Yeah I do, I have watched the Knicks mistakenly rely on free agency and past their prime veterans for the last 15+ seasons. Meanwhile with the exception of the 2 championships won by the Lebron led Heat the last 18 championships have been won by teams who built through the draft or acquired talent by way of their draft picks. I am not satisfied with just making the playoffs with no realistic chance of contention when it is ultimately at the expense of long-term success. Getting hype over wins that lead to the road of mediocrity makes no sense to me, and so I'll continue to take the #Knickstank stance until it is apparent that ownership and management are serious about rebuilding.
How many teams in past 15 years have made it to the conference championship with more than 1 player drafted #10 or higher as a real contributor?
maybe 5 or 6? in 15 years?
Golden State (Steph Curry and Harrison Barnes) 3 times, OKC (Westbrook, Harden and Durant) twice, Chicago (Noah and Rose) once, Phoenix Suns (Stoudemire and Marion) I think 3 times, Toronto (Valanciunas and DeRozan) once and Cleveland (Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson) twice?
10 out of 60... from 6 teams? And what about the other teams the perpetually pick in the top 10 and barely sniff the playoffs, if at all. And only 2 of those times did the team actually win the Championship.
And there were easily better players drafted later than Valanciunas, Tristan Thompson (Jimmy Butler, Isiah Thomas, Klay Thompson) and Harrison Barnes was the third best player in the entire draft... and 4th best is probably a bigger drop off.
If you can hit on 1 high draft pick, you're in good position ... then from that point it's more about taking adavantage of your other picks, wherever they are, to get solid role players... and making good use of free agency. Who drafts a star and then immediately makes moves to tank the next year?
Edit: OKC made it 4 times, not 2.
But again agree to disagree.
these dudes were just the 6th best team overall in 2k now their rank 14th overall
