Posted by Bonn1997:

Posted by crzymdups:

Posted by diderotn:

Dude! forgive me for asking you this question, but how many top 3 picks do WE have on our roster??? This team needs a freaking Center, CENTER, he doesn't have to be a freaking star. All he needs to provide is shot blocking and defensive presence.....Marb was a top 3, Penny

Marbury was 4th, Penny isn't a starter. Look, I'm not trying to be argumental, but it's a fact that NBA teams are built around high lotto picks. Every great team I can remember has been built around a top three pick. I'm just saying, it's going to be tough to build a contender without a top three pick and going by history IMPOSSIBLE to win a championship.

So there's really that huge a difference between 3 and 4? Did you ask the question about top 3 picks deceptively because you knew Marbury was #4? If so, that's pretty lame.

No, I said top 3 because NO TEAM without a top three pick being a starter and major contributor has won a championship.

Posted by crzymdups:

Posted by eViL:

Scrap KG, Amare, Kobe, T-Mac - those guys will never win championships. They weren't Top 3. Now Joe Smith, Kwame Brown, Stromile Swift - that's championship caliber.

I don't see any of those guys ever winning a championship, not unless they get some serious help. I'd LOVE to see Kobe win a championship without Shaq. That selfish idiot doesn't know crap about playing winning basketball. Amare has potential, sure, but we all know Phoenix isn't winning. KG just got out of the first round and his team in his shambles once more.

Tmac plays with Yao (#1 overall), so that would only prove my point.

It's a dumb point. Winning a championship is not contingent upon having a top 3 pick in your starting lineup. I get the fact that top 3 picks are normally great players, but it's still a dumb point.

Posted by crzymdups:

Posted by eViL:

Posted by crzymdups:

Posted by eViL:

Scrap KG, Amare, Kobe, T-Mac - those guys will never win championships. They weren't Top 3. Now Joe Smith, Kwame Brown, Stromile Swift - that's championship caliber.

I don't see any of those guys ever winning a championship, not unless they get some serious help. I'd LOVE to see Kobe win a championship without Shaq. That selfish idiot doesn't know crap about playing winning basketball. Amare has potential, sure, but we all know Phoenix isn't winning. KG just got out of the first round and his team in his shambles once more.

Tmac plays with Yao (#1 overall), so that would only prove my point.

It's a dumb point. Winning a championship is not contingent upon having a top 3 pick in your starting lineup. I get the fact that top 3 picks are normally great players, but it's still a dumb point.

Call it whatever you like, but it's actually a F-A-C-T. Perhaps instead of belittling the fact, you should examine the fact.

I'm just saying, this team had a chance to draft potential franchise talent in the draft with a top three pick (Taft, Bogut, M.Williams) and people are so quick to give up that chance to make an ill-conceived play-off run. To what end? To get swept again? This whole process makes rebuilding a lot harder. I'm just saying, if we're rebuilding anyway, we might look at the fact that no team in the modern era has won a championship without a top three pick.

Bird, Magic, Isiah, Hakeem, Jordan, Shaq, Duncan. This talent doesn't fall off trees or slip to the middle of the first round, it's gone after three picks. Deal with it.

Whoopsie, dude. Since we're splitting hares here, Bird was the 6th pick. Junior-eligible rules were in effect back then. Red Auerbach actually took a gamble with this move.

Maybe we can get Olowokandi on the team or get Ewing out of retirement just to make crzy happy

Look, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but it's pretty undeniable that the way you build a true contender is with top of the draft talent.

I'm just disappointed that we were a hairs breadth away from a top five pick and thus an excellent chance at moving into the top three and now we have the ten pick and two more undersized power forwards who can overpower an injured team at home, but can't do much when they actually have to face that top of the lotto talent (Dwight Howard).

Posted by crzymdups:

Look, I'm not trying to be a jerk, but it's pretty undeniable that the way you build a true contender is with top of the draft talent.

Let's not forget that you can get that player by drafting him, trading for him, or signing him as a free agent.
I don't have a list of where each starter on each championship team was drafted but I wouldn't be surprised if some teams didn't have a top 3 pick.

[Edited by - Bonn1997 on 03/09/2005 13:07:33]

if you have the 5-6 slot you have a very solid chance of moving into the top 3. Even with 7. Teams that are 10+ never move up.

As for winning a title Detriot did something that had not been done in at least 20 years, they won with team ball. Before then it was Magic, Kareem, Bird, McHale, Isiah, MJ, Pippen, Hakeem, Duncan, Robinson, Shaq, Kobe. Of all those only Shaq was aquired once he played in the league.

we can get a good pick, and we will. I do trust Isiah to draft well. I hope like hell he doesnt freak about the payroll and feel pressure to trade the pick for a vet, of if he does its for someone very good and very young.

Lots of good picks later in round 1, but most franchise talent comes early in the draft. No ifs ands or butts. Bogut is franchise talent. Ive seen him play against Duncan. He's the best bigman in college. Gay or Williams could be another Pippin. These guys wont be available at 10.

Maybe this team is better than I think. We havent won more than 3 straight all year and are a joke on the road but who knows. Maybe Herb gets them believing that defense and rebounding is important

Posted by Masterplan:


it's a statistical F-A-C-T that correlation does not equal causation. what that means is that even if two things are very closely related, you still can't assume that one is the cause of the other. you're saying having a top 3 pick causes championships. there's no reason to believe that. i don't think billups (or darko) was the key to the pistons winning, it was teamwork and defense. make the requirement a top 2 pick, and your argument falls apart (no jordan in addition to billups). in fact, i think, more often than not, it's the 1st overall pick that's the piece on a championship team. your cutoff is pretty arbitrary and self-serving. that, and as has been mentioned, having a top three pick is no recipe for a championship, let alone making the playoffs.

and were we seriously ever in the running for a top 3 pick? seriously?

I felt like we before the trade deadline. We were in the sixth slot, which gave us a very good crack at being in the top 3.

I'm not saying no team will ever win without a top 3 pick, but it is a statistical fact. Yes, Detroit built their team through a series of trades and shrewd signings. But if you are going to tell me that Billups (#3 pick, finals mvp) didn't dominate the way a Jordan or Hakeem did - obviously that's true. But one thing about Detroit, they did trade their lotto pick #3 overall stud Grant Hill for Ben Wallace, who granted was an unsigned free agent (probably the best unsigned free agent ever)...so Detroit DID use a top three pick to build that championship team, as well as adding Billups (#3 overall) and Sheed (#4) and Hamilton (#8). And does anyone find it ironic that Detroit had the #2 overall pick in the draft the year before they won it?

Yes, obviously, this is a circumstantial argument and you can't say it's a certainty, but I can't believe this line of reasoning has inspired so much vitriol. It's circumstantial, but at the same time pretty obviously true.