Official HCP's Win Total Prediction Goes Boom Thread

Media after Tim Duncan's rookie year: "You're not making any trades?" to which Greg Popovich responded "We're trading rookie Tim Duncan for second year player Tim Duncan."

Think about that. No really, think about that. Players can improve, cakes can bake. We have 8 lotto picks on the team already. Our players have high upside:

Lillard, CJ: Allstar
Crabbe, Aminu, Plums, Biebs: just below allstar
Aminu: 1st team all defense

 

Sure, we have eight lottery picks, but how many of them have superstar potential?

One. We have one guy that I think could be one of the top guards in the league. CJ has star potential. I think he could one day be an All-Star. Vonleh projects to be a very solid starter, possibly even an All-Star at some point. Who else on this team would you confidently say could be All-NBA?

 

Aminu/Leonard/Plumlee are role players. Nothing more, nothing less. Aminu and Plumlee are solid starters, and that's great. I highly value their talent and contribution, but they're not just below an All-Star. Leonard is a bust thus far. I don't put him anywhere near an All-Star.

 

Say what?!

And even if that were true, it isn't enough to compete for a title.

 

Serious question: how many all-NBA guys did we have in 1992? In 2000? I wasn't really tracking back then.

 

To be a contender, you have to have at least two guys that can fall into that category. I can't think of the last time that a team won a championship without two All-NBA players. Last year the Warriors had Steph and Klay. They project to possibly have three All-NBA players this season. The year before that, the Spurs had Parker on the All-NBA second team and Kawhi on the All-Defense team. I'm actually surprised Duncan didn't make it, but he was an All-Star none the less.

 

Well sure CJ seems like that now... how many here said that 6 months ago? Some thought he was a position-less gimick who couldn't play PG nor SG and at best was a limited 6th man.

Sure Vonleh has potential, I have no idea to what level. Could see him starting on a contender and thats plenty to me.

Who did the Spurs have as an All-NBA team member when they won the title 3 years ago? Or the Pistons last decade? Nobody thought the Warriors had an all-nba prospect 3 years ago.

A lot of revisionist history and results based evaluations.

Sure we'd love to have an MVP player or two but theres a dozen of those guys in a 30 team league.

 

I swear to god people are going to be bringing up the Pistons as the one champion example that won without a single superstar player. It was an outlier people. How many examples like the Pistons won before, and how many since?

Have the Spurs had two guys on All-NBA at the same time and won it? Maybe not, but they had three guys who have been All-NBA multiple times.

Manu - All-NBA Third Team: 2008, 2011

Duncan - 15 All-NBA Teams (1997–98 to 2009–10, 2012–13, 2014–15; ten First Team nominations)

Parker - All-NBA Second Team: 2012, 2013, 2014. All-NBA Third Team: 2009

Just because they didn't happen to all three make it in the same year is irrelevant to the point. They have three guys that were perennial All-NBA.

 

I didn't actually ask a question

What I should have said was All-NBA caliber, not necessarily All-NBA in that particular season, but I forgot that one little word....

 

The Spurs are a great example because when they beat the Heat none of those three were all-nba level of impact players. It was a collective deep team of evenly talented players just like the Pistons. I'd actually argue Sheed, Rip and Chancy contributed much more to their title than Duncan, Manu, and Parker in 2014. That Spurs team was really much deeper than the Pistons; they had waves of bench subs that never let up. They are one of the historic examples of many lesser players all synergisticly playing together to dominate far more talented stars.

The Mavs were more similar to that Spurs team than a superstar team; nobody thought Dirk was capable of leading a team to those types of playoff victories. He was such a liability on defense and shut down in multiple years of previous playoff appearances. They were picked by many to lose to us in the first round and by most against the Lakers. Certainly nobody else on the roster was a legit allstar or all-nba level player.

Even the Warriors at the start of last year weren't thought of as having a single all-nba level player. Steph was a borderline allstar more similar to CJ than the player he is today. The team played great; improved, far exceeded expectations. Now we look back and regard them as a dominant team with multiple allstars but thats after they won a title.

If I'm building a team I care what players do going forward not acquiring players based on what they have already done.

 

This thread is worth $100 bucks of quality discussion time.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk

 

Except Parker WAS All-NBA that year. In fact, I think you forget how much Parker torched us in that series. That was his last hurrah because he has been a shadow since then.

 

I think this is the best example of what's possible without a superstar in sight

 

While maybe they didn't have a superstar, those guys were no slouches.

Hamilton was a 3x All-Star.

Billups was a 5x All-Star, he was All-NBA 3x, and he was All-Defense twice.

Ben Wallace was a 4x All-Star, he was All-NBA 4x, and he was defensive player of the year 4x.

Sheed was a 4x All-Star (twice with Detroit)

That's hardly a team of misfits as some people would have you believe.