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Bump for reference.
Histironics won't answer if the LAL won last season in a dominating fashion? Means he knows they didn't-CHECK
Won't elaborate the GAIL or the 6th Beach Boy references indicates he really doesn't know his own team-CHECK
Uses the tank theorem to say the Spurs got Duncan indicates that he only reads on google or other LAL boards because it's regurgitated DRIVEL-CHECK
TRUTH-Injuries decimated the Spurs that season before Duncan, none more so than that of Robinson, who returned from back problems only to suffer a broken foot. The former MVP appeared in only nine games. Chuck Person was even less fortunate, missing the entire season following back surgery. Charles Smith missed 65 games with an arthritic right knee and Sean Elliott missed 43 games with tendinitis in the right knee. The loss of those four players, each among the top six scorers from the 1995-96 team, prompted the steepest one-year decline in NBA history, from 59 wins to only 20.
Again, if the LAL lost their 4 top players this year, you know what's going to happen?SUCKAGE. How you heads call it a tank is so, so wrong. To finish with the worst record and go for best statistical advantage would be a complete tank job. To finish with the 3rd worst is more akin to getting beat regularly because without your 4 best players, you don't have much of a chance.
RECOGNIZE...if you can, because basically you haven't shown that you have an iota of recognition.
Bump for reference.
For reference, or cause you ran out of kleenex?
Hook line and sinker!
Pretty easy tbh. Connect the dots: history failed thread, pwned, repeat.
Pretty easy tbh. Connect the dots: history failed thread, pwned, repeat.
Failed thread? lol
This thread more aptly characterizes the history of Spurs franchise than any other thread on Spurstalk.com.
It's a tough pill to swallow for current Spurs fans who are very prideful and a little spoiled but I can assure you, 20-30 years from now this is exactly how the franchise will be viewed.
Can't start threads, so has to bump his old ones.
Can't start threads, so has to bump his old ones.
Who knew that the ability to start a thread on a random basketball message board meant so much to so many?
Honestly, the lottery is a crock of e. It just ups the inequality in the league. I don't see why they don't go to the same method the NFL uses.
history2b wants to talk about luck, when it was pure luck that a backhand deal was in place 4 Kobe
Yup pure luck...
Just like the Gasol trade.
Just like the Shaq signing.
Just like the drafting of the Worthy.
Just like the drafting of Magic.
Just like the acquisition of Kareem.
All >just luck<
Assuming your list is total and complete (and why would anyone doubt that?) let's look at what the guys who drafted them managed to do in the years after drafting them. Seems fair enough, as luck gets you the player. Nothing more, nothing less. What you do with them after that is where most teams fall apart in the NBA.
I trust that no one needs a lesson on what the Lakers, Celtics, and Bulls were able to after drafting Magic, Bird, and Jordan. All three stayed put their entire careers and were centerpieces of legit dynasties. Big props to them.
Hakeem got a couple of les in Houston and repeated which is impressive. They took a franchise big man and put some le seekers like Drexler in there and struck gold with guys like Horry, Cassell, and Elie. Jordan worshippers will always stick an asterisk on them, which is unfortunate. They didn't totally fall off a cliff as Hakeem slowed down but following the championship seasons they were one-and-done in the postseason followed by a WCF loss the year after that and never returned to the le picture since. Basically as soon as Hakeem slowed down the Rockets did too in a big way
Orlando made a finals appearance on the strength of Shaq and Penny (another lottery pick). Then they couldn't hold onto Shaq as he chased the big money and crowds in LA. Threw a boat load of money at T-Mac and Hill with little to show for it and only recently returned to relevance by again being able to draft a franchise bigman that may well bolt as soon as he can. I think if any franchise could be seen as a poster child for magical ping pong balls it's the Magic. Kinda funny when you word it like that.
Cleveland and Lebron...um, yeah.
Kobe Bryant and the Charlotte Hornets. What the happened there? At present they've already moved once, on the verge of another move, and could be in for another drop into irrelevance since drafting a franchise caliber PG who has one foot out the door. Whether Kobe ed his way off a lottery team, they really were that incompetent, or it's just some mix of the two I think this probably illustrates best exactly where luck stops and human input begins when it comes to making an NBA franchise work.
Then there's the Spurs and Duncan. 4 rings, ranking only behind Jordan and Magic for championships with the teams that drafted them. Tied with Bird if the asterisk idiots had their way. Even if you look past the talent on the team that he landed on that's three les with a rotating cast put together with smart drafting and small but smart FA pickups. Lasting success, best record of the decade, winning past Duncan's prime, blah blah blah. I should know better to play with trolls but fact of the matter is that if the Duncan era Spurs are regarded as merely "lucky" in the history books it will only be because those books were written by people with the common sense of a 12 year old.
Check the rings, check the records, and answer honestly: Are Duncan's Spurs closer to Bird's Celtics and Magic's Lakers or are they closer to Shaq's Magic and Lebron's Cavs? Luck'll get you so far in this league, but it damn sure won't be as far as 4 rings.
how long do you think the NBA and it's current lotto system will be in existence?
tbh, sounds you're pretty butthurt that when Kobe tanked and missed the playoffs, you guys only got Bynum...
Why would we even bother contemplating the team past Duncan when we can simply enjoy him playing right now? Only re ed Lakerfan dwells on that.
Pure luck. If you argue otherwise, you don't know the history of your beloved Purple 'n Piss very well.Yup pure luck...
Just like the Gasol trade.
Just like the Shaq signing.
Just like the drafting of the Worthy.
Just like the drafting of Magic.
Just like the acquisition of Kareem.
All >just luck<
I agree that what you do after you draft them is what matters but that certainly isn't the only thing.
Equally important is the cir stance of the team that drafted the player, ie, was the team already a good team that just tanked the season to get that #1 or were they truly a down in the dumps team that had to build from scratch.
Also, the level of compe ion in each respective era has to be factored, you know, did the team/player have a legitimate rival, etc.
Agreed on Magic, Bird, Jordan and Hakeem.
Lakers-Charlotte had a pre-arranged deal, which is not against league rules, to draft Kobe Bryant for the Lakers at 13. This is not and should not be news. Go Jerry West!
Orlando lost out because Shaq decided to leave. SA could have been in the same boat in 2000 had Duncan (coincidentally) signed with Orlando, but DRob and Pop got on a plane and begged and pleaded not to send SA back into irrelevancy. Naturally the ability to retain your free agents is important but that is dependent on a whole set of other cir stances.
Cleveland/Lebron see above.
As for SA, they had the fortune of landing a super-draft blue chipper in a year when the HOF center had a season ending injury. How often does that happen for any team let alone for the same team twice? Never. If SA gets the #2 pick you land Keith Van Horn.
How many les does SA win with Keith Van Horn even with the drafting of Manu, Parker, etc?
Individually every move can be argued to be lucky.
But when lucky things just keep happening over and over again generation after generation it's not really luck so much as it is just greatness.
What other franchise has had success over 5 separate generations of the NBA?
The front office is not that great. Any front office could have won getting Robinson and Duncan to span 6 years together. The current spurs front office could only get 2 les during their run together because of the weak supporting cast they surrounded those two with.
Robinson was cleared to return and left out of the lineup regardless, no?
I know you aren't the brightest guy Nono, but I'm not asking anyone to dwell on anything.
I'm just pointing out that the Spurs have had real success for only one period in their entire history apart of the NBA and that era of success came from one lucky ping pong ball that bounced their way.
I mean think about...
The entire existence Spurstalk, 95% of its inhabitants who are bandwagon Tim Duncan fans only even know about the sport of basketball because in 1997 in a room in NYC a little plastic ball with a Spurs logo on it pop up in a draft lottery. Crazy when you really think about.
The spurs did tank that season. Robinson could have come back towards the end of that year. I clearly remember that year and I was hoping the spurs tanked which they did.
Two words why this thread will never go anywhere:
Confirmation Bias (not a brother to Len)
Those are not moves of luck where a ping pong determined the outcome. The Lakers have more ammo in their gun to turn their team around with big star trades and free agent moves. Look how they got Gasol, Kobe and Shaq, one sided trades and free agency.Yup pure luck...
Just like the Gasol trade.
Just like the Shaq signing.
Just like the drafting of the Worthy.
Just like the drafting of Magic.
Just like the acquisition of Kareem.
All >just luck<
Yeah, "greatness" is defined by trading for a pick in 1980, only for the team you traded with to post the worst record in the NBA two years later, ensuring you the number one pick.
Luck.
The Lakers got Magic in a similar way. Because of a ridiculous and outdated rule (even by 1970s standards), the Jazz had to compensate the Lakers their number one pick when Gail Goodrich signed with them. The Jazz turned in the league's worst record in 1978, giving the Lakers the 1979 number one pick, which they used to draft HIV.
Yep, greatness. I guess a front office is great when it doesn't have to do anything and can just sit back and rely on a league rule to do the work.
Homer spur fans are the ones who cannot accept that the spurs could even think about tanking. After all the spurs are the good guys of the NBA and never pull anything shady.
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