What franchise is doing things right?

[mqtcelticsfan]

EASILY the Denver Nuggets

Eh? They got a solid return on Melo, but there's practically no argument in favor of them against the Spurs, Thunder, Bulls or Heat, let alone a number of other teams.

[OmarSekou]

I agree with most that it's the Spurs.

Some other good choices were brought up, but the Thunder for example have just gotten good recently. And while they've been smart, they also drafted one of the 5 best players in the league (Durant) and had 3 other draft picks pan out well (Green, Westbrook, and Harden).

A lot of the good teams now went from the lottery to the playoffs after drafting a superstar. None of those teams have won yet (maybe the Heat with Wade but they got Shaq on a discount after the Kobe beef).

The Spurs have ridden out their superstar for over a decade and wisely built a team around him. They've never blown everything up. They've kept their core and tinkered with the supporting cast. I wonder if their fans are going "we need to dump Duncan, Manu, and Parker to rebuild." Granted their record is much better than ours, but not a lot of people are giving them a legitimate shot this year for the same reasons they don't give us one.

If that's our model, then the "let's blow it up and hope we draft a superstar" plan shouldn't be our play. Field a competitive team for as long as we can, don't overpay players, don't get desperate for trades.

[LooseCannon]

EASILY the Denver Nuggets

The Nuggets are a horribly-run franchise that should be the poster child for how to be a perpetual fringe playoff team.  We're looking at a team that has had first-round playoff exits in seven of the last eight seasons.  They keep handing out bad contracts to players like Aron Affalo, Al Harrington, Chris Andersen, and Wilson Chandler.

I'd be willing to bet that the Celtics win their next title before Denver wins one.

[LooseCannon]

The Spurs, for sure. But OKC was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. They should be the model for a rebuilding franchise.

I'm not as big of a fan of the "OKC model" because you usually have to run a franchise the way Seattle was run in the years before 2007 in order to be in a position to draft a player such as Durant.  It's hard to get that bad overnight.

[Celtics18]

The Boston Celtics, The San Antonio Spurs. 

[More Banners]

Gotta go with Memphis and old pal Chris Wallace.

Strange but true.

[jdz101]

If we're not going to give credit to Presti for not having a single terrible contract on the roster for years, I don't know what a team has to do to get it right.

Kendrick Perkins

[lepoooo]

If that's our model, then the "let's blow it up and hope we draft a superstar" plan shouldn't be our play. Field a competitive team for as long as we can, don't overpay players, don't get desperate for trades.

You seem to forget that the Spurs drafted Duncan. If Duncan is not a superstar, then who is? He is the definition of a franchise player. Keeps his head down, works, leads by example. He is not flashy, he is not noisy but that makes him the biggest superstar of the last 15 years basketball-wise. Bigger than Kobe and Shaq who had the opportunity to dominate the league for 10 years together but who blew it up because of their sad egos.

Duncan had the Admiral with him in the beginning, it made things easier for them to grab their first title in '99, however he still is the drafted cornerstone that the Spurs have been building on for 15 years.

Choosing the Spurs to make a point about why drafting a superstar should not be the Celtics plan is really a mistake. The Spurs were lucky to land Duncan and then pairing him with Robinson, but they built their teams through the draft, and it all began with Duncan.

[LooseCannon]

During David Robinson's career, the Spurs fielded a competitive team that always made it to the playoffs but made it to the conference finals once until he broke his foot and played only 6 games in the 1996-97 season, leading to a 20-win season.

San Antonio didn't blow it up in order to get Tim Duncan.  They got lucky to lose their star player to injury at just the right time.  You can praise how they have acquired players to build around Tim Dunca, but the Spurs are not a team you can really point to as a model for how to go about putting yourself into a position to draft a franchise player that you build around.

[wdleehi]

Spurs.  They got lucky in the draft, but did a great job through out Duncan's career finding players (from role player to stars) that fit into his style. 


Thunder have done a great job with their picks and trades. 


Places like Miami and the Lakers have done a good job taking advantage of their location. 


Boston did a great job using it assets to build a title team. 

[35Lewis]

It's hard to generalize because different GM's take over and some teams start in different places.

I think the Celtics have done a fine job running the organization since Ainge took over.  The Spurs have always done well because they have a particular model that they stick to like drafting foreign players because they know the only way to get possible future stars like Ginobili is to get a guy low that has a long Euro contract.  Okc has impressed me with their patience as they could have wanted it quicker like the Bulls and handed out bad contracts like Ben Wallace.  And now that Bird has complete control in Indian I think he has figured out what he is looking for and he has set that team up to do some great things.  Oh and I like what Morey does considering his market and the bad luck the franchise has had.

[CoachBo]

If we're not going to give credit to Presti for not having a single terrible contract on the roster for years, I don't know what a team has to do to get it right.

Kendrick Perkins

4 pts, 5 boards a game.

Horrific contract.

Presti got hosed by Ainge on the Ray Allen deal, and if Green had stayed healthy we'd be laughing at Presti about this one, too. I'm certainly laughing at OKC's wild overpay for Perkins anyway.

Nobody's perfect, but the Spurs and Lakers seem to find a way not to plummmet, as it appears inevitable we're going to do armed with all this useless cap space this summer and going forward.

[wdleehi]

If we're not going to give credit to Presti for not having a single terrible contract on the roster for years, I don't know what a team has to do to get it right.

Kendrick Perkins

4 pts, 5 boards a game.

Horrific contract.

Presti got hosed by Ainge on the Ray Allen deal, and if Green had stayed healthy we'd be laughing at Presti about this one, too. I'm certainly laughing at OKC's wild overpay for Perkins anyway.

Nobody's perfect, but the Spurs and Lakers seem to find a way not to plummmet, as it appears inevitable we're going to do armed with all this useless cap space this summer and going forward.

A better team since the trade. 


Boston, a worse team. 


How did Ainge hose him?  (I mean besides 'ifs'.  Because we always grade coaches and GMs on "ifs")

[Boris Badenov]

San Antonio didn't blow it up in order to get Tim Duncan.  They got lucky to lose their star player to injury at just the right time.

You could say the same thing about the C's, actually. And in our case I'm not really sure Pierce was even hurt!

[Marcus13]

Those pesky Lakers are the blueprint...but blah

Sam Presti is also doing his thing in OKC but until he gets a championship, I wont give him too much credit