CrushAlot wrote:

dk7th wrote:

mreinman wrote:

fishmike wrote:Its a crap plan and it wont work out. There is a reason you strive to get better ever year. There is a reason you try to build something.

Its fun for the draft junkies but losing breeds more losing and drafting in sheer volume doesnt guarentee anything.

for example.. lets say your an elite franchise with multiple titles over recent years. Established and successful ownership and FO team. You start your rebuilding with a 5 year stretch of multiple high quality draft picks. I mean its a given your going to come out with some star players to build around right? Something like this:
Year 1: Pick 1 - Elton Brand
Year 2: Picks 2,8 - Marcus Fizer, Jamal Crawford
Year 3: Picks 2,4 - Tyson Chandler, Eddie Curry
Year 4: Pick 2 - Jay Williams
Year 5: Pick 7 - Kirk Heinrich

So... 5 years into it? 5 years of utterly dreadful basketball.

Whats even more telling about this stupid approach is when the Bulls started to get better and goto the playoffs. What turned that around? A group of players the EXACT OPPOSITE of must have stars approach. It was Duhon becoming the starting PG. It was a 25 year old rookie in Nocioni. To be fair Ben Gordon was high caliber talent and had a good rookie season. But the big impact player was Deng, who is your highly talented glue guy. Guys like Battier, Iguodalla, Tony Allen, Deng, back injured LJ was that guy for the Knicks... not sexy guys but high caliber low stat high impact guys.

Moving along the Bulls saw some good talent come and go. The have been well coached and thats been documented. Half this board wanks on Thibs team stats. All that and the Bulls reached the conf finals ONCE. Did I mention they added a #1 pick PG MVP along the way?

I mean you can do everything right and it still just doesnt work for one reason or another. And I mention the Bulls because they tend to keep the good talent and let the lesser go. Butler, Noah, Rose, Gibson... the keepers. Ben Gordon, Boozer, Hinrick.. the gonners. The continue to get it right.

Im not looking to use the Bulls as an example for failure. I mean start of every year they could be in the finals. I think all would agree here the Bulls have an envious roster and are well coached. Despite not winning I believe they are a model of success, and not unlike the Spurs model. Build around a core of quality. Spurs. Bulls. BUILD.

And I can tell you very simply and very easily why this guy is an absolute joke and will utterly and quickly fail.

Michael Carter Williams.

This will be probably not the first but the early and shining moment of this idiots total failure and mockery of what team sports is all about.

My god. A 6'6 PG putting up 15/7/6 in his rookie year. Yea his shooting stinks but the guy oozes talent, clearly has game and IS A 6'6 PG. Its like trading Penny Hardaway for three first rounders. No matter what your opiion of MCW you cant honestly say you can project his upside or downside at this time. He really could be another Penny type player. Maybe not. My point is simple... there is NO WAY to know after 50 NBA games. Certainly not in the environment they have created.

This guy is a joke.

Want to know whats NO JOKE? Michael Carter Williams starting his new career under Jason Kidd. Yikes.

Wake up dude... this GM is a joke. He's not qualified or capable of buiding anything. He's got an algorithm he plugs into his playstation. These are men. I watching this experiment fail with great interest because there is talent there easy to plunder.

everyone is so up in arms about MCW but they actually flipped him while he still had high value and they got back a potentially very high pick.

MCW is extremely talented but his shooting is not just bad, its beyond bad. Its brutal. He would need to average 15 assists per game to make up for his torrid shooting.

People who ignore metrics and just look at PPG will of course ignore this as well.

Who do you think is in a better position right now? Us or Philly? Is it even close?

The MCW was a trade that we would never make and that's why we suck. We don't make the right trades and the right time.

This pick that they got for MCW is top 5 protected but how about if they use it to select Stanley Johnson??

according to the numbers i have looked at he is a liability on offense but not a bad defender. if he can't shoot the ball, it may take quite a while to develop a jumper. yet his numbers indicate that he is not bad at sharing the ball if not an outright orchestrator. shooting can develop over a long time, orchestrating not so much. so if the trade is merited perhaps there's a timeline variable in there too.

if you look at espn rpm he is ranked 264th among nba players. that may well be what hinkie is looking at as well.

When someone posts according to the numbers it sounds like they haven't watched the kid play. 6'6 point guards that are very talented don't come around that often. Young guys make mistakes. They also mature and improve. MCW already has shown he is a very good player. I think you have to assume that he will work on and improve his shot. Interesting that you champion a guy that took six seasons and needed a hard @ss as a coach to help him figure things out but yet you are so quick to throw a guy who passes the eye test if you watch already and won the Roy under the bus. I would think MCW will do great with the Bucks, better teammates and a better coach.

i saw him play live last season. he has good athleticism and it'a great that he is tall and that he has catlike quickness. he left a positive impression on me. that said, we are talking about a gm that has a radical view of how to build a winner and who has the most intimate understanding of his roster, far more so than anyone here. as advanced metrics continue to make inroads you may have to brace yourself for seeing more activity like this.

look at it this way: these players have guaranteed contracts while the nba has a salary cap. there is a logical disconnect here that has forced teams to be less loyal and use advanced numbers to make decisions, especially when those contracts are still cheap.

so if you like the fact that employees have guaranteed contracts and can place themselves above the business they are employed by, then this sort of horse trading is inevitable earlier in careers.

to understand why some people are getting their panties in a bunch over this trade, take a hard look at the knicks' situation since this exemplifies to the nth degree how a player can make a team suffer and regress....

TripleThreat wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:When someone posts according to the numbers it sounds like they haven't watched the kid play. 6'6 point guards that are very talented don't come around that often. Young guys make mistakes. They also mature and improve. MCW already has shown he is a very good player. I think you have to assume that he will work on and improve his shot. Interesting that you champion a guy that took six seasons and needed a hard @ss as a coach to help him figure things out but yet you are so quick to throw a guy who passes the eye test if you watch already and won the Roy under the bus. I would think MCW will do great with the Bucks, better teammates and a better coach.

Things to consider

1) NBA history and recent history has shown that you don't need an elite point guard to contend and even win a championship. Would it be nice to have an elite point guard or an upper tier point guard along with a stocked and deep roster? Absolutely. But IMHO they simply are not as critical to a modern NBA's team success as an elite wing and an elite pivot. (I'm not saying point guards are not important at all, I am saying if you had to choose between getting a potential franchise center or a franchise level wing, I would wager most NBA teams would pick those over a franchise level point guard)

2) NBA history and draft history has shown that getting point guard help can be found all over the draft board. While it's still odds on more likely to find an elite PG at the top of the draft, unlike center and elite wing, it's simply much easier to mine point guard help in the late first round, in the 2nd round, in the UDFA pool and in the 2nd and 3rd tiers of free agency.

3) NBA recent history has shown that well run teams and stable organizations and those considered successful organizations are able to mine the point guard position without breaking the bank in terms of salary cap or their asset base. Derrick Rose goes down, the Bulls mix in Nate Robinson, DJ Augustin and Aaron Brooks. Are those guys on the level of Rose? No, but they are able to push out strong play for not a huge cost, either in salary or cost to acquire. Poorly run franchises like the Knicks and the Jazz will consistently struggle to fill the point guard position.

4) NBA history has shown that players with enough opportunity tend to make their biggest leaps in development between Years 1 and 2 and then Years 2 and 3. Could Hinkie have sold early/low on MCW? Sure. It's possible. But is it more likely that MCW has shown about 85-90 percent of what he will likely be and will always be for the future? Yes, I think an argument can be made there as well.

The core of what Hinkie has traded were point guards. Jrue Holiday, a young All Star point guard. Elfrid Payton, moved on draft day to get Saric and then MCW. But then why is that a surprise? Hinkie was trained in Houston, where they ran through Aaron Brooks, Goran Dragic, Kyle Lowry and Jeremy Lin and they might be moving past Patrick Beverley soon too.

I'm not sure amassing assets, betting on big men ( Noel, Embiid, Saric) and looking to fill the PG spot later is the worst thing in the world. Hinkie could have stayed with Evan Turner, Jrue Holiday, Thad Young, MCW and Spencer Hawes and been comfortably a treadmill team. But you've seen Turner and Hawes, putting up strong numbers in a losing situation with a green light, struggle on better teams ( Pacers and Clippers) requiring more efficiency. MCW has got lots of talent, no doubt, but he's not flawless when presented with the question of how his skill set or limitations might be exploited during playoff style ball.

Actually, I'm a little surprised some of the aggravation is coming from losing MCW and not KJ McDaniels.

Hinkie is essentially betting that the potential to get the 6th pick this year or the 4th pick next year, the most ideal possible situation in either year from that LA/PHX pick, was worth more than what he felt was MCW under the most ideal circumstances. IMHO, point guard is a talent rich position, MCW wasn't a top 10 point guard and I don't think it was that bad of a risk.

I also think some of the issue here is that the Knicks have long long labored from that black hole in the point guard position, and part of that is driving the issue of what MCW is worth on some level. Someone with MCW's talent base looks mighty tasty to a fanbase that's been suffering through the Felton/Waiting For Baron Davis/Sort of Shumpert/Felton 2.0/Aging Calderon pupu platter. How Dolan and the Knicks have continued to absolutely horse **** the point guard position is sort of mind boggling. It's like screwing up while trying to piss against the side of the barn.

IMHO, churning point guards isn't a sign to me that Hinkie is a huckster. If he stone cold flips Noel, Embiid and Saric, then I think people will start to have an argument.

Personally I like what Philly has done. They've given themselves a lot of options and unlike the Knicks, aren't locked into a very narrow window to get to success.

excellent post. you have a keen mind.

TripleThreat wrote:

CrushAlot wrote: The problem is Hinkie always seems to think he can get something better than what he has. I am not sure there will be a trade for a star he values enough for him to do that deal. Also, I have heard/read mixed things about what other gms think of him. While he definitely did the right thing by taking care of Pierre Jackson, I also have read that he can be hard to deal with.

VORP - Value Over Replacement Player

Every player in every major professional sport where there are salary limitations of some kind face the same question.

Can I get someone else to give me 70-80 percent of what you give this team in production/impact, but for 10-15-20 percent of the cost at full market value?

Formerly the Bulls, when they had Deng, Boozer, Noah, Rip Hamilton and just Rose as the primary offensive option, were seen as an ideal landing spot for Melo. Now they have Pau Gasol ( 21 million over like 3 years) and Mirotic to help out at PF. Gasol is giving the Bulls a lot of offensive punch at less than 1/3rd of the cost of Melo. Mirotic is even less.

He might have sold early/low on MCW, but the reality is you need to trade a player before his expiring year ( for a rookie first rounder, it would be Year 2 or Year 3) to garner the best possible return value. Even for veterans, it makes a difference. Both Shumpert and Rondo got hurt, thus forcing their timetables on their contracts differently, thus making it harder to trade them sooner, thus getting so little in return back for them. If Hinkie decided he didn't want MCW for the long term, then make that decision RIGHT NOW, while the return value is stronger, than later, when it will likely decline.

Can Hinkie get someone to play point guard to give the 76ers 70-80 percent of what MCW gives him in production/impact at 10-20 percent of the cost to keep him once his rookie contract expires?

I think NBA history within the point guard position, and more importantly, in recent trends, have shown Yes.

The guys you start shelling out the money to are the guys that can't be replaced like that. I can't get Anthony Davis production/impact, or even half of it, for 10-20 percent of the cost once his rookie contract ends and he starts to be subject to actual market value. Nor Durant, which is why those guys get the big bucks.

You are right, the 76ers might never get that chance to strike on an elite franchise player from another team in a trade.

BUT IF OPPORTUNITY ARISES, THEY WILL BE IN A POSITION TO STRIKE FAST, STRIKE ABSOLUTELY AND STILL HAVE AMMO TO KEEP STRIKING AFTER ANY DEAL.

What do they say? Luck often happens when preparation and hard work meet together in the road. Hinkie isn't promising wins, he's promising that whenever any opportunity opens up, the 76ers will have the resource base to exploit it if they want.

If you want to contend, you gotta be able to go get what you NEED, not settle for what you already have and hope suddenly a player will start doing things he's never done. Hinkie could have given Hawes a nice big fat extension, only to have a center who can't play defense in a league where you need a center who can play defense to contend.

I'm a little mixed on Thad Young and KJ Daniels, but was it the end of the world that he moved on from MCW, Evan Turner, Spencer Hawes, Elfrid Payton, Jrue Holiday and the like?

newyorker4ever wrote:Obviously it's great having a bunch of 1st round draft picks which is the same thing D.Ainge has been doing in Boston but getting all those picks is gonna take years of trading players at the deadline and your team and fans will have to deal with years of losing but draft picks especially 1st rounders can get you a lot in this league when you're ready to go all in and put a winning team together.