Duke13 wrote:I'll sum it up in 1 sentence. Tibs used considerable resources (cap space, player trades and draft picks) to construct this roster for minimal returns. Now we have cap issues, no young assets, with no realistic way to improve. He fucked us, sorry that was two sentences.
Honestly though what could of happened to make us realistically better for the future. We could of drafted better no doubt but every organization can say that. You are taking an educated guess at a player and hoping the player turns out.
You mention Taj is overpaid and not a good fit next to Towns, but who was the better option there. Millsap we didn't have the cap space to obtain him. We could of gotten Patterson the cheaper option at the time what a lot of this board wanted, but he has been terrible and Taj has been so much better than him. Was it Gorgui he was coming off his best year as a pro did you want him to be the starting PF and not spend the money at all for Taj. Now lets go to Teauge, now I agree he has been up and down but he is still a middle of the pack starting PG in todays game. Now is he overpaid probably but who did you want to fill that spot. You agree that Rubio trade was a good one. So who did you want our PG to be, we could of went for Collison who has been good for Indiana and is cheaper but that goes back to the Taj vs Patterson thing not all cheaper options are going to work out well, the Collison vs Teague one probably did but once again that is using hindsight and it doesn't mean that Collison would of fit as nice with the Wolves as the Pacers.
Now lets go to Wiggins, of course the Wiggins contract sucks but 99 out of 100 GMs would have done that same thing as Thibs, you don't not obtain the 5th youngest scorer to X amount of point in NBA history. Now it sucks Wiggins has regressed and it is a killer to our franchise but no GM was going to let him just walk for nothing. Not taking a shot here but Lip said that Thibs mistake was not trading Wiggins when his value was the highest, 1st off think that is pretty unrealistic to ask a GM to do with such a young player in Wiggins but shouldn't Thibs get credit for getting rid of Lavine when his value was at his highest. Lavine couldn't obtain an All NBA guy right now.
You mentioned, that we had young assets, and cap space and Thibs fucked it up. Well that cap space would of been gone because Lavine and Wiggins were up for an extension and Towns was hitting his now. So we would even be in the Lux tax more than we currently are. Once again it sucks that the players didn't live up to their potential but is that really on Thibs fault or the players. I mean its not like Lavine has lit it up under his other 2 NBA head coaches with the Bulls.
Is Dannie Angie a bad GM then if Kyrie walks in the offseason. They had all that cap space and all those picks but if Kyrie walks, they have a core going forward of Hayward, Tatum and Brown. Hayward is the Wiggins of this situation, Tatum is the Kat (Kat is better of course) and Brown is sort of the Lavine he has regressed this year but still a good young player but is he still as valuable making 20 million a year. They have Smart who is like the Taj, they Rozier who is a RFA like Tyus who knows how much they are actually worth on the open market. They have Horford but he is getting older and can opt out. So with all those assets Boston, cap space and picks they could be stuck with a terrible cap situation and not as good of a star talent as Kat. So does Dannie Angie suck now. I don't think so he just got unlucky with the Kyrie situation ala the Butler situation.
Thibs wasn't perfect, no doubt, he drafted bad, got unlucky with the Patton injuries (who knows if he would have ever turned out good) and things could of all been different if he would of selected Collins over Patton in hindsight. But once again Thibs put us in a situation to be a damn good team. We were the 3 seed before butler got hurt and went into the last day of the regular season with a chance to be a 4 seed.
Thibs was not perfect no doubt but I just think sometimes you get unlucky, and there isn't this magical path to championship basketball. We needed Wiggins to develop and he didn't so at the end of the day Wiggins killed us. Now that doesn't mean Thibs gets no blame but sometimes it is what it is and we didn't get lucky. But that doesn't mean that Thibs plan was stupid it just didn't work out because of a ton of factors involved. There was not a single path I could see that would of made us a contender for years to come that would have been realistic.