storyteller
Veteran
Nah breh, sorry but you're definitely wrong here. The best teams in the league were built primarily through the draft, you build your foundation via the draft and bolster your roster with free agency. Just look at the playoff teams right now and the majority of their core players were either drafted by them, traded on draft night, or had their rights traded -
Utah - Gobert, Hayward, Hood, Burks (Favors traded to them his rookie year) Yeah they're legit draft built, they also took years to be anything worth talking about and are still a fringe playoff team only.
Memphis - Conely & Gasol (Marc's rights were traded to the Grizz) Marc was traded for in the Pau deal. Lee, Barnes, Zbo, Green, Allen, Chalmers Wright...all acquired via trades and signing. That's essentially the entire core of the team.
Portland - McCollum, Leonard, & Lillard Absolutely built their core through the draft, even last year's team which is mostly gone; but the fact that they had to dump or lost home grown players before they could contend speaks to my point. You can build through the draft for years and still wind up losing those pieces because it took too long.
Dallas - Dirk Every other key player on that team is acquired through FA or trades. If this is all it takes to say a team was built primarily through the draft, then the Knicks are pretty much there with KP.
LAC - Blake & Jordan Another example of a team with two good drafted and developed players surrounded entirely by players acquired through trades or signings. Their best player and leader being the most obvious one in CP3.
OKC - Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka They're a great example of building through the draft done right with the only exception being their owner's unwillingness to pay Harden.
SAS - Duncan, Parker, Kawhi, Manu This is the team that everyone aspires to be for sure, and they are definitely the number one example for building through the draft successfully. No qualms here.
GS - Curry, Thompson, Barnes, Green Another nice example.
CLE - Kyrie, Thompson & Bron () On the real though; four out of five starters on that team were acquired from other teams (including Lebron) even though they could have been in pretty damned good shape just hanging on to Wiggins and letting Bron take him under his wings.
TO - Val & Demar Another team that is almost entirely made up of FA's and traded for pieces. It's those two and a core of acquired players including the most important piece in Kyle Lowry.
BOS - Sullinger, Bradley IT and Crowder are most important to that team though I will say that they have a good number of rotation pieces acquired through the draft. They're a great example of a balanced build.
ATL - Horford, Teague, Black Hitler They fit the bill as of today, but likely won't by the deadline and have been shopping all three guys you named. Apparently the player they've been most reticent to deal was Kyle Korver and he's a former Bull.
MIA- Wade Outside of Wade and Winslow, the entire core of that team was acquired by means other than the draft.
INDY - George, Turner Same as the Heat.
CHI - Butler, Rose, Noah, Gibson, Mirotic Yeah, they're a good one and the player development aspect for them is great.
CHA - Kemba, MKG, Zeller, Frank They're another core built through drafting with THEIR OWN picks and not by trading for an abundance of other people's picks. The rumored offer for their 10th pick was something like what's being thrown around in this Melo deal and they turned it down for Frank friggin' Kaminsky (solid player but you get my point.
Look, I'm not over here advocating a team built without any draft picks whatsoever. I'm saying we've got OUR OWN draft picks and we've already drafted our star. KP is the guy we're supposed to develop into our Wade or Dirk. Both those guys were built around via trades and use of cap space which is exactly what I'm advocating here. The most important factor that relates those teams is patience, they didn't make rush or knee jerk moves and took years to form a fully cohesive core. I'm suggesting that the Knicks are still in the process of building their core. Trading for picks still requires good picks and luck in the lottery (or with other teams not doing well), so we're looking at uncertainty regardless of how the Knicks build. But they have KP and they have their draft picks going forward, it's not as if they don't have those.
No not just "of course there are misses" the majority of picks are whiffs or take years to become solid players, usually into their RFA status at minimum. As valuable as picks are, the C's cache of picks wasn't enough to trade up. This is where the issue lies, people act like every first round draft pick is the same value. The BK pick is a top asset, the lottery protected Grizz pick is not more valuable than quality starters getting paid fair value...those kinds of players are more expensive, but they impact the game in a much larger way the vast majority of rookies and sophomores.
Your point about wanting Nerlens doesn't make sense, before he was a "Sure thing" the Sixers traded an all-star for him on draft night even though he had a torn ACL. You don't need to have the top pick to build a foundation, especially since Knicks already have their key piece which would be Kristaps, a lot of the guys I named weren't even top picks, hell the Warriors were built with picks 7 (Barnes & Curry), 11 (Thompson), 35 (Green). Also, you say you don't want to get caught in the same cycle as the Sixers, yet the last time they were in the playoffs was 4 years ago, the last time the Knicks made the playoffs was 3 years ago, you're already stuck in the same cycle as them but without the prospect of a draft pick
We're without a draft pick...for one offseason. That's missing the forest for the trees. Barnes, Thomspon and Curry weren't drafted in one year or even two consecutive years and it was something like 5 years into Curry's career before the squad became truly dominant. Yet the Knicks a half season after their first offseason in a rebuilding mode, you're pushing them to dump their established star for the uncertainty of picks. Uncertainty is key here, take the GS example. If any of 34 GM's sees Green's potential for what it is, he doesn't fall to GS. The Knicks were actively attempting to trade ahead of GS to get Curry, that blows up the whole build for that team in one moment. There's no guaranteed method of building a team and the draft has a lot of variables involved just like every other attempt to build.
No man's land = Brooklyn's situation. They have no draft picks, no true star and no cap space. THAT'S no man's land. To say that a team with cap space in the offseason, all of it's draft picks after this offseason and a developing future star is stuck with no place to go seems extremely short sighted imo. I've said a few times, I'd deal Melo for the right return, but I'm also not in a rush to move him for the first package that comes my way but Mozgov, BK's pick and future picks that project to be late firsts (C's are good) isn't a must have. It doesn't change the trajectory of THIS season and even BK's pick has better odds of NOT becoming a star than becoming one (14% chance to land a star in the top 20 from 08-13). It's fishing for a moral victory ("at least we have a lotto pick to look forward to") when the team's future could well be better positioned by keeping Melo as a sell point in this offseason. No that's not definitely better, but the uncertainty of FA and those picks isn't far off. If they keep Melo, they have a number one option in Melo and a number two option in KP; plus they have a quality starting C. That's a pretty nice core to build around and could be successful much more quickly than a core of KP and (insert any player that isn't a top two pick here). Plus, if things are still looking sluggish, you can deal Melo in the offseason after FA's have made decisions.
Again, this isn't some type of insult to building through the draft. The Knicks have their picks from 2017 on...KP's only 20...and having Melo to take pressure off of him and mentor him could be more beneficial long term for KP because the Knicks could draft a bust or wind up with their targets taken before they get a chance (like how we wound up with Jordan Hill instead of Curry and Gallinari instead of Westbrook).
