Coco-puffs said:
Also, it should be mentioned that "Where the Raptors are right now" is sort of a mixed blessing like I said to Cocopuffs. Shanahan and co. made the decision to blow up the Leafs and it's paying dividends. Ujiri decided not to blow up the Raptors and where that's led them is debatable. Yes, they had their most successful season but they also just barely got out of the first round and are still outmanned and undergunned in their race for a title. The decision not to blow up the Raptors has yet to be shown to be the right one.
I definitely think not blowing up the Raptors was the right move, but only in hindsight. I honestly didn't expect DeRozan to become this good- he takes steps forward every year- nor did I expect Lowry to get skinny and thus even better. That said, had they blown it up, they would be miles away from contending and would have required some real luck to get the players that make NBA teams into contenders.
The thing with the NHL is you can probably build a contending team by drafting a whole lot of pretty good-to-great talent in the 1st round over a 5 year span of sucking and drafting and developing some gems out of the later rounds.
In the NBA, superstars like LeBron, Curry, Durant, Westbrook, Leonard and Paul are what make you legitimate contenders (and surrounding them with good talent). Out of the last few drafts, I think the only player who becomes equivalent to them is Karl-Anthony Towns and the Raptors would have had to have been really lucky to land him. Its just not the same. If you ask me, tanking for a couple of more years would much more likely end up resulting in drafting another DeRozan and Lowry combo than a superstar.
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I think it's important to keep in mind when looking at that list of superstars that while some like Lebron and KD were stars when they came into the league, others weren't. It took Curry and Leonard especially years before they became what they are now. So, yeah, guys like Wiggins and Porzingis might not look at that level now, compare them and what they're doing at 21 to what Leonard did at the same age and it's not this massive gap(with the caveat that Leonard wouldn't get the touches they have).
With that in mind, I think there are two ways to build a real contender in the NBA. You can bottom out and hope to get lucky with one of those top of the draft sort of stars or you can do it with depth.
By using top 10 and top 20 picks to draft guys who might not be superstars at first but who develop into legit all-stars. So like what Golden State did with Curry or Thompson or San Antonio with Leonard or OKC with Ibaka and so on.
Ujiri, who took over a team with a couple of very solid players, looks like he's going the latter route as he did in Denver. That's not necessarily a bad choice but it is one that puts pressure on him to add players who aren't just pretty good like Carroll or ok bench pieces like Patterson/Bebe. He's got to hit a few triples in the draft too.
Guys like Poetl, Cabaclo, Wright, Siakam...for the Raptors to get to the next level at least one of those guys needs to legitimately become a borderline all-star starter. Is that an easy thing to do? No. But that is the added pressure a GM is under if he doesn't blow it up and start with those superstars. Until Ujiri actually does that, we won't really know if it was the right choice.
