For those that think we suck...

[Orion Bailey]

Its time to break our boys down once and for all...I personally am tired of all the thoughts that we suck because we don't currently have the line up of last year or a list of all stars on our roster.

Our Roster with regards to draft placement:

Miller.................5th pick,2000
Kaman..............6th pick, 2003
Henderson......12th pcik, 2009
Aminu..............8th pick, 2010
Davis...............13th pick, 2010
Lillard...............6th pick, 2012
Leonard...........11th pick, 2012
Harkless..........15th pick, 2012
McCollum.......10th pick, 2013
Plumlee..........22nd pick, 2013
Crabbe.............31st pick, 2013
Pressey..........Undrafted, 2013
Frazier...........Undrafted, 2013
Vonleh..............9th pick, 2014
Connaughton...41st pick, 2015



Two glaring things come to mind so far. Our future consists of no one who has been in the league more than 6 years. We have 10 guys that were drafted top 20 and 6 guys 10th or better.
Now lets compare this to a few of last years playoff teams... say, GS, LAClippers, SA, Cleveland (four teams that are in contention for next year as well).

SA
Duncan......................1st, 1997, 1st, 82 games: 21.1/11.9/2.7, 2nd, 50: 21.7/11.4/2.4, 3rd, 74: 23.2/12.4/2.4
Ginobili..................57th, 1999
Parker....................28th, 2001
Diaw.......................21st, 2003
Bonner..................45th, 2003
Belinelli..................18th,2007
Splitter..................28th, 2007
Anderson...............30th, 2014
Daye.......................15th, 2009
Ayres.......................31st,2009
D.Green................46th, 2009
Mills......................55th, 2009
Williams.......Undrafted, 2010
Leonard..................15th, 2011
Joseph...................29th, 2011
Baynes..........Undrafted, 2013
J.Green..... ...Undrafted, 2015


GS

Barbosa................28th, 2003
Livingston...............4th, 2004
Iguodala..................9th, 2004
Bogut.......................1st, 2005
Lee.........................30th, 2005
Rush......................13th, 2008
Speights.................16th, 2008
Curry..................... 7th, 2009
Thompson...............11th, 2011
Barnes.....................7th, 2012
Ezeli......................30th, 2012
Green.....................35th, 2012
Kuzmic..................52nd, 2012
Holiday.........Undrafted, 2013
Mcadoo.........Undrafted, 2015

LAC

Crawford.........8th,2000
Turkoglu.......16th, 2000
Barnes..........48th, 2002
Jones............20th, 2003
Paul................4th, 2005
Redick...........11th, 2006
Hawes..........10th, 2007
Davis............36th, 2007
Jordan.........36th, 2008
Griffin.............1st, 2009
Hudson.........59th, 2009
Udoh...............6th, 2010
Hamilton.......26th, 2011
Rivers............10th, 2012
Wilcox............28th,2014

Cleveland

Marion..............................9th, 1999
Miller...............................5th, 2000
Haywood........................20th, 2001
James...............................1st, 2003
Perkins............................27th, 2003
Jones.............................49th, 2003
Smith...............................18th, 2004
Varejao...........................30th, 2004
Amundson............Undrafted, 2007
Love.................................5th, 2008
Price...............................52nd, 2009
Mozgov..................Undrafted, 2010
Kirk.......................Undrafted, 2010
Irving..................................1st, 2011
Thompson..........................4th, 2011
Shumpert..........................17th, 2011
Waiters..............................4th, 2012
Dellavedova...........Undrafted, 2013
Harris..............................33rd,2014
Cherry....................Undrafted, 2014


Hmmm. Seems so far, other than the years of experience, we are right about par with the draft position average. Cleveland has the most top 5 drafts, but also the most undrafted players on their roster.

Now to say we don't have experience.. sure. true. But how do you get experience? You play. I see many of the players on our roster are right at the point of turning the corner if they are to do so. New rosters, everyone competing, this lineup is primed for this type of team and environment. I wouldn't be surprised if 1-15 makes huge strides in training camp and preseason alone.

By the way, when I was putting this together (I didn't have the time to get that deep), I noticed another glaring item. Most of the players on the other teams, didn't do much their first year or two in the league. stats were mostly in single digit ppg, minutes played and number of games a season were also very inconsistent.
Much like our roster. The only thing we are missing is a couple of star names, but when analyzing some of these numbers, this sure seems to be the year for several of our guys to be able to break out.

At any rate I think I have cleared two things up.....

1st, this team CLEARLY doesn't suck and wont be a bottom four lotto pick, but is CLEARLY an unknown.

2nd, There is no real reason to try to tank this season to try to get a lotto pick when our lineup is very similiar to the top tier teams when it comes to draft positions of respective rosters.
What is one more top ten draft pick going to do for this lineup? Another unknown? Meh...

42
48
55

amount of wins over the next 3 years.

 

[Blazinaway]

wow, that was a quite a bit of huffin and puffin, common sense says we will not be very good next year, I think if there is a surprise we could be "decently" better than many expect, I just hope one or two of the new guys really shows something and guys like CJ and Meyers build on what they showed in the playoffs, I will be happy with that within the parameters that it is going to be a long season

 

[EL PRESIDENTE]

We're going to suck, but it'll be interesting.

 

[SlyPokerDog]

42

Under 42 wins you owe me a jack and coke.

Over 42 wins I owe you the drink of your choice.

Bet?

 

[julius]

What happened to Montero?

 

[riverman]

Under 42 wins you owe me a jack and coke.

Over 42 wins I owe you the drink of your choice.

Bet?

A glass of that wine they found on the Titanic? A scissors jack or floor jack with the soda pop?

 

[BonesJones]

wow, that was a quite a bit of huffin and puffin, common sense says we will not be very good next year, I think if there is a surprise we could be "decently" better than many expect, I just hope one or two of the new guys really shows something and guys like CJ and Meyers build on what they showed in the playoffs, I will be happy with that within the parameters that it is going to be a long season

You hope that one or two of the many young players we have show something? As in improve? They'll all improve, how much is the question. There's no reason why CJ and Meyers wouldn't build on their playoff performances. They're 24 and skilled as hell. And with many other guys being thrust into bigger roles, I expect a lot of them to improve enough to make us a 35 to 40 win team.

 

[Trackjack]

There will times this team will look like team that people will praise but there will days where everyone will want to trade everyone away. I believe if players play up there upside we could make playoff teams live miserable at the end of season.

 

[Blazer4ever]

We have a lot of talent.
A guy like Plumlee for example is on the US team and although he isn't an all star he could give as some very solid minutes at least.
I think we have many such players coming in, talented players who are relatively cheap and who are used to playing less than a starting role and would be fine with 20 minutes or so.
This gives us a very deep roster with many options, many different possible rotations and diversity in talent.
We're one or two players from really contending but already have an interesting, to me even exciting, team

 

[PCmor7]

I think we have talent, but it's very young and very unproven. I think Vonleh has a reasonable chance to be a star player but some of these guys are going to miss, too, and several guys on the roster are journeymen.

I don't expect to see a lot of consistent performances on offense, and I will be surprised if we are very good defensively. That's what you often see with young teams. I don't see this as being any different. I think it will be fun to watch at times and think about how good some of the players might be, but, honestly, I think getting a top-10 pick and getting a lot of minutes for these young kids would be the best thing that could happen to this organization right now.

 

[Orion Bailey]

wow, that was a quite a bit of huffin and puffin, common sense says we will not be very good next year, I think if there is a surprise we could be "decently" better than many expect, I just hope one or two of the new guys really shows something and guys like CJ and Meyers build on what they showed in the playoffs, I will be happy with that within the parameters that it is going to be a long season

Isn't that pretty much what I said? We have a line up that wont suck if most of the players meet or exceed expectations when being brought in. NO I never said we will make the playoffs this year, but suck to me means 20-30 wins with no future in site. Even if we get only 30 wins, far below my prediction, we still have a HUGE upside. That isn't sucking. Id MUCH rather be in the position we are in over teams like NJ, Sacramento, etc.

Under 42 wins you owe me a jack and coke.

Over 42 wins I owe you the drink of your choice.

Bet?

Your on!

 

[Mediocre Man]

Thats some quality homer shit, right there

 

[Reep]

And aren't you missing a couple of Spurs? You know, the 6'11" ones with the super long arms? The ones drafted 1 and 2?

 

[Orion Bailey]

And aren't you missing a couple of Spurs? You know, the 6'11" ones with the super long arms? The ones drafted 1 and 2?

Huh? I took Last years rosters because odds are this years will have changed by opening day. I compared them to our current roster. Diez, Montero and Alexander I didn't add because they will not have any type of impact next year in my opinion.

 

[Nikolokolus]

The cognitive dissonance is strong in this one.

 

[Reep]

Huh? I took Last years rosters because odds are this years will have changed by opening day. I compared them to our current roster. Diez, Montero and Alexander I didn't add because they will not have any type of impact next year in my opinion.

I see leaving out LA, but Timmy Duncan should probably be listed.

 

[Orion Bailey]

I see leaving out LA, but Timmy Duncan should probably be listed.

Hmm I think something happened in my reorganization of the years. Duncan was in there, but I must have deleted him. I will reassess and update this evening maybe with some more stats to back up the fact that this team doesn't suck, but has more potential now than many playoff teams a year before they made it to the playoffs.

Edit: Yeah, boy. I see a few screw-ups. I will fix tonight and I will add the PPG/AST/REB stats for all players their first three years. I think this is where people will be like... oh.. okay this team IS comparable to the top tier teams, just a couple years behind.

 

[magnifier661]

Until Stotts can make a system that is more valuable than superstars, it doesn't matter what players we have. Pops will always have a leg up over any talent we field.

 

[blue9]

I think whether we suck or not depends on how each individual defines "suck".
If it's purely based on W/L as compared to previous Blazers seasons, then yeah, we're gonna suck - especially if you're comparing this year's W/L to last year's W/L.
If it's based on league-wide W/L then we'll suck less than the first scenario, but still moderately suck.
If your definition has some basis in future growth then the team doesn't suck at all - it is actually in a better position than we were in last season, and much better off than had we brought back all of our Free Agents on new contracts.

Unless the team is right on the cusp of a Championship I prefer to look at it with an eye towards the future, so I definitely fall into the 3rd category definition. I don't care so much about W/L record, but want to see individual development and the foundation of a strong system. If we fail at those two things my opinion will slide towards the "suck" end of the scale.

 

[riverman]

Until Stotts can make a system that is more valuable than superstars, it doesn't matter what players we have. Pops will always have a leg up over any talent we field.

That hasn't worked out as well with Phil Jackson and the Knicks though

 

[magnifier661]

That hasn't worked out as well with Phil Jackson and the Knicks though

Huh?

 

[riverman]

Huh?

having a legendary coach bring his winning system to a team and fail...it's really not that difficult of a comparison

 

[magnifier661]

having a legendary coach bring his winning system to a team and fail...it's really not that difficult of a comparison

How does that relate to the post you replied to?! I said "until he develops a system that is greater than the superstars". Phil won because he usually had the two best superstars in the game. So basically his system is predicated on superstars, while Pops doesn't require that level of superstar talent to compete.

 

[riverman]

How does that relate to the post you replied to?! I said "until he develops a system that is greater than the superstars". Phil won because he usually had the two best superstars in the game. So basically his system is predicated on superstars, while Pops doesn't require that level of superstar talent to compete.

Pop has had David Robinson and Tim Duncan now has Tony Parker and Tim Duncan as well as Kawaii Leonard...finals MVP two seasons ago. Phil won with Fisher as a pt guard and Adam Morrison on the team...I stand by the comparison. Phil's triangle was a system that had a ton of success with role players surrounding franchise players. Spurs have won with franchise players and role players...

 

[magnifier661]

Pop has had David Robinson and Tim Duncan now has Tony Parker and Tim Duncan as well as Kawaii Leonard...finals MVP two seasons ago. Phil won with Fisher as a pt guard and Adam Morrison on the team...I stand by the comparison. Phil's triangle was a system that had a ton of success with role players surrounding franchise players. Spurs have won with franchise players and role players...

LOL, your argument is as thin as the tissue you tried to support it with.

 

[riverman]

LOL, your argument is as thin as the tissue you tried to support it with.

nice try...I'm not the one baiting his opinion..just offering my own but it's my second cup of coffee so I'll wait for you to catch up ...

 

[Blazinaway]

Isn't that pretty much what I said? We have a line up that wont suck if most of the players meet or exceed expectations when being brought in. NO I never said we will make the playoffs this year, but suck to me means 20-30 wins with no future in site. Even if we get only 30 wins, far below my prediction, we still have a HUGE upside. That isn't sucking. Id MUCH rather be in the position we are in over teams like NJ, Sacramento, etc.



Your on!

IMO this team as currently constructed does NOT have huge upside as in WCF contender - not even close, and I am assuming some of these guys improve. We need another top 8 draft pick that pans out, a top FA or top level guy acquired in a trade and a couple of the guys we now have to get very good. It can happen in a few years, but gotta have some luck

 

[magnifier661]

nice try...I'm not the one baiting his opinion..just offering my own but it's my second cup of coffee so I'll wait for you to catch up ...

Phil's system is predicated on superstars (preferably a guard that is the best scorer in the league) to run the triangle. Pop's system can be used with any group of players, which is why he is still able to compete when he rests his players during the season. If Phil sat Jordan and Pippen, the bulls would lose every game. If Phil sat Kobe and Shaq, they would lose every game. Pops has sat Ginobli, Duncan and Parker and still won games vs quality opponents.

Game... Set... Match...

CHECKMATE

 

[SlyPokerDog]

For those that think we suck...

We salute you...

 

[tlongII]

< 30 wins