Official HCP's Win Total Prediction Goes Boom Thread

Billups was trade fodder most of his career...separately this team was comprised of very good vets that just loved to play together...to me it was the right coach with the right roster for his system. I loved all those guys but they were not touted as superstars by any stretch when they joined forces in Detroit

 

Ben Wallace was arguably a superstar when he was racking up the DPOY awards. The dude was on the cover of video game boxes. Billups was a star in Detroit. He bounced around a lot before finding a home there.

 

They were all sent packing by their former teams....Orlando sure didn't consider Big Ben a franchise player, Atlanta same with Sheed, Wizards with Rip..Chauncey was considered a basic Gerald Wallace type guy...good player..after they started killing the Heat in multiple eastern conf finals..people paid attention

 

Some of the Detroit allstars got the by bring on a winning team. Sheed only made it on team wins. It was a scenario similar to the Hawks of last year, rewarding a winning team. It was a team that played together and we're contenders not by having superstars, but by the synergy of all the parts. I would throw the last spurs championship and the Dallas win into the same category. There is nothing to say the blazers couldn't replicate that eventually.

 

What's your point exactly? The best you can assert is that they are the exception to the rule. Do you really think that model is replicable or the way to bet?

 

Sent packing? Orlando wanted to keep Big Ben.... but they were too busy trying to sign Grant Hill, Tim Duncan, and Tracy McGrady. Detroit swooped in and signed him to a decent contract.

Sheed played in Atlanta for.... what.... a month? They never intended to keep him. Being a franchise player had nothing to do with it. They were rebuilding.

The Wizards drafted Kwame Brown in the same span that they traded Rip Hamilton for Jerry Stackhouse.... enough said. Horrible organization at that time.

Chauncey signed with Detroit after having a nice year with the TWolves. They wanted to keep him as well.

 

yeah, but in that era...they were buried behind the Shaqs, Kobes, Wades, etc....they were not top tier superstars at all. I credit Larry Brown for putting them on the map. I don't think one of them got a max deal when they joined forces either..to me a superstar commands a max contract

 

That's a dangerous measuring stick to wield. Wes Matthews is currently rocking a max contract.

 

hah...touche'

 

Cuban called it the biggest risk he'd taken since trading Steve Nash

 

Stack was 28 when Washington acquired him, and they brought him in to hopefully help MJ. I don't think we're really looking at guys at the very end of their prime.

Plus, Hamilton was a 20ppg player when Washington dealt him, so it's not like he was a diamond in the rough.

 

Larry Brown got them playing defense at another level from the competition. Perfect chemistry. It's what I hope we achieve in Portland and in my view...doesn't rely on superstar shooters everywhere to succeed.

 

Cuban never traded Steve Nash.

Riverman you need to bone up on your NBA history!

 

my bad...didn't retain Steve Nash

 

I know it looks bad on paper, but having Kidd on defense really helped get them that ring. Nash was a HORRIBLE defender. Just awful. He would have helped them offensively though. A lot of his success was the D'Antoni system. His numbers in Dallas were average at best. He wouldn't even be considered an All-Star by today's standards.

 

Mavericks' Mark Cuban: Letting Steve Nash Go Is Biggest Regret
by Mike Dyce


Mark Cuban says letting Steve Nash go is his biggest regret as owner of the Dallas Mavericks.

The Dallas Mavericks had a contender in the early 2000s, reaching the Western Conference Finals in 2003. The following summer after the 2004 playoffs, the Mavericks had a tough situation involving star point guard Steve Nash.

Mavericks owner Mark Cuban didn’t want to extend a long-term contract to the then 30-year-old Nash, and offered him a team friendly deal. Nash got a larger contract offer to return to the Phoenix Suns, a six-year $63 million deal.

 

I think he's too hard on himself. During his last year in Dallas, Nash averaged 14.5 ppg, 8.8 assists, and 3.3 rebounds. Do those numbers jump out at you?

Honestly, I don't even know if he deserves to be in the HOF. Dude's career averages are 14.3 ppg, 8.5 assists, and 3 rebounds. It was the SSOL offense that made him look amazing, and the fact that he was playing with Joe Johnson, Amare Stoudemire, and Shawn Marion in their primes.

 

No you can't win a championship with a bunch of mediocre misfits. But can you win with a few borderline allstars and no dominant All-NBA candidates? Yea Billups was All-NBA, but he got that recognition after they won a title and mostly because they won a title. Its another example of results based analysis. When the Pistons team was put together all of those players except Sheed were average NBA starters. Even Sheed was a borderline all-star with major red flags. This notion that the Blazers need to surround Lillard with a proven current perennial all-star, or some future MVP and anything else will result in doom and gloom is silly. There is no one exact formula to build a contender and often teams with some creativity in their roster construction have had the most success.

Players performance cannot be perfectly predicted; sure higher draft picks are good, and have some bit of correlation. But all stars are found at all positions of the draft as Draymond Green was in the second round. Past performance is an indicator, but again only a partial indicator; all stars are found for all sorts of varying costs in trades as someone pointed out Billups was dumped for almost nothing. Future all-stars are also found at a broad range of dollar values in free agency, as Paul Millsap was signed for $9 million, we got Wes for the MLE, and Golden State got finals MVP Iggy at a price other teams were very reluctant to pay.

Certainly teams can win a title with a top level dominant perennial all-star but they can also win without one as the Spurs, Mavs, Pistons in recent times have shown.

There's 30 teams and so few perennial all-stars in the league at one time. Some continue to harp that the key to building a contender is tank for a chance at drafting an MVP level talent. The problem is it can take a decade or much longer to get one; and even when you do get one there is so many more additional parts needed to contend. Thats why since Jordan the Spurs are the only team to win a title with a top 3 pick.

Personally I just want Neil to continue to add the best players incrementally to the team; sure an All-NBA stud would be nice but if we instead got 2 more above average starters, CJ makes an allstar improvement, someone else becomes a key member we would have a contending team and that would be a very enjoyable group to root for.