San Antonio is the luckiest franchise in the NBA. In a year with a generational talent they win the lottery. Same with Duncan. In a year without a generational talent, they get 2 top 10 picks.
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Steph Castle declares
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I'd of course like to see Castle go as high as possible, but teaming up with Wemby with Pop helming the team....sounds like a great place to begin a career.
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Teams have tried to structure their future like this before (Philly, OKC).
At the end of the day, you still need a competent front office to make it work out. Making trades that give a higher likelihood of future lottery picks, trading current value for future value when you know the current value might help you win sooner, drafting the right prospect that fits into the growth of the team vs. best player available, etc....
Look at the opposite, the Clips spent the farm for Current Value(2019), and they're now boned for the next 8+ years.
Hard to call the Spurs or OKC lucky.
U can be both lucky and good. They won the lottery last year with a 14% chance. How do u plan for that? The year Duncan came out they were #1 because Robinson only played 6 games…..did they injure him or were they lucky he got hurt the year Duncan came out.
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Your point is 100% valid. Luck of opportunity absolutely plays a big role. I think the point I was trying to make is there are Organizations that have extremely strong developmental programs, and those who don't. Curious to see what ATL ends up doing, but I firmly believe regardless of the prospect chosen, SAS or OKC would get more out of them than ATL will.
Agree…but I would posit that Pops legacy would have been very different without Robinson injury/Duncan draft
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Yeah, there's def some luck when you look at successes of coaches.
Phil Jackson and the Kobe Trade
Spoelstra entering as Lebron chooses Miami
Pop and the Robinson Injury
Brad Underwood and the piss poor drafting of the 76ers lol.
Pat Riley getting promoted to the coaching staff because of injury to the Lakers head coach during Magic's rookie season, and later receiving the HC job because Jerry West turned it down.
etc.
It's actually crazy.
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Waquoit
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Luck, and having a godfather. LeBron wanted Spoelstra fired and Riley said no. Maybe the Bucks owner should have stood up.
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Surely, you know better than his agency, Steph, our coaches, and his family. If only they had reached out to you!
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I was watching this video: Stephon Castle: The True Best PG in the 2024 Draft Class? and it reminded me of some of the talk here when he was a freshman coming into UConn. Does anyone else remember how excited we were for him but the main concern was he looked disinterested on defense? Crazy how in a year the narrative has changed and he's the best on ball defender in the entire draft class.
I think a lot of the "disinterest" in defense at the time was just because of how much his high school team asked of him offensively, especially once Jakai Newton got injured for them.
I don't care what anyone says, Castle can be a star in the NBA. I think it's just a matter of when.