Did a little research on teams built around the best PFs of the past 25 years* - the list includes teams built around Barkley, Bosh, Garnett, Pau, Kemp**, Malone**, Nowitski, and Webber**. All of these players were equal to or better than LMA by varying degrees. These teams represent 84 player-seasons. In all that time there are only 6 Finals appearances. That means that the best PFs to play the game only got their team to the Finals 7% of the time, when they were the centerpiece of the team. Of those six Finals appearances three are attributed to UTH & SEA who had (at least) equal contributions from their PGs as their PFs. And four of the six appearances are taken by Dirk and Malone - players whose talent greatly exceeded LMA's. Things get a little better as we step back one round to the Conference Finals. These teams combined to make the CFs 14 times in 84 player-seasons, for a whopping 16.6% success rate. Of those 14 Conference Finals appearances Malone (with Stockton) takes 5 of them and future first-ballot HOFer Dirk takes another 4. How did teams built around PFs do in the Playoffs this year? NOH - swept. DAL - 4-1 first round exit. POR - 4-1 first round exit. I'm sure people think this is just LMA hate on my part. But it's not - it's about PFs and their role in the NBA. PFs aren't meant to be the number one option on a championship offense. Their role is to do all the little things that make the game easier for their teammates. They need to set good screens, provide help-defense, box out & rebound, and keep the ball moving on offense. If they do all of those things and provide a lot of scoring, that's just icing on the cake. I don't simply have it out for LMA, I think the entire idea that PFs should be #1 scoring options is wrong...doubly so when they aren't efficient. *Comparing any player to Duncan or any team to the Spurs is silly. Duncan is the best player of his generation (or maybe ever?), playing for the best coach since Red (I'm guessing here - not old enough to know Red's coaching). He's also been playing alongside a Top 5 PG and Top 5 SG for much of his career. He also hasn't been the primary offensive option since 09/10 when he averaged 13.9 FGA per game. Holding them up as a model is foolish because it simply can't be recreated be design. You can't put a plan in place to draft a Duncan, or hire a coach like Pops - let alone do both. **Kemp, Malone and Webber were not built around in the way the other players on the list were built around - they were on equal footing with at least one other player.
only 24 players made the finals last year. That's like 6.6% of the player seasons last year. Clearly players shouldn't be built around.
Also blue, your deep delving hard hitting in depth research ommited a rather prominent power forward finals and conference finals participant. See if you can guess who.
So lets see a breakdown of teams built around PG's? Centers? Shaq was built around for his whole career but only has 4 rings even though he had the best SG's of his era next to him. Patrick Ewing was built around most of his career. Never got a ring. I think these stats would apply to every position if scrutinized because of this...
Pretty much this, I was gonna look up all the all stars who didn't make the finals last year but I'm on my phone.
The entire straw man argument of teams built around PFs not working is totally lame. Anyone trying to use it is only trying to smoke screen their hate towards a player. The same person that would be fine trading our PF for Greg Monroe, AD or anyone other than the player he dispises in Portland. The same fan that is totally fine with a 12 million SF that is the most inconsistent player on this squad. Not swayed
The point was only that they did better elsewhere. They weren't utilized here. 'Epic freakout' about coaching and back office that can't seem to maximize talent when we have it. I'm not talking about trades. We would have done well to invest in Frye instead of Batum. Now that Frye is older, Leonard is probably a better investment if he continues to improve in all areas. Jarret Jack over Steve Blake, an extra 2.3 million for twelve points per game off the bench. CJ over Bayless for sure, but Bayless over Dorell Wright, who makes a million more. Cunningham, well... he does make less than a mil, so if we were paying him that to ride the bench instead of Wright, I think we'd be in better shape.
Just did a quick & dirty on the following SGs: Ray Allen, Kobe, Drexler, Iverson, McGrady, Reggie, Wade. 62 player-seasons as the centerpiece. 9 Finals appearances (14%) 16 Conference Finals appearances (25%) Left off Jordan for the same reason I left off Duncan. Heading to happy hour, but will pick up with SFs as time allows next week.
If your gripe is that players reached their statistical primes in their physical primes, I'm not sure what to say. Curse father time? And if you think somehow forcing frye, bayless, and jack to sign with us (maybe pay them a combined 20MM per year?) would have pushed us over the top, I'm not sure what to say, again. I disagree?
Patty Mills shed a ton of baby fat when he joined the Spurs and worked on his game..it's not that the Blazers ignored him, it's that he needed to improve and went out and did it. Patty has talked about it several times. His own work ethic changed him as a player. I love the guy but he was not the player he is now when he was a Blazer
I don't care about the position, you build around dominance. LA is a great player but he is not dominant, only a handful of players are though.
Again, I'm not saying anything about signings. Your point about age supports the argument that we didn't give these players enough time to develop. The original post was about a small market team that won't risk letting reserves shoulder enough of the burden so they *need* to step up. This isn't about specific personnel, it's a general point about coaching and management attitudes.
first of all, jarrett jack was traded for jerryd bayless. in some magical world where they werent traded for each other, and we acquired bayless in some other way, and kept jack, and kept bayless, they would have taken each others minutes. we traded bayless, who turned out to be a 20 mpg backup type, for what turned out to be the #11 pick in the draft. pretty sweet. in fact, we traded bayless to NOH for the pick that went to charlotte for gerald wallace, who was traded for the pick that got us damian lillard. pretty sweet. channing frye left as a free agent. im not sure what your plan was in order to force him to sign with portland instead, maybe brainwash him on an acid trip? i could get behind that actually. fact is, we were in a weird window for awhile there, roy was still around, LMA was coming on, and like it or not, vets were a better option at the time to try and win some more games. sure, we could have kept jarrett jack, and paid him 7 million a year up to this very day. who the fuck knows, we likely wouldnt have lillard though. btw, i neglected to welcome you to the board earlier, i appreciate your enthusiasm!
