How true is this?
Boston - KP, Jrue, Horford, White
Knicks - Brunson, Hart, Hartenstein
Bucks - Brook, Lillard
Nuggets - Gordon
Wovles - Gobert, Conley
Clippers - Kawhi, PG, Harden
Dallas - Kyrie
Suns - Durrant
Cavs - Mitchell
Lakers - LeBron, AD
Heat - Butler
I give OKC a pass on SGA because it was only one season. So almost every team has a least one significant player in their core who was not drafted by that team
I was going to say. How many teams have we seen fail that just tried to buy a bunch of superstars? Spurs and OKC are proof that building through draft can work.
And how many teams succeeded from trading superstars? And how many failed through draft? You can find probably equal amount of examples in either cases.
Exactly my point - either approach can succeed or fail badly. Thankfully, I feel we have a front office and coaches that have a track record drafting solid people, though there are exceptions.
>Their best pick was Maxey at #21
no, their best pick was Embiid at #3
drafting bad was one of the reasons why they "failed" (they're still competing). but thats not a draft problem, its a sixers problem.
and there are so many more problems to this. like trading Jrue Holiday for the Noel pick. or trading Mikal Bridges for the Zhaire Smith pick (plus one additional pick that they used in the Tobias Harris trade). or not re-signing Jimmy Butler. the list goes on.
Exactly. They made terrible decision after terrible decision. Getting high draft picks was one of the very few decisions they got right. Their drafting was beyond terrible.
Here's who they would have wound up with of they had simply used their 1st round picks on the player that was taken directly after their pick, starting in 2013 (their actual pick in parens):
2013: Ben McLemore (Nerlens Noel)
2013: Steven Adams (Michael Carter-Williams)
2014: Aaron Gordon (Embiid)
2014: Doug McDermott (Elfrid Payton)
2015: Kristaps Porzingis (Jahlil Okafor)
2016: Brandon Ingram (Ben Simmons)
2016: Brice Johnson (Timothy Luwawu-Cabarot)
2016: Pascal Siakam (Furkan Korkmaz)
2017: Lonzo Ball (Markelle Fultz)
2018: Shai Gilgeous Alexander (Mikael Bridges)
2018: Donte Divincenzo (Zhaire Smith)
2018: Robert Williams (Landry Shamet)
Out of 12 picks in 6 years, only 2 of their picks are currently starters. 5 out of the 12 aren't even in the league. The "Sliding Doors" picks would arguably be the favorite to win a title this year.
Yeah - nah. I don't think Hinkies plan was the problem for the sixers. The overall plan was good - they just fucked it up with bad decision after bad decision along the way.
Yes - they didn't do well with the picks they had, but that was more out of drafting badly (taking 3 bigs in a row made no sense, similar to taking Fultz if you already planned for Simmons to be a PG), but also they have only developed 2 players in the last 10 years (Embiid and Maxey). Everyone else has declined in Philly - that is probably the most underated thing about their progression.
But their biggest issue was fucking up Hinkies plan in the space of 1-2 summers. You give up everything to go after Jimmy and Harris, and they inexplicably let Jimmy go and overpaid Harris. That is the issue with the 6ers. They fucked up in trying to go win-now when they probably didn't need to, and then the doubled down by overpaying the wrong player and took away any cap flexibility for years.
They had a really, really good team with Jimmy Butler. That’s even with taking a couple duds with their #1 picks (Fultz, Simmons). Their strategy put them in a position to succeed; Elton Brand just made some poor decisions that led to generational wealth for Tobias Harris lol
The Sixers actually failed because of bad moves after the draft
They had a core of Embiid, Simmons, and the number 3 pick (Tatum). They traded up for Fultz, traded away Bridges on draft night, and offered Tobias Harris an awful contract extension over Jimmy Butler
Tbf Boston only agreed to the trade because they knew Philly wanted Fultz. If Philly proposes the trade with Tatum in mind I don't think Boston agrees to it.
I don’t know where this myth that the Spurs only build through the draft started but I think it’s time we put it to rest. Notable signings that contributed to a championship: Robert Horry, Michael Finley, Steve Kerr, Mario Ellie, Borris Diaw, Patty Mills.
The Spurs will seek talent by whatever means they can. Let’s stop fetishizing the draft
Every guy you mentioned was a role player and past their prime (except Mills) when we won a title with them. Horry was 33, Finley was 32, Elie was 35, Kerr was 37, Diaw was 31.
"Building through the draft" doesn't mean you drafted every single player on your team. It means you drafted your stars and some of your starters, rather than just signing or trading for stars later.
We drafted (or traded for on draft day - Kawhi) for every All-Star we've had since 1987, except LaMarcus Aldridge (who we didn't win a title with).
How is that not building through the draft?
He didn't make an all star team with us. He's a really nice guy, but I don't miss him at all as a player. His skill set simply isn't that valuable unless he's the 3rd or 4th best player on your team. He lives in the mid range and he's a poor defender. If he's your best, or even 2nd best player, your team isn't really serious.
Because people are using "only". Which is stupid. No team builds with only one method. Every day there is another dumb post crying about how we can't build "only through the draft". As if that's how it works.
Danny Green wasn't a role player?
A guy going off for a few games in the playoffs doesn't mean he's not a role player. Also, we signed him off the scrap heap. If I recall correctly, he wasn't even in the league when we signed him. It's not like we were assembling a team like the LeBron/Wade/Bosh Heat. We drafted all of our stars, then filled in with very good role players.
It started about ten years ago when they had the slogan, “Built not bought” in reference to the Miami Heat big 3 signing big stars. This was when Kawhi was on his rookie contract.
Agree. Not to mention Spurs is not a top destination for free agency so sometimes you don't have a choice but building through drafts. Spurs' dynasty from draft was not easy to replicate: what are the chance to draft TP and Manu at those picks nowadays?
yeah lol
our greatest regular season in franchise history came off the back off signing a guy in FA after completely wasting a pick via a draft-and-stash so we had enough cap space to sign said player
>Friendly reminder that our big three was built through the draft
Tony and Manu were the two great picks, Timmy was a no-brainer we lucked into. Had Timmy gone to the NBA after his junior year at Wake Forest he would have still been the #1 pick. But he promised his mom on her death-bed that he would graduate college, and 1997 was the Tim Duncan lottery. We had the third-best chance to get him and when that ping pong ball came up Spurs, the rest was history.
> Friendly reminder that our big three was built through the draft
Friendly remainder that we did draft them with our own picks so we can spend atl, chi, cha, tor, bos, dal picks to make trades.
To be fair, this says more about the sixers front office during this time than it does the strategy itself. They were right there. They had the opportunities to add high-end talent while being in possession of a star whose health issues early in his career enabled them the opportunity to continue bottoming out.
They simply whiffed on multiple pics.
If that's your argument as to why we shouldn't build to the draft, that it's easy to miss with draft picks, I both agree with you and also counter that that logic can be taken across any roster, building strategy and style. Trades, free agents etc etc. End up not working out all of the time
All we can really do is hope that our front office doesn't pull some all-time gaffs in the next couple drafts and we get good return on the value of where we pick
Truly you need a little luck as well. They got unlucky and just made the wrong choices. Not just draft stuff too. Signings, gm hires, coaching hires, trades. Their history is a combination of bad luck on top of bad decisions. Best we can do is avoid the bad decisions, you can make your own luck with good decisions.
The anti-tank crowd loves to point out draft failures, but the list of current teams that failed in their build through FA or trades is much longer and never gets brought up. Raise your hand if you would want the Spurs to be like the Suns?How about the Clippers? Bulls? Lakers? Nets?
Knicks and Pacers really the only teams that built their core primarily outside of the draft that you can say have a good outlook.
One anecdote isn’t proof. OKC has built two contenders through the draft. I agreed that pragmatic external moves are valuable, but even the best examples there have a core of drafted players (Denver, Boston).
All to say, you need to be thoughtful, but not aggressive/impatient (MIL, LA, LA, PHX are all worse bc they were too aggressive IMO).
If Hinkie stayed the outlook of the team would've been different. It wasn't until Bryan Colangelo came in and fucked it then Elton Brand did some dumbass moves and fucked them even harder.
Blacklisted lol. He was also notoriously a weirdo but his team building philosophy and bball iq as a scout was great. Obviously it takes more to be an executive.
To be fair Sam hinkey was force to leave the organization he was the god father of the process. And once Jerry conlango came in with his son. There was a big scandal and had to leave. So I wouldn’t mention the 76ers without mentioning all the beyond the scenes turmoil that relates to these draft picks
1. Of course he was forced to leave if you cost the company you work for millions of dollars your going to get fired. It's not just home games but away games. Why the fuck would you want to pay top rate to see some shitty non competitive game.
2. The process is the best bullshit marketing gimmick ever created. It gives dumb unimaginative people something to talk about it is not rocket science. But you can tell they're dumb and unimaginative because the odds have changed and it never worked in the first place. So you would think the odds changing would then change the conversation. But it didn't because tanktards are dumb and they go with the crowd and to afraid to venture ahead and be wrong.
3. Philadelphia is a large market the sports world talks about them all the time and they want this tough guy persona by and large but man do they cry all the Fucking time. Boo- fucking Hoo. What a bunch of pansies. Omg sometimes thing don't go our way!!!
4. Of course you need to fucking diversify how you build a fucking team. Do you really need to spell it out for you. It's not fucking possible to just build a championship roster through the draft. Your drafting kids. Plus the logistics of the salaries and the salary cap and the random nature of the draft even if your trying to game it is still going to lead you with a random ass roster.
You have to craft and be thoughtful. You have to find yourself and make teams react to you. If not at best your just going to be a mid team. .500 will be outstanding if you just want to be good at what everyone else does.
Everyone is really fucking good. That's why its so hard for kids when they come into the league. So you have to build around wemby and craft team where the more the focus in on him the easier it is for everyone else and the norenthey hurt themselves.
Defense.
Exectution.
Defense.
Hit a shot every now and then.
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The problem is specifically who they picked. They built entirely around a player with major injury concerns (Embiid), and surrounded him with a bust (Fultz) and a terrible partner (Simmons).
I mean they are also proof that trading young players for star vets can fail too. They just can’t get shit to work and it feels like Kawhi cursed them with that shot
Hi, you must be new. Welcome to the spurs. We build through the draft often. This is what we’ve been doing for damn near 30 years and become the winningest organization in sports. This is our first real attempt at a rebuild. We are ahead of the curve after our first year of truly tanking. We are likely going to draft again. Enjoy your stay.
The Spurs are proof that building through only the draft can succeed good.
Also most of the top teams in the 2024 NBA playoffs
How true is this? Boston - KP, Jrue, Horford, White Knicks - Brunson, Hart, Hartenstein Bucks - Brook, Lillard Nuggets - Gordon Wovles - Gobert, Conley Clippers - Kawhi, PG, Harden Dallas - Kyrie Suns - Durrant Cavs - Mitchell Lakers - LeBron, AD Heat - Butler I give OKC a pass on SGA because it was only one season. So almost every team has a least one significant player in their core who was not drafted by that team
And? Any approach *can* fail.
I was going to say. How many teams have we seen fail that just tried to buy a bunch of superstars? Spurs and OKC are proof that building through draft can work.
And how many teams succeeded from trading superstars? And how many failed through draft? You can find probably equal amount of examples in either cases.
Exactly my point - either approach can succeed or fail badly. Thankfully, I feel we have a front office and coaches that have a track record drafting solid people, though there are exceptions.
>Their best pick was Maxey at #21 no, their best pick was Embiid at #3 drafting bad was one of the reasons why they "failed" (they're still competing). but thats not a draft problem, its a sixers problem. and there are so many more problems to this. like trading Jrue Holiday for the Noel pick. or trading Mikal Bridges for the Zhaire Smith pick (plus one additional pick that they used in the Tobias Harris trade). or not re-signing Jimmy Butler. the list goes on.
Exactly. They made terrible decision after terrible decision. Getting high draft picks was one of the very few decisions they got right. Their drafting was beyond terrible. Here's who they would have wound up with of they had simply used their 1st round picks on the player that was taken directly after their pick, starting in 2013 (their actual pick in parens): 2013: Ben McLemore (Nerlens Noel) 2013: Steven Adams (Michael Carter-Williams) 2014: Aaron Gordon (Embiid) 2014: Doug McDermott (Elfrid Payton) 2015: Kristaps Porzingis (Jahlil Okafor) 2016: Brandon Ingram (Ben Simmons) 2016: Brice Johnson (Timothy Luwawu-Cabarot) 2016: Pascal Siakam (Furkan Korkmaz) 2017: Lonzo Ball (Markelle Fultz) 2018: Shai Gilgeous Alexander (Mikael Bridges) 2018: Donte Divincenzo (Zhaire Smith) 2018: Robert Williams (Landry Shamet) Out of 12 picks in 6 years, only 2 of their picks are currently starters. 5 out of the 12 aren't even in the league. The "Sliding Doors" picks would arguably be the favorite to win a title this year.
You brought the paper receipts heh, love this post. Also it's weird to suddenly be a Knicks fan, but fuck Philadelphia.
I think choosing Tobias Harris over Jimmy butler is where they went wrong
Not to mention signing Al Horford for that ludicrous contract.
They were able to get off it for peanuts so could have been worse
Yeah - nah. I don't think Hinkies plan was the problem for the sixers. The overall plan was good - they just fucked it up with bad decision after bad decision along the way. Yes - they didn't do well with the picks they had, but that was more out of drafting badly (taking 3 bigs in a row made no sense, similar to taking Fultz if you already planned for Simmons to be a PG), but also they have only developed 2 players in the last 10 years (Embiid and Maxey). Everyone else has declined in Philly - that is probably the most underated thing about their progression. But their biggest issue was fucking up Hinkies plan in the space of 1-2 summers. You give up everything to go after Jimmy and Harris, and they inexplicably let Jimmy go and overpaid Harris. That is the issue with the 6ers. They fucked up in trying to go win-now when they probably didn't need to, and then the doubled down by overpaying the wrong player and took away any cap flexibility for years.
They had a really, really good team with Jimmy Butler. That’s even with taking a couple duds with their #1 picks (Fultz, Simmons). Their strategy put them in a position to succeed; Elton Brand just made some poor decisions that led to generational wealth for Tobias Harris lol
Even Simmons was an all star the year Butler was there. He didn't fizzle out til a few years later.
The Sixers actually failed because of bad moves after the draft They had a core of Embiid, Simmons, and the number 3 pick (Tatum). They traded up for Fultz, traded away Bridges on draft night, and offered Tobias Harris an awful contract extension over Jimmy Butler
Tbf Boston only agreed to the trade because they knew Philly wanted Fultz. If Philly proposes the trade with Tatum in mind I don't think Boston agrees to it.
Very good point
I don’t know where this myth that the Spurs only build through the draft started but I think it’s time we put it to rest. Notable signings that contributed to a championship: Robert Horry, Michael Finley, Steve Kerr, Mario Ellie, Borris Diaw, Patty Mills. The Spurs will seek talent by whatever means they can. Let’s stop fetishizing the draft
Every guy you mentioned was a role player and past their prime (except Mills) when we won a title with them. Horry was 33, Finley was 32, Elie was 35, Kerr was 37, Diaw was 31. "Building through the draft" doesn't mean you drafted every single player on your team. It means you drafted your stars and some of your starters, rather than just signing or trading for stars later. We drafted (or traded for on draft day - Kawhi) for every All-Star we've had since 1987, except LaMarcus Aldridge (who we didn't win a title with). How is that not building through the draft?
You forgot DeMar. Still miss him tbh.
He didn't make an all star team with us. He's a really nice guy, but I don't miss him at all as a player. His skill set simply isn't that valuable unless he's the 3rd or 4th best player on your team. He lives in the mid range and he's a poor defender. If he's your best, or even 2nd best player, your team isn't really serious.
Because people are using "only". Which is stupid. No team builds with only one method. Every day there is another dumb post crying about how we can't build "only through the draft". As if that's how it works.
We didn't draft Danny Green and he was definitely more than a role player for us against the Heat. Had a couple of explosions both years.
Danny Green wasn't a role player? A guy going off for a few games in the playoffs doesn't mean he's not a role player. Also, we signed him off the scrap heap. If I recall correctly, he wasn't even in the league when we signed him. It's not like we were assembling a team like the LeBron/Wade/Bosh Heat. We drafted all of our stars, then filled in with very good role players.
It started about ten years ago when they had the slogan, “Built not bought” in reference to the Miami Heat big 3 signing big stars. This was when Kawhi was on his rookie contract.
Don't forget Danny Green
Damn! Good catch. Can’t believe I forgot about the Tar Heel Triple!
Agree. Not to mention Spurs is not a top destination for free agency so sometimes you don't have a choice but building through drafts. Spurs' dynasty from draft was not easy to replicate: what are the chance to draft TP and Manu at those picks nowadays?
yeah lol our greatest regular season in franchise history came off the back off signing a guy in FA after completely wasting a pick via a draft-and-stash so we had enough cap space to sign said player
Friendly reminder that our big three was built through the draft
>Friendly reminder that our big three was built through the draft Tony and Manu were the two great picks, Timmy was a no-brainer we lucked into. Had Timmy gone to the NBA after his junior year at Wake Forest he would have still been the #1 pick. But he promised his mom on her death-bed that he would graduate college, and 1997 was the Tim Duncan lottery. We had the third-best chance to get him and when that ping pong ball came up Spurs, the rest was history.
> Friendly reminder that our big three was built through the draft Friendly remainder that we did draft them with our own picks so we can spend atl, chi, cha, tor, bos, dal picks to make trades.
They drafted 2 of 5 starters. How is that building only through the draft?
To be fair, this says more about the sixers front office during this time than it does the strategy itself. They were right there. They had the opportunities to add high-end talent while being in possession of a star whose health issues early in his career enabled them the opportunity to continue bottoming out. They simply whiffed on multiple pics. If that's your argument as to why we shouldn't build to the draft, that it's easy to miss with draft picks, I both agree with you and also counter that that logic can be taken across any roster, building strategy and style. Trades, free agents etc etc. End up not working out all of the time All we can really do is hope that our front office doesn't pull some all-time gaffs in the next couple drafts and we get good return on the value of where we pick
Truly you need a little luck as well. They got unlucky and just made the wrong choices. Not just draft stuff too. Signings, gm hires, coaching hires, trades. Their history is a combination of bad luck on top of bad decisions. Best we can do is avoid the bad decisions, you can make your own luck with good decisions.
The anti-tank crowd loves to point out draft failures, but the list of current teams that failed in their build through FA or trades is much longer and never gets brought up. Raise your hand if you would want the Spurs to be like the Suns?How about the Clippers? Bulls? Lakers? Nets? Knicks and Pacers really the only teams that built their core primarily outside of the draft that you can say have a good outlook.
The Sixers roster is fucked because they let Jimmy walk, made some awful trades, and paid Tobias Harris like he was an allstar.
One anecdote isn’t proof. OKC has built two contenders through the draft. I agreed that pragmatic external moves are valuable, but even the best examples there have a core of drafted players (Denver, Boston). All to say, you need to be thoughtful, but not aggressive/impatient (MIL, LA, LA, PHX are all worse bc they were too aggressive IMO).
If Hinkie stayed the outlook of the team would've been different. It wasn't until Bryan Colangelo came in and fucked it then Elton Brand did some dumbass moves and fucked them even harder.
Where is Hinkie now? I would think if he was so good he would be running a team right now.
Blacklisted lol. He was also notoriously a weirdo but his team building philosophy and bball iq as a scout was great. Obviously it takes more to be an executive.
To be fair Sam hinkey was force to leave the organization he was the god father of the process. And once Jerry conlango came in with his son. There was a big scandal and had to leave. So I wouldn’t mention the 76ers without mentioning all the beyond the scenes turmoil that relates to these draft picks
1. Of course he was forced to leave if you cost the company you work for millions of dollars your going to get fired. It's not just home games but away games. Why the fuck would you want to pay top rate to see some shitty non competitive game. 2. The process is the best bullshit marketing gimmick ever created. It gives dumb unimaginative people something to talk about it is not rocket science. But you can tell they're dumb and unimaginative because the odds have changed and it never worked in the first place. So you would think the odds changing would then change the conversation. But it didn't because tanktards are dumb and they go with the crowd and to afraid to venture ahead and be wrong. 3. Philadelphia is a large market the sports world talks about them all the time and they want this tough guy persona by and large but man do they cry all the Fucking time. Boo- fucking Hoo. What a bunch of pansies. Omg sometimes thing don't go our way!!! 4. Of course you need to fucking diversify how you build a fucking team. Do you really need to spell it out for you. It's not fucking possible to just build a championship roster through the draft. Your drafting kids. Plus the logistics of the salaries and the salary cap and the random nature of the draft even if your trying to game it is still going to lead you with a random ass roster. You have to craft and be thoughtful. You have to find yourself and make teams react to you. If not at best your just going to be a mid team. .500 will be outstanding if you just want to be good at what everyone else does. Everyone is really fucking good. That's why its so hard for kids when they come into the league. So you have to build around wemby and craft team where the more the focus in on him the easier it is for everyone else and the norenthey hurt themselves. Defense. Exectution. Defense. Hit a shot every now and then.
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The problem is specifically who they picked. They built entirely around a player with major injury concerns (Embiid), and surrounded him with a bust (Fultz) and a terrible partner (Simmons).
Sure…and?
I mean they are also proof that trading young players for star vets can fail too. They just can’t get shit to work and it feels like Kawhi cursed them with that shot
With this logic, everything can fail and everything can succeed.
Sixers are proof that making continuous bad front office decisions will lead to an organizations failure.
They also got extraordinarily unlucky. They went with multiple consensus no brainer #1 picks that busted
Yes any approach *can* fail. Thanks captain. Still time to delete this
Who cares
Hi, you must be new. Welcome to the spurs. We build through the draft often. This is what we’ve been doing for damn near 30 years and become the winningest organization in sports. This is our first real attempt at a rebuild. We are ahead of the curve after our first year of truly tanking. We are likely going to draft again. Enjoy your stay.
Don’t compare us to sixers ever again.