins. Our season last year was 24 wins. I do not see Schlenk ever letting us get close to that kind of dismal. I think he is too competitive; and takes more pride in his job and team than that.

In order to do what Philly did, I don't see how they took any pride in their team at all during that three year stretch.