(09-19-2022, 08:02 PM)mvossman Wrote: I find it extremely unlikely that a new GM would seriously consider trying to tank with a healthy Luka Doncic or stripping the team down to the studs, all for a single pick and a bunch of powder. Luka just made the WCF. How do you sell that to him? Are we going to ask him to take a year off? Otherwise there is no way to get a top 10 pick. Has any GM ever done something like this?
You mean like win three NBA championhips, exaggerate injuries to key players to miss the play-offs for two years, get multiple lottery picks, acquire another young star and then come back to win another championship. I don´t think that has happened ever. Certainly not in recent history.
Luka is as good as we think he is, though his tendency to James Harden every off-season is worrisome. The rest of the team is not nearly as good, especially the hype around Dinwiddie´s hot streak. To rely on that to continue is a bubble (pun intended) like Burke.
It´s all about that 2nd guy and 3rd guy. A top 10 pick in the deepest draft in ages, gives you either a great pick or a great trade asset, so is the potential Lakers pick and you get cap space. That´s your way to build a potential dynasty in 12 months.
You guys might not like this, but right now we have nothing to do a SGA trade. We have no young players like Markkanen or Sexton or Agbaji (not even one of them) and we have no five first round picks. So I don´t know how people here believe we can acquire a player like him. And that asset-less state ultimately leads back to capspace, which we don´t have either. So basically right now we have nothing.
The best we can hope for is to trade something like Kleber/Bullock+1st for John Collins, but is that pushing us toward a title by itself?
A nine months Westbrook tank could lead to young assets (Bamba, White, Lakers 1st round pick, our own top 10 pick, accelerated development of Hardy/Green) and if you seek to do it up to 60M in capspace. It´s a flexible strategy.
But the good or bad news is that won´t happen anyway, and we´ll get to see your way, of gradually improving.