Well, when talking about developing our kids vs trading them for AD, I had the impression that you preferred collecting as much superstar talent as we can. The Warriors drafted 3 of their 4 allstars and developed them organically. I hardly find any fault in the way they built their team. That's any team's goal isn't it? To build a competitive team and attract ring chasers? Unless you have a different standard for other teams, I'm not sure if I catch your drift. So it's OK to stockpile talent, but only up to a certain point where your competitors have a slight chance to beat you?
I’m not going back to the argument that our young players equate to the early stages of the Warriors young player man, I’m just not. We agreed to disagree on that one days ago I thought, I’m not quite sure why you seem to try to get me into these very strange and roundabout arguments so often. My stance is you need 2 all-stars to win a title, Toronto showed that tonight when Lowry, as poor as a playoff career as he’s had, absolutely carried them in the first half. LeBron and AD are 2 all-stars, and you can build around that. The hope would be that adding AD would lure a Butler, a Kyrie, a Kemba, or some crazy outside chance, a Kawhi here, but it’s not the expectation. You can add really decent pieces around them that we’ve seen be valuable around the league that are like 3rd tier guys and still compete, JJ Reddick types, You get the 2 established stars and you go from there. It can’t be guys that MAY become all-stars at some point, or guys that used to be all-stars but have fallen off that level either, because Denver has that, they’re young and deep as hell, and they still lost to a team with 1 top tier star and a 2nd borderline all-star guy in Lillard and McCollum. You need established stars that have been there before in the league, or if you go the other way you will be waiting on your young guys to develop and slowly learn year by year how to get it done in the playoffs. These are AD’s career playoff averages in 13 career games, 30.5 ppg, 12.7 boards, and 2.5 blocks. Give me that right now even if I have to give up Zo, BI, the 4th, and now even Kuz because the West just opened wide up with the injuries to Durant and Klay, sad as it was to see those. Beyond that I don’t need a 3rd star to be happy, and I don’t want a Kevin Durant. I don’t find fault with what the Warriors did to build their team either, I don’t know how you get that when I said I rooted for them in 2016. Before they added Durant what they had done was the dream of every other team, to build internally through the draft, they even got some “luck” with Steph’s ankles early on that allowed them to keep him cheaper and build a better team around those 3 main guys. But the Lakers haven’t historically really done that when it comes to winning titles, they’ve almost always traded for the star first and then added around them, whether that was Kareem or Shaq, or like adding Pau to Kobe later on to win more titles, we have for as long as I’ve been a fan had to sacrifice some fan favorites or make a big trade to win it all.
^ I agree mostly to what you're saying above. I was simply questioning your quotes earlier. You've made it clear that 2-3 stars are required to win in this league, which I can agree to. But then you seem to have a problem, as quoted above, when teams start collecting 4-5 stars, which makes no sense to me. The Showtime Lakers had 5 on the same team in Magic, Kareem, Wilkes, Worthy, and Green. They also had Cooper and Scott that probably should have made all star appearances as well. That is more talent, overwhelmingly, than what the current Warriors have, imo. Your argument has always been that this is a star-driven league, and I get that. History has proven that to be true. If it's just simply hate towards Durant, I get that too. I don't particularly like the guy either. But I just found some of the points you made to be contradictory.
These arguments are just strange to me, I guess I’m confused because in the end they don’t really go anywhere or have any real point? Like what does my stance on stars or me possibly having contradictory points (I don’t) matter in this discussion when we essentially agree in our overall thinking? Like is there a reason you’re trying to figure out if I’m contradicting myself, or is this just conversation for the sake of it...? Long offseason I guess. Sure though, I’ll go further, our definition of stars clearly differs, Magic, Kareem, Worthy I give you without question. Wilkes I give you for about 5 or so of his seasons with us, and then he fell off in the last one. He also never played along AC Green, who while he may be looked upon as a Laker great for his contributions and for being an NBA iron-man, is not a player I’d ever refer to as a star. Cooper wasn’t either, that’s also imo when looking through the Laker lens, he was an excellent role player and defender, but not an NBA star. Scott I can give you for a few years with his scoring averages putting him in that borderline all-star area. Those teams were balanced, not what I’d call insanely stacked (like this Warriors team had the potential to be had injures not derailed them), especially considering they had super talented teams around them like the C Bags, Sixers and Pistons to name a few. Had those Laker teams had those players all with their primes lined up together, I’d agree with you then, but they didn’t, only Kareem, Magic and Worthy really come closest to that at the same time. This Warriors team might not be top to bottom as talented, no, but they are so top heavy it kind of evens out to me, and guys like Iggy and Livingston don’t get enough credit. I guess that’s the gist of what I’d want to say on this topic, you can disagree with me, but I think all this is pretty open to our interpretations of the word “star”. I’m not trying to downplay those Lakers teams, they’re all-time great teams, I’m saying even as great as they were I don’t feel they ever ruined the league like the Warriors run the last 3 years has. I see the Lakers trading for Kareem and sucking initially, then over the years adding Wilkes, Magic, Worthy, etc as quite a lot different than the Warriors building a dominant 73 win team that probably only lost the title that season because Green likes to kick people in the crotch and then adding a top 2 player in the league if not THE best player in the league to it in Durant, then adding Cousins as insurance just to f*** with the league and for s**** and giggles, as completely different. I thought what LeBron did teaming up with Wade and Bosh in ‘11 was lame at the time, what Durant did made me forget all about that, hell it made me respect LeBron more, that’s how lame it was. I see signing LeBron this season and then trading 3 or 4 of our best assets for AD and building around that as quite a bit different than star collecting or however you want to put it. Lastly for reference here’s the playoff averages of the teams we’re discussing here, to show how insane what the Warriors have just these last couple seasons is compared to even those legendary Lakers teams, and how even one of those C Bags teams stacked up just fine to those amazing Lakers as well. ‘86-‘87 Lakers ‘87-‘88 Lakers ‘17-‘18 Warriors ‘18-‘19 Warriors ‘85-‘86 C Bags
We agree on our overall thinking, but as I've been saying, there's one argument of your's that makes absolutely no sense to me. Why are you penalizing the Warriors for the running the franchise better than everyone else? You're right. The Lakers and C Bags were similarly stacked, and good power balance and rivalries are good for the sport. I've particularly enjoyed this year's eastern conference playoffs because they were evenly matched and extremely competitive. However, is it the Warriors fault that other teams are incapable of constructing a roster as good as their's? Are they supposed to 'take it easy' on everyone else and wait for them to catch up? Were they supposed to pass on Durant, even though they just lost in the Finals? If anything, what I'd consider 'lame' is the incompetence of every other team in the league. Particularly teams like the Thunder that had the perfect opportunity for a dynasty. They could have been as good or even better than the Warriors if they weren't so god damn cheap and had retained Harden. As a result they lost a top 2 player in Durant. And you're mad at the Warriors for digging the Thunder a new a-hole? Why not direct your disgust at incompetence? I could never be mad at the rich getting richer, especially when it's done the right way. Teams like the 80's Lakers, 00's Spurs and 10's Warriors are the gold standard for how to run a franchise. I disagree that it's lame to strive for absolute greatness and complete domination. In the end, their motive is clear --- to give their franchise the best chance to win.
