Wonder why Paul wanted out of NO.
Wonder why Anthony wanted out of Denver.
Wonder why Williams wanted out of Utah.
Wonder why Howard wants out of Orlando.
Wonder why Bosh and James wanted out of Cleveland Toronto.
Oh wait! That's right! Because their management SHIT THEMSELVES and couldn't get it done when they had control of these stars for years!
Are you seeing a pattern? How many guys have left championship caliber teams to go play in big markets? A couple? Is Durant trying to force his way out of OKC? No, because their team is young and getting better every year, and looks to be a legitimate title contender for the foreseeable future. It isn't clogged with old vets and bad moves by the management desperate to convince their star to stick around, they built the team the right way- and there are many ways to do so, as people keep pointing out. The important thing is you make good, quality moves and get a little lucky.
GOOD. MANAGEMENT. WINS.
Yes, but Dallas has Dirk, a top 10 player in the game and a megastar, which totally invalidates everything RikSmits is trying to say in that you don't need one of those guys. And yes, rofl, Dirk's cast was better than LeBron's.
We agree on the "model" fallacy that is the premise of this thread, but this post is revisionist history at it's finest. The difference between what the Thunder are doing and what the Cavs did with Lebron, and only time will tell if there is any at all as far as results are concerned, stems entirely from the moves made at or around the time the superstar was obtained. The Thunder's next draft yielded Westbrook and diamond in the rough Ibaka, and the draft after got them Harden, who finally started to look like a player last season. The Cavs lost their diamond in the rough Boozer after lebron's first season, took "the most ready to compete now" SF the next draft in Jackson (because Lebron had just moved from PG to SG in their minds at that point), proceeded to trade 1sts like they was candy trying to find a light skinned SG when they finally had the "revelation" that Lebron was a SF, then Ferry in his first off-season wanted to save his pants' pockets from getting burned through entirely and threw money at 2 flashes in the pan and an old glue (bodied) PF.
When you go on to say "for years" in reference to the Cavs FO, though, you're way off base. Ferry found his stride quickly and proceeded to put together a team to fit lebron's game exclusively and without fear of spending too much of daddy warbucks' green. With perpetually low picks and bad assets, Ferry assembled a defensively sound team for his defensive minded coach, along with very good spot shooters to spread the floor for his star. Every problem that arose each year was addressed the next, through smart trades and lots of spending. Mo and West looked great in the backcourt together, Shaq was brought in solely to get us past the Magic, and Jamison seemed like the floor-spacer we needed to win before lebron revealed his long-since hatched plan to suck dick for a living.
Did it work? No. But lebron had as much to do with that as anybody. Lebron's team was in excellent shape to remain a contender for years when he left, and not simply because he was so good. The shitty team left behind didn't prove he was right; it proved that every single personnel decision was made to revolve around his game, obviously failing when the centerpiece left.
Dirk's cast is clearly better?? Are you sure?? He gave them more time to figure it out and didn't hint at abandoning them every other day like a high school girlfriend wanting to see her poor boyfriend squirm. And this championship cast was composed almost exclusively of the EXACT type of players the Cavs assembled before shithead left; pre-championship Terry was basically current Mo Williams, give or take, Kidd was a past-his-prime afterthought when he first got there, Marion was the same, only he was absolutely given away as a guy who only made his money playing alongside Nash for Mike D, the "missing piece" Chandler was a guy that would have been traded by his previous team earlier for peanuts, but for his failed physical, and who else? JJ Barea? Was he the piece that kept Dirk around? Beaubois? Stevenson, Haywood, and Butler, those three perpetual winners that Dirk needed to get to the promised land? Or maybe Peja is the guy that pushed their roster over the top when compared to Lebron's Cavs.
Please. Saying that that star-studded team kept Dirk around, using it as an example of the right way of building a team around a star, specifically in comparison to what the cavs did with lbj, is so ironic that I need a word that means ironic more than the actual word "ironic" does. You know the real difference between the Dirk Mavs and the LBJ Cavs?
Dirk > Lebron
