Really just confirming everything we already knew or suspected, but disturbing nonetheless. It also seems to confirm the contention that the franchise will never be a consistent winner until Cohan sells the team and Rowell and Nelson get bounced out on their asses.
Not disagreeing with any of this but it would also help to get a franchise player in here. There's a lot of terrible GMs, owners, and coaches in this league who are fixtures in their positions because they lucked into great players. You need talent in this league. How many winning teams are there in the NBA without a "superstar"? Not many, and the ones who do have winning records are floating around .500 and playing in the east. Webber could have been it. Since then we've had Latrell Sprewell, Antawn Jamison, J-Rich, and Baron Davis. You could make an argument with Arenas leaving but I would argue against it. The Wizards' season records since he got there have been 25-57, 45-37, 42-40, 41-41, 43-39. I won't include this season since he didn't play. My point is that the Wizards haven't been that great despite having a a fairly talented squad and playing in a shitty eastern conference. Bottom line is if we want to be successful we need our own Duncan, KG, Kobe, Wade, Roy, CP3, Deron Williams, etc. There are no contenders out there with no superstars.
Well the Pistons had a pretty good run though. Billups wasn't necessarily in his prime when they won the title either, though he was never in that superstar tier to me. Of course they played in the East so making the Conference Finals was pretty easy.
Pistons are the exception to the rule but Chauncey Billups, Rip Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, and Ben Wallace were all essentially in their primes. Add to that a young Tayshaun Prince, Mehmet Okur off the bench, Mike James in his prime, Lindsey Hunter, Corliss Williamson, and Bob Sura as aging but very solid reserves. That team was pretty loaded. No true superstar but they had a top 5 guy at PF, the #2 C in the league, perhaps the top backcourt in the league with one of the best PGs in the league as well. They had great depth including Mehmet Okur (a future all star) and Mike James (averaged 20 ppg for the Raps a few years later).
I wasn't surprised reading this, but even more disgusted. The Warriors fans deserve better and I hope they stop going to games so Cohan loses his shirt and is forced to sell the team, and the new owner decides to get rid of current management and brings in a new, better crew. Think fast, cheap, or good and you get to pick two out of three. I don't think you just land a franchise player because you have to trade for one. We all know that an expiring contract, a solid trade piece, and a draft pick or young player are the keys to getting one. If you want fast and good, then it has to be via trade but it won't come cheap because you have to give up so much. If you want a good player and he's going to come cheap, then you got to get lucky in the draft. It won't come fast because it will take some time for him to develop into the franchise player. Finally, there's the Cohan-Rowell-Nelson-Riley type player who's fast and cheap, but they're not very good. Come to think of it, they're not that cheap either. I mean how stoopid can Warriors management be?
They definitely had impressive depth, they might have won another title of two if they would have drafted right. They also mishandled their bigs as well, a shame for Dumars. Anyway I was just trying to give you some hope, I think with the right GM anything is possible even in a weak draft class or if you never get a top 10 player.
