Would it be accurate to say that, while some teams have improved immediately through high picks in the draft or through trades (or both), very few have done much of anything wrt Free Agency? Shaq going to the L*kers is the big win, but it took him 4 years and K*be to win a ring for them, and it was just about derailed by us.
Nash going to PHX resulted in 2 MVP years, but no Finals. Billups was a good pickup by DET, but I wouldn't call him the carrier of that championship team. After that you have to go back to the ABA for good FA signings.
As far as the argument of "drafted by/traded for", the nature of the NBA dictates that most draft-day trades are done after the commish's moratorium for announcing trades (Roy being a significant example). There's no way that someone can rationally say that our brain trust drafted Tyrus Thomas. We traded with CHI and they told us to pick Thomas for them. Same thing happened with Roy. We didn't pick Randy Foye with our pick (never would have), but we knew that MIN wanted Foye in their trade for the 8th pick. We drafted Rudy Fernandez, but that's not what the wiki sites will say b/c the league wouldn't recognize the trade until July 8.
Pippen was drafted in the same manner. CHI were then told to draft Polynice at the 8th pick. Same with K*be. Same with Love and Mayo. I can't believe so many of you think that it doesn't count as "drafting" someone if the commish doesn't say the team name.
I could keep going with recent players. No one here thinks our GMs wanted to draft Darrell Arthur and Joey Dorsey, do they? Or Omer Asik (though they should have!)? No, they drafted Nic Batum, and for the deal were told to draft Arthur and Dorsey. We didn't want Brandon Rush, but that was the price Indy wanted for Bayless.