I really don't see why we even need to tank.
Blowing up the roster for a miniscule chance to land a superstar just seems foolish to me. Teams like Minnesota and Sac have been tanking since 2007 and what do they have to show for it? 0 playoff appearances between the two of them.
If the 2014 draft is as good as everyone says it is, even if we get the 8th seed we'd still be able to get an impact player with the 15th or 16th pick. Look at how well Ujiri has done with mid-late draft picks in Denver. Selecting Faried 22nd in 2011, who is already a double-double player, and Evan Fournier 20th in 2012 who showed some excellent potential last season when he got a chance to play later on. You can get talent outside of the lottery if you actually know how to draft, San Antonio does it every single damn year.
Assuming we can resign Lowry and Gay for a combined $25M or less per season (not unrealistic at all), here's what our situation would look like heading into the 2015 offseason.
Players
Rudy Gay - 15M
Kyle Lowry - 10M
DeMar DeRozan - 9M
Jonas Valanciunas - 4M
Terrence Ross - 3M
2014 1st Round Pick Salary - 1.5M
2015 1st Round Pick Salary - 1.5M
Leaving us at just over 40M with about 20M in cap space to work with. We would also be armed with 3 tradeable prospects in Ross and the two first round picks as well as our two 2016 picks to make a move. And that's with 4 of the 5 starting positions already locked in long-term. I don't see how anyone can say this isn't a very ideal position to be in.
What would make this even better is if Gay or Valanciunas made the all-star team in 2014-15, which wouldn't be too unreasonable to expect if we were able to get a 4th-6th seed in the conference and make some noise around the league. Why wouldn't a star player want to come play with that ensemble? Or why wouldn't we be able to package assets to make a deal and bring one in?
Blowing up the roster for a miniscule chance to land a superstar just seems foolish to me. Teams like Minnesota and Sac have been tanking since 2007 and what do they have to show for it? 0 playoff appearances between the two of them.
If the 2014 draft is as good as everyone says it is, even if we get the 8th seed we'd still be able to get an impact player with the 15th or 16th pick. Look at how well Ujiri has done with mid-late draft picks in Denver. Selecting Faried 22nd in 2011, who is already a double-double player, and Evan Fournier 20th in 2012 who showed some excellent potential last season when he got a chance to play later on. You can get talent outside of the lottery if you actually know how to draft, San Antonio does it every single damn year.
Assuming we can resign Lowry and Gay for a combined $25M or less per season (not unrealistic at all), here's what our situation would look like heading into the 2015 offseason.
Players
Rudy Gay - 15M
Kyle Lowry - 10M
DeMar DeRozan - 9M
Jonas Valanciunas - 4M
Terrence Ross - 3M
2014 1st Round Pick Salary - 1.5M
2015 1st Round Pick Salary - 1.5M
Leaving us at just over 40M with about 20M in cap space to work with. We would also be armed with 3 tradeable prospects in Ross and the two first round picks as well as our two 2016 picks to make a move. And that's with 4 of the 5 starting positions already locked in long-term. I don't see how anyone can say this isn't a very ideal position to be in.
What would make this even better is if Gay or Valanciunas made the all-star team in 2014-15, which wouldn't be too unreasonable to expect if we were able to get a 4th-6th seed in the conference and make some noise around the league. Why wouldn't a star player want to come play with that ensemble? Or why wouldn't we be able to package assets to make a deal and bring one in?
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