What happens if the Pacers actually advance the either the E.C. finals or even the NBA finals? No, I’m not asking if we will all be rejoicing and dancing in the streets (which we better be).
No I want to know will the paradigm shift in the way people think NBA teams in general and small market teams in particular have to be built?
Whether a lot of us old timers like it or not the absolute top model for building an NBA franchise now is to tank and the Oklahoma City Thunder are always held as the bright and shining example of dumping salary, bottoming out & being rewarded with high draft picks who turn out to be absolute blue chip players who will then lead your team from the bottom to the top and will do so for a couple of years until you need to dump them and start over again. BTW this is not just fans or even sports writers who like to stir up things on twitter who think this way. I have heard several respected NBA people both former coaches and players who have been on NBA saying that this is the model to use.
What happens if we prove that wrong? I’m not saying we will and perhaps I’m too high after so many home victories that I’m losing perspective but humor me.
The Pacers never tanked, at least not on purpose. Satan did but in his mind he was trying to win and when he finally gave in to not trying to win every game they actually started to win because they got away from his horrible….Ok, we all know where I’m going here so let’s not make this about him.
Think about this our highest draft pick was # 10, now it can be argued that he is our best player so there is logic in still saying the higher the pick the better the chance of getting a good player. But again, he was # 10 not # 1 or even # 5.
When Danny comes back both he & Roy were drafted at #17. Right now our starting shooting guard is a second round pick and I wouldn’t trade him for most 1st round picks from his draft.
Our first big off of the bench was selected at 13. Our current first wing off of the bench was this year’s 2nd round draft pick.
We parlayed one first round draft pick into our starting point guard & in a rare occurrence this trade actually benefitted both teams.
We traded away a surplus point guard who probably was never going to start here again and was probably not going to be happy being a backup long term for our back up center.
We did shed salary mostly by just letting it expire and with our available money we did make a splash in the free agent market and signed a player coming off of injury to fill a need, however although he was at one point an all star prior to here he was never considered a marquee player because he was just a solid fundamental player. In other words we didn’t use our free agent money to sign the big marquee sexy player that everyone wanted us to sign (not that there was one available but I remember many people saying just save the money for the next season).
Of course that non-sexy fundamental signing only turned out to be both the biggest bargain in Pacers history is quite honestly is the best free agent signing in NBA Pacers history. I just can’t bring myself to say most important because Byron Scott changed our entire culture the day he arrived here. But I’ll say this we get to the E.C. finals or beyond & I’ll probably change my tune about that as well.
Yea I know this is all pretty premature but still look at where we are. Right now we are the talk of the league and not just because we are winning. We are winning and we are looking good doing it, we are entertaining to watch (at least according to Chris Webber & Steve Smith on NBA tv) and most importantly other than West and soon to be Danny none of our key players are on the wrong side of 30. To put it differently unless something goes terribly wrong we have a few years to be really competitive and if George & Stephenson keep growing then that window could be quite large.
But with all of that in mind is it possible that teams may start to go another route and try the Pacers way of building through solid draft choices and trying to build a winning culture?
Or will it always be “we must tank to succeed”?
No I want to know will the paradigm shift in the way people think NBA teams in general and small market teams in particular have to be built?
Whether a lot of us old timers like it or not the absolute top model for building an NBA franchise now is to tank and the Oklahoma City Thunder are always held as the bright and shining example of dumping salary, bottoming out & being rewarded with high draft picks who turn out to be absolute blue chip players who will then lead your team from the bottom to the top and will do so for a couple of years until you need to dump them and start over again. BTW this is not just fans or even sports writers who like to stir up things on twitter who think this way. I have heard several respected NBA people both former coaches and players who have been on NBA saying that this is the model to use.
What happens if we prove that wrong? I’m not saying we will and perhaps I’m too high after so many home victories that I’m losing perspective but humor me.
The Pacers never tanked, at least not on purpose. Satan did but in his mind he was trying to win and when he finally gave in to not trying to win every game they actually started to win because they got away from his horrible….Ok, we all know where I’m going here so let’s not make this about him.
Think about this our highest draft pick was # 10, now it can be argued that he is our best player so there is logic in still saying the higher the pick the better the chance of getting a good player. But again, he was # 10 not # 1 or even # 5.
When Danny comes back both he & Roy were drafted at #17. Right now our starting shooting guard is a second round pick and I wouldn’t trade him for most 1st round picks from his draft.
Our first big off of the bench was selected at 13. Our current first wing off of the bench was this year’s 2nd round draft pick.
We parlayed one first round draft pick into our starting point guard & in a rare occurrence this trade actually benefitted both teams.
We traded away a surplus point guard who probably was never going to start here again and was probably not going to be happy being a backup long term for our back up center.
We did shed salary mostly by just letting it expire and with our available money we did make a splash in the free agent market and signed a player coming off of injury to fill a need, however although he was at one point an all star prior to here he was never considered a marquee player because he was just a solid fundamental player. In other words we didn’t use our free agent money to sign the big marquee sexy player that everyone wanted us to sign (not that there was one available but I remember many people saying just save the money for the next season).
Of course that non-sexy fundamental signing only turned out to be both the biggest bargain in Pacers history is quite honestly is the best free agent signing in NBA Pacers history. I just can’t bring myself to say most important because Byron Scott changed our entire culture the day he arrived here. But I’ll say this we get to the E.C. finals or beyond & I’ll probably change my tune about that as well.
Yea I know this is all pretty premature but still look at where we are. Right now we are the talk of the league and not just because we are winning. We are winning and we are looking good doing it, we are entertaining to watch (at least according to Chris Webber & Steve Smith on NBA tv) and most importantly other than West and soon to be Danny none of our key players are on the wrong side of 30. To put it differently unless something goes terribly wrong we have a few years to be really competitive and if George & Stephenson keep growing then that window could be quite large.
But with all of that in mind is it possible that teams may start to go another route and try the Pacers way of building through solid draft choices and trying to build a winning culture?
Or will it always be “we must tank to succeed”?
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