Do the Celtics need to get worse to get better?
 |
| Green, Rondo, Bradley, Sullinger, and ____? |
"You look at both teams, the Lakers and Boston, it’s going to be a while before either is in contention again. It’s hard to rebuild in this league, and it doesn’t happen quickly unless you draft LeBron [James] or Kevin Durant. It’s going to take a while, and I think both organizations have to face that reality, because we aren’t going to see these two in the finals again in the foreseeable future, that’s for sure.”
“That’s the worst place to be in the NBA — stuck in the middle. You want to be really good or really bad. That’s the fear is you don’t want to get stuck in that middle place, because you can’t get out of it."
In a salary capped 30 team league, it's obviously virtually impossible for any franchise to perennially remain in contention. But I wholeheartedly disagree with the notion that you must be bad in order to get good. Take a look at the last 3 title winners: Miami was 47-35 the year before they became the Heat as we now know them. The Mavericks were an average team that became a very good team, and then a great team when they won the title. And the aforementioned Lakers were 42-40 the season before they lost to Boston in the Finals.
There are other ways to construct contenders besides being in the lottery. Signing players to smart contracts and creating cap space can allow teams to rebuild on the fly. And how about this stat: Since the Spurs got Tim Duncan in 1997, none of the past 15 lottery winners have won an NBA title. Only 3 of those 15 have even made the Finals (2000 Nets in 2003, 2003 Cavs in 2007, and 2004 Magic in 2009), and all of them had short lived moments in the sun.
Follow Mark on twitter @LucidSportsFan
