Comments on: Pistons Roundtable: Dangers of the mediocrity treadmill

By: Pistons Roundtable | Pro Hoops Talk

Pistons Roundtable | Pro Hoops Talk — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:18:41 +0000

[...] 2. How much are the Pistons in danger of running in place on the mediocrity treadmill? [...]

By: khandor

khandor — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 07:43:11 +0000

IMO, there were several players still available who I expect to eventually have a better long term career in the NBA than Greg Monroe, e.g. Al-Farouq Aminu, Gordon Hayward, Paul George, Ed Davis, Patrick Patterson, Luke Babbitt, Dexter Pittman, Hassan Whiteside, and Landry Fields.

By: brgulker

brgulker — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 17:23:13 +0000

@ Jason:
OKC is very close to being a legit contender. If Perk’s healthy, they could come very close this season.

By: Raptors vs Pistons #whocares #steak #dogs #barnes – Toronto Update

Raptors vs Pistons #whocares #steak #dogs #barnes – Toronto Update — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 03:20:32 +0000

[...] finding themselves in a very similar predicament, Joe Dumars has locked them in a state where this question is being pondered out loud. The link is a take on the Pistons by various media outlets and the viewpoints are diverse, [...]

By: Jakob Eich

Jakob Eich — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:21:27 +0000

I never said we were, I just said it is possible and players sometimes turn out better (Rose) or way better (Noah, Gibson) than you imagined.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:27:25 +0000

@Tim

Yeah but they need a natural point guard buddy.

Do we have a natural point guard. NO. So whatever your point is way off base.

He is not overpaid. I will say again again. He is not producing up to what he is paid but its not his fault. He ranks with your examples up there as well. Are you that stupid to realize none of them have to share time with as many players as BG does. Come on Timmy. They all have decent real point guards as well. Except maybe Ellis and Gordon. But BG at least plays better defense then Gordon.

And your point below is valid to the point I am making on veterans win championships. Which is why I disagree with the census that we should get rid of Tay and that our ANSWER is the draft.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:59:06 +0000

Who, in your opinion, was better than M0nroe at 7?

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:51:38 +0000

Actually, that right there is one of the major problems. There is no talent gap from 1 to 12 on this team. And they all deserve to start on a bad team. They would all be significant role players on a good team. But this team can’t have 12 starters, and the assets it has can’t be solidified into better players because everyone is so overpaid.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:43:58 +0000

Hard to say, but ultimately, if you’re going to deal with teams that win championships, you will never be able to avoid the small sample size problem that makes much of analysis useless. I would encourage instead looking at teams that are title contenders. Because that’s the best a GM can do is build a contender. After that, there’s too much randomness to control.
But let’s look at this year’s contenders: Chicago, Boston, Miami, LA, San Antonio, Dallas, and OKC and Orlando are maybes. Let’s see, how many of their key players did they draft (I’m also counting players acquired immediately after being drafted by another team): Rose, Noah, Deng, Pierce, Rondo, Wade, Kobe, Bynum, Duncan, Parker, Ginobili, Nowitzki, Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka, Howard, Nelson. And Garnett and Allen were acquired by dealing big draft picks in Jefferson and Green. And Perkins and Green are important players who just got swapped for each other, but that doesn’t reduce the importance of drafting them.
So the important players that were acquired by contenders not as a direct result of drafting well are down to just: Boozer, James, Bosh, Gasol, Odom, Kidd, Chandler, and Richardson. That’s a nice list, but it’s got nothing on the one above it. And it’s way skewed by two freak occurences too. Miami’s joining of the big three was unprecedented and I don’t know if there has ever been another trade that could immediately been evaluated as such a ripoff as the Gasol deal. Sure, some trades have turned out that way a few years later. And that deal is actually looking less so now that Marc Gasol is decent (hey look another contender’s draft pick). But it was arguably the most lopsided trade ever in terms of current values of the moving parts when it went down.
Don’t tell me that rebuilding via the draft wasn’t key to any of those contenders. All of them except Miami got their best player via the draft (I guess Boston is arguable). And several got their best two or more. And with the exception of Kobe and Rondo (although one could argue Pierce as the C’s best player as well), all those best players were very high draft picks as well, thus substantiating the need for the lottery.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 17:19:02 +0000

@Jason “what do you think a natural shooting guard is?” Yeah, an average shooting guard needs a good point guard to be effective. Ben Gordon does indeed fit into that category. But a $12M SG should be able to do pretty decntly without a great PG. Look at Eric Gordon, Brandon Roy (pre-injury), Ray Allen, Kevin Martin, Monta Ellis, Joe Johnson etc. These are the $10-15M deserving SGs. I’m not including Kobe and Wade because those are clearly max contract deserving players. But none of these guys need a great PG to be effective. It would sure help, but they are good enough to be the man on a bad team, not just an essential piece of a good team. Ben Gordon does not fit that category.
With Deng having a down year, those Bulls just didn’t have a scorer. Of course Gordon could get his. Put today’s Marcus Thornton or OJ Mayo on that team and they could approach 20 ppg too. Those are still $7M players, tops.