Notice Sixers model is not only one to benchmark for success

unless you want to sell your soul and fans out, for a long haul.
They've been 500 or better 4 times in the last 14 years (counting this season).
All this hog wash about modeling and taking on their approach is utter hog wash! With no guarantees!
Then there is Minnie!

 

If you were offered a roster switch, would you partake?

 

Shouldn’t we wait a few years and see if they win a championship? If they win a couple then teams will definitely try to figure out how they did and how to speed up the process.

 

not sure I understand? Would I trade Sixers now for the current Blazers? Ask me that at the end of next year! lol

 

It would be near impossible to duplicate their method as 4 years they have drafted players that missed most if not all of the first season. Any of those players being healthy out of the gate would have made them better and thus not getting a high lottery pick over and over again.

 

It’s pretty much impossible to copy any body’s method, doesn’t stop teams from trying.

 

I get what you guys are saying but who should teams model after? The spurs? Where you have your best player get hurt get the number one pick and it happens to be the year one of the top 3 PF’s of all time comes out. The Bulls? Where you draft Jordan and we’ll he’s freaking Jordan (hey the Blazers could’ve done this one). Cleveland where one the NBA gives them the #1 pick in a year where the hometown kids already playing on ESPN (of course they wasted it, he left for Miami and then came back after they got a couple other #1 picks). How about GS where they drafted maybe the best shooting back court of all time?
I guess my point is you can try to emulate another team as much as you want , whether it’s philly or someone else but it will be almost impossible to do it.

 

Not sure how you can stash 4 separate high picks 4 years in a row though.They will also be coming up for new contracts soon so the task becomes even tougher.

 

I'd much prefer being bad with young promising talent and having the potential of better days, than being mediocre and completely mismanaged with a massive payroll of players that for the most part nobody wants, heading slowly for being bad with young promising talent......

 

What did they do to earn or deserve the team they have built?

So you would tank for how many years it took you to get a contender? If you were winning 20-30 games a year for 5 six years or however long, you would be even more sour if all you got in the end, was mediocrity. I'd much rather build with the idea to improve each year and compete to win each game with the cards your dealt. To purposely tank is a disgrace to competition and those teams that do so should be penalized, plus I think karma will have its why with teams like Philly. Would surprise me to see them implode in a couple years.

 

Well the fans had to sit through a decade of being the Joke.
Who knows if they implode or not, but I think there is real truth to you can be perpetually mediocre in the NBA, and you can choose to be really aggressive to try to get better (might fail), decide to blow things up (might make you just perpetually bad), or just keep plugging away and hope one of those downish years nets you a good lottery number or you just get Tony Parker in the draft. I don't really fault teams like ATL who had a really strong season and got steam-rolled, when they say hey our best chance is to just get young, and see what kind of players we can find in the draft, because what we have just isn't good enough. I see it as losing some battles (a few seasons) in hope you can win the war someday.

 

"Tanking" should be the prerogative of the GM. I think Philly was anomalous because guys kept getting injured. But while tanking seems to be against the spirit of things, fielding a young team is not a bad thing. Fans can and should get behind a team of young players that aren't going to win but are going to learn together, and if all goes well, grow. Dallas did this this season, sitting Dirk in the second half of games and shutting a couple of guys down. Why on Earth would they do otherwise, risking injury and an opportunity for growth of the younger guys?

Anyhow, I think Philly will be fine. They have a lot of options and talent.

By not facing the music, the Blazers aren't getting lottery picks and as guys come up for contract, are now faced with a worst case scenario scenario in which you have a so-so squad that is going to be very very expensive, and virtually no developing talent. Philly might've cheated the system with good and bad luck, the Blazers avoiding taking advantage of it and now we are fucked.

 

They've won just as many playoff series in the past 14 years as we have though.

 

@Hoopguru
I hear what you’re saying, I also think it’s a bit unique right now. I think KD moving to GS made the gap so big there’s a good third of the league that just up and quit.
For the most in the history of NBA, usually you get lucky and draft a couple guys who are good and all of a sudden you can compete for championships, it literally feels like you need 3 stars to be in Golden State stratosphere, which I think has a lot of teams going well crap we can’t do that, and we can’t land guys in FA, so there’s a lot of teams that seem to just be taking the go “young” route because they want to be there when GS gets old.
Does it make the NBA kind of bad? Yes!
However I also get why teams are in the mode of just stock pile as many young guys as possible and see if you can get any of them to pop.

 

So you like their approach to success?
Thats cool, everyone has their own opinion on things NBA.
The NBA is as segmented as all markets with shitty, good, better, best.
Up to this year Philly has been shitty for many years, and Id say PDX has been somewhere between good & better.
And they do have some nice young talent, whats wrong with having two guys like Collins and Nurk to compliment CJ & Dame?

 

I don't think I would need to wait until the end of the year and it wouldn't be a difficult decision. Not saying it was worth what they did, but they are definitely lined up for future success better than us.

 

That's a pretty slim stat.

 

yeah they look good going forward but

The reason I said wait to end of next year is if Collins and Nurkic ramp it up, we aint to shabby!
Their two youngsters look like long term stars but they both have weakness in their games too.

 

I am kind of cold on Collins, sure he has shown flashes but he’s still a huge project to me, Everytime I see things about the rookies of this last season I never see Zach even mentioned, I see the other Collins listed.

 

I get ya.
I think the way he was playing towards the end of the season after getting consistent pt, was a sound barometer of his potential and skills. For big guys 1 and done it can take a couple years.
His determination, heart, intellect, & skills are what tells me he can make the leap to a starter down the road.