Well except the Thunder tanking did cost Seattle the Sonics. Would we be happy to have a Blazer dynasty in 2019 if their playing in Las Vegas?
You've got cause and effect a little screwed up here. Howard Schultz selling the team to a group of OKC investors cost Seattle the Sonics. Tanking and getting Durant just guaranteed they'd suck enough in the short term to kill off casual fan interest in the team, thus killing any ground swell of support for a bond to build a new arena.
Not even the first person this hour to say that. And I am not counting my home life. It goes without saying that my wife tells me this about every 15 minutes
LOL the lease at Key Arena was the main culprit. The city not building an arena was another. Nice argument
I have said this multiple times, but here it goes again. Tanking is not the only way to do it. More teams than not, however have been ultra shitty before they become contenders Dallas missed the playoffs for the entire decade of the 90's.....I think? Then they got Dirk, Nash and Finley and built from there
We would have been if we had stayed healthy/drafted Durant instead of Oden. Called heads instead of tails and Hakeem would have won us multiple titles. Had Ewing come out that year we would have won multiple titles as well. Portland knew in advance about Roy and Oden's knees. Had they been smart and not bet everything on red, we would be the darlings of the NBA with Durant, Gay and Aldridge. Dealing Gay for something else
I am having a hard following your arguments. On one side - we must rebuild, on the other hand, from the Nash/Finley/Dirk trio we, like Dallas, lost Nash (Roy) and Finley (Oden) - and are left only with Dirk (Aldridge) which did not rebuild by tanking. You have to make up your mind. I think what this team does is right - they have the right guy to build around in Aldridge - and they try to get experience and collect role players and good contributors with potential tax flexibility. Wallace/Felton/Mathews are a good set to get with the high-potential Batum and potential cap flexibility going forward to put pieces around Aldridge.
People talk shit about tankapalooza from 2003-2006 but we COULD have had a team at one point with: Deron Williams Brandon Roy Kevin Durant LaMarcus Aldridge
Not very likely that we would get both LMA and Roy with Deron, not to mention a high-enough pick for Durant/Oden. Given that you can not rewrite history - a LMA/Durant duo is the best we could have had now.
It is unlikely in any situation where we drafted Gay we'd end up with Durant the following year. We won the 1st pick when we were slotted for the 6th or 7th, I believe. We had a tied record with Minnesota (humorously who would have been a slot below us outright, and thus won the 2007 draft, if KG hadn't beat us on a buzzer beater in Minnesota earlier the year). If we had drafted Gay and LaMarcus in 2006 it is likely our record would have been significantly worse than it was. Seattle and Atlanta weren't even in the top three, infact, none of the top three worse records were in the top 3 picks that year. Sacramento 33 49 .402 34 5-6 14-19 12-32 21-17 0-5 Charlotte 33 49 .402 34 2-4 15-23 16-25 17-24 5-5 New York 33 49 .402 34 10-10 10-23 15-28 18-21 6-2 Portland 32 50 .390 35 11-7 9-29 15-28 17-22 5-5 Minnesota 32 50 .390 35 7-10 9-25 14-30 18-20 6-4 Atlanta 30 52 .366 37 7-7 11-30 11-31 19-21 2-6 Seattle 31 51 .378 36 10-10 14-23 10-34 21-17 2-3 Milwaukee 28 54 .341 39 4-8 10-28 11-31 17-23 1-4 Boston 24 58 .293 43 4-12 7-20 8-32 16-26 4-1 Memphis 22 60 .268 45 5-12 8-26 10-36 12-24 3-5
I'm not opposed to be rebuild, but I honestly feel like the west is wide open right now. This might not last very long, with OKC, LAC, Memphis, Minny, and Sac all building young teams that have a lot of talent on them. The Lakers look like shit, Dallas is playing terrible, and really only OKC looks like a legit contender right now. If we could make a couple moves, I could really see this team making a push for a championship this season. They might not get past Miami, but at least they could get there. I think we need a steady hand at the point and another front court guy. Maybe that's not Nash or Gasol, but there has to be a couple guys out there that we could steal for a season or two.
