I'm sorry but Vonleh isn't someone you have in you're starting 5 if you want to win championships, not unless he steadily improves and makes a large jump in the next year. Same was true for Plumlee. Solid player but not a starting PF on any championship team sans the Spurs. This isn't the 80's where you can win with two great players and a bunch of solid role guys. This is the era of "super teams" and the "big 3". Nurk is a big step in right direction but there needs to be roster improvements at both forward positions for this team to have any real chance at legitimately competing for championships.
The cavs got to championships with a "big 1" a couple of times. I'd say that's competing for championships.
Cmon... that's the best player in the world in Lebron and they still wouldn't have ever actually won it with that roster. That was proven. Next.
Welcome to the board!!1 I respectfully disagree with you. Vonleh HAS shown dramatic improvement over the last two months. Also Dirk Nowitski and LBJ would like to disagree with you as well.
Dirk had a solid supporting cast and once again, Lebron never won it. In fact he got so frustrated with the roster that he up and left Cle to join the said big 3. Then returned to Cle when he knew they had what it took to actually win a championship with Kyrie and Love, another big 3.
The Mavs championship roster had prime Tyson Chandler, prime Dirk, Shawn Marion, Caron Butler, Jason Kidd, and Jason Terry. Compare that to the roster we have now and tell me we could replicate that success with Vonleh and Harkless in our starting 5...
You said contending for championships... getting to the finals is the very definition of competing for championships.
Im not sold on Harkless, but over the last month Vonleh has definitely shown me he can improve and if he keeps the current scale up, he will be an allstar after next year. PF position is weak.
Your right, so then let's say we actually wanted to WIN a championship (crazy, I know) then take into account the landscape of the current NBA with GSW, CLE, and Bostons projection for the next 3-4 years. Would you still try and make the argument that a starting 5 consisting of Vonleh and Harkless had a legitamite chance of winning it without banking on extremely drastic improvements with both of them? I just don't see it.
I'm glad you guys keep bringing up these teams. Boston was one of the first new era "super teams". KG, Allen, Rondo, Pierce. Next.
The title window hasn't opened yet. How many championship teams had a mobile PF who didn't score a lot, but rebounded and played good defense? All the Bulls teams, right?
Vonleh can be an all star after next year with his current trajectory?! I'm sorry but we obviously just have vastly different points of view.
Again, the NBA landscape was completely different. And they had freaking Michael Jordan and a legitmate superstar in Pippen. That's waaaaay better than any Dame and CJ combo.
How many times have we heard "You can't win with______(Fill in the blank) as your starter". In the end if you have stars surrounding almost any player........you can win it all. The player in question just needs to fill a role that compliments his teammates. Who would have thought that Bobby Gross would be the perfect SF for the 76-77' Blazers? Especially going up against Dr. J in the finals.
Not in today's NBA, not unless you have 3 legitamite all star level players. Look back at the last 5-8 years and show me a championship team that won it without 3 all star level players on it. And it's only becoming even more that way with players in FA wanting to buddy up on one team, even sacrificing larger salaries to do so.
I like Vonleh, but if your plan is to have Dame and CJ as your "stars" than you aren't going to win a championship with him in your starting 5, Or with Harkless. I mean, Dame doesn't make the all star most years and CJ only just began being considered and still might not make it in his career. The roster still needs a lot of improvement, starting at the forward spot.