What's your point? The poster talked of drafted players being "largely responsible" for winning NBA titles. If you have a problem with a player on my list playing a major role on a title team, please discuss that player. I realize that it takes more than one player to win a title; I never claimed otherwise, not did I disparage traded players or FAs who played a large role on a title team.
Yep. It's obvious that Garnett needed a Paul Pierce to do the heavy lifting in the Finals. Garnett was always a great regular season player in Minnesota, and even had a #1 seed one season. He just wasn't good enough to bring a team home when it mattered most. He should give thanks every day for being allowed onto Paul Pierce's team.
Regarding all the rabble-rousing about drafting or trading for a star to win a title; I think it's pretty clear that teams have almost always had to do BOTH. The trade portion may come on draft day or later in a player's career and sometimes even in their prime, but without that in-house star that a team selected on its own, I can't think of too many championship caliber teams that were composed completely of free agent or trade acquisitions.
Just saying that it generally takes one of each--a drafted star and an acquired (via trade or free agency) star--in order to win a title. I have what the initial argument was--does anyone? EDIT: Never mind--just went back and read Blazerboy's silly post from 3 pages back. My apologies, PapaG. Your post was perfect, and mine was nothing more than a strawman.
What? You mean championship teams are not created like in the movie "The Fish that saved Pittsburgh" where they recruit openly from the public and only bring in guys who are Pisces? That was surely the most sure fire way to build a championship team!
here's a fluffy Kobe bio piece that mentions his favorite schools if he didn't go directly to the draft... After Kobe’s breakout year, college recruiters from across the country came knocking. The soon-to-be senior boasted excellent grades and SAT scores, so academics would not be an obstacle. At the top of his list were Duke, North Carolina, Villanova and Michigan. http://www.jockbio.com/Bios/Bryant/Bryant_bio.html STOMP
SpearsNBAYahoo: Knicks actively trying to acquire Portland center Marcus Camby, but source said Blazers are weighing more attractive options. [via Twitter]
Which Crawford, Jamal or Jordan? or both? I like this trade for both for andre miller, dante cunningham, and patty mills
Ha! Yeah, I agree. I think the argument has changed about 4 or 5 times since it was made. I'm going to start posting random fringe role players on title teams, just for the hell of it. Steve Kerr - 3 Derek Fisher - 5 Jud Buechler - 3 Robert Horry - 7 (!) Matt Bullard - 1 Eddie House - 1 Craig Hodges - 2
As a player, he's perhaps the best role player in history. I draft him for my fantasy team every year I can. He's a friggin' stat machine. But as a human being he has no visible redeeming qualities, which is probably why he has never been any kind of team leader.
Would it be accurate to say that, while some teams have improved immediately through high picks in the draft or through trades (or both), very few have done much of anything wrt Free Agency? Shaq going to the L*kers is the big win, but it took him 4 years and K*be to win a ring for them, and it was just about derailed by us. Nash going to PHX resulted in 2 MVP years, but no Finals. Billups was a good pickup by DET, but I wouldn't call him the carrier of that championship team. After that you have to go back to the ABA for good FA signings. As far as the argument of "drafted by/traded for", the nature of the NBA dictates that most draft-day trades are done after the commish's moratorium for announcing trades (Roy being a significant example). There's no way that someone can rationally say that our brain trust drafted Tyrus Thomas. We traded with CHI and they told us to pick Thomas for them. Same thing happened with Roy. We didn't pick Randy Foye with our pick (never would have), but we knew that MIN wanted Foye in their trade for the 8th pick. We drafted Rudy Fernandez, but that's not what the wiki sites will say b/c the league wouldn't recognize the trade until July 8. Pippen was drafted in the same manner. CHI were then told to draft Polynice at the 8th pick. Same with K*be. Same with Love and Mayo. I can't believe so many of you think that it doesn't count as "drafting" someone if the commish doesn't say the team name. I could keep going with recent players. No one here thinks our GMs wanted to draft Darrell Arthur and Joey Dorsey, do they? Or Omer Asik (though they should have!)? No, they drafted Nic Batum, and for the deal were told to draft Arthur and Dorsey. We didn't want Brandon Rush, but that was the price Indy wanted for Bayless.
OK--just went back and found it. So, to be clear, you were originally criticizing Nikolokolus' claim that trying to find "a nascent star in the draft to pair with LMA" is a better/more likely title-strategy than hoping GO will get healthy and complete the twin-towers for which we've always hoped. No argument here.
