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Cavaliers need to emulate OKC & how they were built

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Douglar said:
Whew! What a relief. I thought step 1 was going to be "relocate to a new city".
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No step one is have an owner who is one of David Stern's fuck buddies. Seriously I'm getting tired of people labeling OKC as a small market team in the same sense of a Memphis, Detroit, or Indiana. Not to say that OKC is going to attract big name free-agents or get ridiculously one-sided trades, but it just feels like they're going to be a consistently good team over the next few years if nothing more just so the league can say "small market teams can win too" as if it's just a rotation of teams that will always be good and those who will always be terrible.

While we can't just simply copy OKC's model, I hope we do improve through the draft and get better at evaluating talent in the draft. During the Lebron-era I think the organization was always under pressure to prove they were serious about winning a championship (instead of banking on getting free-agents for multiple seasons like the Knicks or Heat) and that's part of the reason they didn't seem to develop a lot of talent from the draft especially by the time Ferry got there. Some of the blame has to go on the coaching staff as well, but I just hope they can get better at developing talent.
 
Yes, having a superstar helps, but Kevin Love is not all that far behind Kevin Durant as a player.
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ohdamnlol.gif
 
This worked only because Durant isnt a giant douche and actually decided not to force a trade to another team, or just quit altogether (I think we know all the examples). All the draft picks in the world wont matter if your superstar you sucked so hard for jumps ship.
 
MYoung23 said:
Damn near every recent contender except the Heat were built this way.
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Except for the Celtics, Laker, and Mavs, who have actually won it.

Mavs basically have almost none of their draft picks from the last 10 years on their current roster.
http://statsheet.com/mcb/drafts/nba_team/Dallas-Mavericks

Get talent when you can, and use redundant talent to get complementary talent. The puzzle pieces have to fit together whether the team grows together, or is assembled. Making good decisions is more important than anything else, and that is a very generic and obvious thing that can really be best judged in hindsight. I mean the Perkins Trade is just another good decision OKC has made. Of course they have drafted well, but they have also made good decisions from who they have in the front office, to their coach, to their trades, to the culture they have surrounded their players with. Memphis also appears to be an up and coming team that has drafted well, but some of their "bad decisions" have actually turned out to be good.(Acquiring Z-bo and trading away Pau)

Don't get me wrong, I want the Cavs to build through the draft absolutely, but drafting good players isn't the end of the story, it's only the beginning.
 
this thread is a lot funnier than expected
 
cmstophe said:
Durant is near the top at his position.

Love is near the top at his position.

I don't see why sailfish's statement is so outlandish. Kevin Durant is the better player because he is the best scorer in the game. Love might be the best rebounder in the game, gets his scoring in too. Durant is a decently better player but Love isn't that far behind at this point.
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Durant isn't just "near the top." He's the second best SF, which is quite impressive when the best SF also happens to be the best player in the game.

Love isn't even top 3 at his position, plays awful defense (which is kinda important when it comes to winning and not just stat padding), and played on the worst team in the league last yr when he put up such incredible numbers. Okay, maybe second worst when you factor in the Cavs. But still, shouldn't such a great player be able to, you know, take his team somewhere and not just put up empty stats?

The gap is pretty significant.

Cavatt said:
Except for the Celtics, Laker, and Mavs, who have actually won it.

Mavs basically have almost none of their draft picks from the last 10 years on their current roster.
http://statsheet.com/mcb/drafts/nba_team/Dallas-Mavericks

Get talent when you can, and use redundant talent to get complementary talent. The puzzle pieces have to fit together whether the team grows together, or is assembled. Making good decisions is more important than anything else, and that is a very generic and obvious thing that can really be best judged in hindsight. I mean the Perkins Trade is just another good decision OKC has made. Of course they have drafted well, but they have also made good decisions from who they have in the front office, to their coach, to their trades, to the culture they have surrounded their players with. Memphis also appears to be an up and coming team that has drafted well, but some of their "bad decisions" have actually turned out to be good.(Acquiring Z-bo and trading away Pau)

Don't get me wrong, I want the Cavs to build through the draft absolutely, but drafting good players isn't the end of the story, it's only the beginning.
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I like how you cherry pick 10 years so that it doesn't include the best player on the Mavs and the entire reason they even won...who also happened to be acquired via the draft.

But anyway, yes, the Celtics and Lakers were also built this way. MYoung said through the draft and trades. How did the Celtics get Allen and Garnett? Through trades where they were sending away either picks (Green) or recent picks (Al). Rondo? Drafted. Pierce? Drafted.

Lakers? Traded for Kobe when he was drafted. Pau? LA traded a former pick (other Gasol) for him. Bynum? Drafted.

The Randolph trade wasn't even close to a bad decision by the Grizz, btw. They traded away an expiring piece of garbage for a good player with lots of baggage (hung around w/ too many thugs, legal issues, etc). It's a perfect example of a low risk, high reward type move.
 
Durant isn't just "near the top." He's the second best SF, which is quite impressive when the best SF also happens to be the best player in the game.

Love isn't even top 3 at his position, plays awful defense (which is kinda important when it comes to winning and not just stat padding), and played on the worst team in the league last yr when he put up such incredible numbers. Okay, maybe second worst when you factor in the Cavs. But still, shouldn't such a great player be able to, you know, take his team somewhere and not just put up empty stats?

The gap is pretty significant.
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We aren't talking about how good their teams are. Love is the best rebounder in the game. Durant is the best scorer in the game. Durant has only recently come into his own defensively, even then he isn't a mastermind quite yet. Love averaged 20/15 last year. 20 and 15! Who are all these guys that are better than Love at his position? I'd love for you to list them all.

And yes, Durant is near the top. He isn't at the top. LeBron James is. Fact. Next!

By the way, Durant is far and away the better player .... anybody arguing otherwise is dumb. Just saying, Love is pretty close to the top at his position himself. Selling him short is equally stupid.
 
All I can say is DUH!!, Make good draft picks and trades... Hope you get a superstar in one of those picks. Sounds like a good plan to me.
 
OKC has already hit the wall unless they realize that championships are won by playing D. They lost their top defensive assistant to the Bulls last season and their D rating dropped from 9th to 15th, while their O rating rose from 12th to 5th. If Perkins can stay healthy, they have the players to be top-notch on D, but they also need the coaching, the system, and the drive. It's too easy to lean back on offense to win games.

They have a huge opening with so much of their competition getting older or falling to the wayside. There's no guarantee they'll make the most of it.
 
JonFromVA said:
OKC has already hit the wall unless they realize that championships are won by playing D.
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They are starting Perkins and Ibaka. I can't think of a better defensive combo at the four and five.
 
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