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Simple question for you Outside.

Who on the Warriors is the Veteran All Star that has been battle tested and is ready to take the shot when the game is on the line?

Mavs had Dirk
Spurs had Parker AND Duncan
Bulls had MJ and Pippen
Houston had Hakeem

Now maybe the Warriors will have a player grow into that role.....but right now they are not at all built like any of those teams. All their best players are unproven and havent won anything, and all their veterans are washed up (Bogut /O'Neil) or were never more than complimentary players (Lee, Iggy) in the first place.

Championship teams have a go to guy. Maybe the will emerge on GS. But for now, they are much too youth driven to be in the same conversation as ANY of the teams on your list.

The Celtics won 76% of their 17 titles by trading to draft for position. They won 18% by trading/drafting for two positions (in addition to drafting a jumior-eligible). They won 6% by trading for two positions. They made a great trade in order to be able to draft the best player available, but he died without ever playing a game for the Celtics. Free agents have occasionally helped the Celtics, but they're too often overpaid and/or damaged goods.

Sam

These writers are crazy to think we'd trade Rondo for nothing.

mrkleen09 wrote:Simple question for you Outside.

Who on the Warriors is the Veteran All Star that has been battle tested and is ready to take the shot when the game is on the line?

Mavs had Dirk
Spurs had Parker AND Duncan
Bulls had MJ and Pippen
Houston had Hakeem

Now maybe the Warriors will have a player grow into that role.....but right now they are not at all built like any of those teams.  All their best players are unproven and havent won anything, and all their veterans are washed up (Bogut /O'Neil) or were never more than complimentary players (Lee, Iggy) in the first place.

Championship teams have a go to guy.  Maybe the will emerge on GS.  But for now, they are much too youth driven to be in the same conversation as ANY of the teams on your list.

Personally, I think Curry and Iguodala are both first-line crunch-time players and Thompson and Lee are a notch below.

But you're missing the point. The Warriors, Pacers, and OKC are all building sustainable championship contenders by drafting their top stars and building around them. I don't understand why you're dismissing that model just because the example I've given of a team currently building a contender that way hasn't yet won a title the way that other teams I mentioned using that same model have won. My point is that building a team that way provides the best opportunity to legitimately contend for a title and sustain that opportunity over multiple years. You're correct that the Warriors are only at the beginning of that level of contention, but my point is that they have built themselves smartly to sustain that level of contention over multiple years and will only get better as their young stars gain experience and improve.

Your description -- "their best players are unproven and haven't won anything, and all their veterans are washed up or were never more than complimentary players in the first place" -- applies to all those title-winning teams until they won a title, when they instantly changed into proven champions, their veterans change from washed up to savvy and experienced leaders, and the complimentary players turned into key role players essential to winning a title. But the fact is that they were all quality players leading up to winning a title, and dismissing them as unproven, washed up, or merely complimentary isn't accurate.

I don't think your characterizations of the Warrior players are fair, but I want the focus to be on the model, not the Warriors, so I suggest shifting focus to the Pacers. They are a legitimate contender built in the way that I describe and have been building on their success the past several seasons, lost in the first round in 2011, lost in the conference semis to the eventual champion Heat in 2012, and extended the eventual champion Heat to the max in the conference finals in 2013. I like their prospects for the next few years better than any team in the East, including Miami.

I firmly believe that any team -- and in the case we're discussing here, the Celtics -- have the best chance of building that type of sustained success using the model I've described. I also firmly believe that basing a strategy on acquiring a top-level star through a trade or free agency rather than the draft has a much lower chance of success.

Outside wrote: Your description -- "their best players are unproven and haven't won anything, and all their veterans are washed up or were never more than complimentary players in the first place" -- applies to all those title-winning teams until they won a title, when they instantly changed into proven champions, their veterans change from washed up to savvy and experienced leaders, and the complimentary players turned into key role players essential to winning a title.

Sorry, I dont agree with your premise.

Teams that are too focused around a young nucleus, rarely get to the finish line. None of the champions of the past 20 years were built around a roster that did not include real impact veterans.

When the Mavericks won - they had both, home grown talent and veterans who came in to make a big time impact. Shawn Marion, Jason Kidd and Caron Butler - all proven multi year All Stars.
When the Celtics won - they had BOTH young home grown talent (Rondo, Allen, Davis) and Veteran leadership from within (Pierce) and outside.
Same with the Heat and the Lakers.
Spurs didnt win anything until they added veterans from OUTSIDE the organization that made real contributions. (Sean Elliott, Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley, Robert Horry, Stephen Jackson)

Golden State may prove me wrong, but I dont think castaways from Milwaukee and Denver are going to cut it. I think they will need to keep developing their homegrown talent and eventually add a prime time player or two to finish their move toward legitimate contenders. At that point, they will be exactly what I described above....a team that needed more than marginal veterans to get over the hump.

Outside,

I think you've made a pretty key point on building the foundation for a contender.

GSW and IND may not have titles yet, but if you compare them to the others they'll be competing against, it's very hard to argue that they aren't better positioned than their competitors. These two teams have built their team the right way and it will show sooner rather than later. OKC and MEM could be in this conversation too, if they didn't trade away key stars (Harden, Gay).

MrKleen also brings up a very valid point that titles are won by veteran leadership. Teams like SAS, MIA, BOS, and LAL can attest to this. But let's not forget that IND and GSW have very strong cores. Their young guys will develop into experienced veterans that are more able to handle the high stakes.

In my opinion, I like the way Indiana and GS have built their teams, as opposed to teams like MIA. It's a formula that may not bring you a championship right away, but in the long run you will have more opportunities.



KJ

When we started the Cowens era and the Bird era we got that key piece in the draft and that player ended up exceeding expectations and being a HoFtype player that was more than a building block, that player transformed a whole franchise for an era, a generation. Later Red further built on to that, acquiring a veteran Paul Silas and later in the Bird era drafting and trading for Parish and McHale. We don't have that franchise carrying building block on the roster right now and in the past we acquired that player by the draft, we had already had Paul Pierce, who was projected as the the top pick, but because of circumstances fell all the way to the 10th pick. The closest player we have to that is Rondo, its debatable, taking nothing away from Rondo, to even dare bring him into the conversation on franchise impact with a Cowens or Bird or even Pierce, who proved he really was that franchise carrying player once surrounded with fellow all stars like KG and Ray and hardnosed role players like Perk and the young Rondo. We know its not Jeff Green, his own GM tries to get the press off his back declaring hes not that kind of player, for all his talent and athleticism he has never come close to avg 20 points a game and while he can occasionally get up for a game, its obvious he will never be that player....right now Sully is closer to eventually developing into that piece in a few more years with further health and development than Jeff Green.

Maybe Rondo is Pierce for this franchise and we just need another superstar piece to add, those pieces don't come cheap, by the time that veteran all world piece arrives if at all, how many years will he have at peak efficiency to contend and contend for awhile, a few years? Its no guarantee we can acquire that veteran all NBA franchise changing piece out there by trade or free agency, so lets hope we can somehow get lucky in the draft. Ofcourse we have to see alot more of the college version of the Big 3, see how they develop and play, but talent is still talent and those 3 look like theres a possible legit reason for all the hype.

k_j_88 wrote:

cowens/oldschool wrote:

k_j_88 wrote:112288,

I haven't given up on him. I was more making a point about the draft. They don't necessarily need more wing players which is what this draft is filled with.




KJ

they don't need wing players? I don't see an all star player at the 3 right now.

You don't need an all-star at every position. And who's to say any specified early pick is an automatic all-star?

Point is, their biggest deficiencies right now are at the PG spot w/o Rondo and the C spot. Those are the 2 most vital positions, in my opinion.


KJ

well we know what we have in Jeff Green and thats an athletic player who will never be an all star, at least those college hyped stars, Wiggins and Parker are already ozzing all star potential and at the 3. I really had high hopes that JG would put it together and make the all star team this year, but its not happening....for just being freshman these guys plus Randle showing alot of ways they can impact a game and they are just babies, they can add so much more in a few seasons IMHO.

Jeff Green is averaging 16 and 5 on a wildly inconsistent team that has poor spacing, no true PG and very little consistency on either side of the ball. I dont see that kind of killer instinct that an All Star needs every night - but I see it often enough to still doubt your prediction.

Time will tell....but he is playing with a true facilitator, I will hold my judgment.

....when Pierce had no all star caliber PG he had no problem avg 25 plus a year.

I root for Jeff Green, hes shown me hes not that player offensively that can carry a scoring load night in and night out, hes shown this his whole career, hes a legit 3rd and 4th option.

that being said if we had him and AB healthy we definitely get past Heat in 12 and could have had title 18 that year.

mrkleen09 wrote:Jeff Green is averaging 16 and 5 on a wildly inconsistent team that has poor spacing, no true PG and very little consistency on either side of the ball.  I dont see that kind of killer instinct that an All Star needs every night - but I see it often enough to still doubt your prediction.

Time will tell....but he is playing with a true facilitator, I will hold my judgment.

hope your right and I'm wrong, but have you seen him in this recent stretch of games? hes been MIA

The entire team has been MIA.....so not sure that means much.

But yes, I understand where you are coming from. I dont think Jeff Green has that killer instinct that superstars have. But not all All Stars are Superstars.

You put Green alongside Rondo and you will see his full potential. He isnt a scorer like Pierce, but a great great athlete - who could very easily average 20 points / 5 rebounds and 3 blocks a game. Those are all star numbers imo.

The team's offense has been the biggest hindrance to Green more than anything else. He isn't getting many decent looks.



KJ