Draft Rules' Inception

A couple of days ago, I read an exhaustive article via Yahoo!Sports explaining the new draft rules, but I still don't understand that shit.  To be totally honest, I never really understood the old or current rules to begin with.

What I did take away from the exposition is that tanking has been disincentived and furthermore, bottom-of-the-barrel teams are now being penalized.  The main reason I wrote this post is to point out that latter idea is something I actually introduced to the world years ago.  More specifically, I argued that teams who are perennially bad, such as the Kings, should be thrown out of the league for a year to teach them a lesson.  Mind you, that was like back in 2022, and Sacramento still sucks (though they did have a brief resurgence).

And this is the funny thing about it.  The bottom teams possessing the best statistical chances of landing a top pick is a rule that's been around for as long as I can remember.  Yet, I can't say I recall dudes tanking back in the days.  Maybe in the days of yore, organizations had too much pride?  Maybe I didn't fully understand what was going on?

THE HINKIE ERA

That all changed with "the Process" in Philly.  And here's the funny thing about.  Out of all those high draft picks, the Sixers only landed two stars, and this generation has yet, if ever, to win a championship.  And when I say two stars, I'm not, btw, referring to Maxey as one of them. He was drafted all the way down at 21 and in the 2020s. 

And that's the true strength of Philly's braintrust ,imo - finding gems.  Yes, they drafted Carter-Williams, Okafour and Fultz, three guys who've had careers but never really panned out.  But again, even amidst those decisions and then later losing Simmons, they've remained akin to perennial contenders.  They're still getting value for those picks, if you will.

But going back to this no championship thing, again you gotta ask, what's the ultimate goal?  Is it to land high draft picks just for picking's sake, or is it to actually win it all?

Or, in summation, let's say that high draft picks alone don't lead to a championship.  If you say before Wemby the generational talent was Lebron and before him MJ, then that means those types of players who can win it all on their own, so to speak, only come around once every 20 years.  It's possible that another multi-skilled player even taller than Victor, or a stud stronger than Lebron, or a star more marketable as MJ, will eventually come along.  But is it really likely?

LET THEM EAT CAKE

So you, as a low level yet ambitious team executive, walk into the boardrooom, straight to the owner and are like 'boss, our rivals just drafted Wemby'.  Then he screams at you and says 'then go draft Holmgren!'

I've been saying for years that coaching matters.  I've also been saying that now, many coaches are just more or less figureheads.  When every man, 1 to 5, is empowered to jackup shots at will, that's not coaching.  I kept saying, not every nigga is Steph.  But I didn't foresee that it would be someone as different from Curry as Wemby who finally got that point across, though I did know that eventually the post would become important again.

So in the WCF you had these little guys - and yes, they looked nephews standing next to Victor - deadass driving to the paint, trying to execute layups with dude directly on them.  WTF?  It reaches a point where you're just like, that's stupid.  Or rather let me say, they've been doing shit like that with no repercussions for so long that now it's hard for them to stop.

So yeah, coaching.  SGA recently called Sam Presti 'the best GM ever' or some shit.  So, let the Thunder run it back and prove that first ring wasn't a fluke.  But that said, if they're able to keep their starting five + McCain + Caruso and still land Giannis, I'm all for it.  Look at what type of superteaming you have to do to beat Wemby.

CONCLUSION

Remember when Draymond blew up the Kings' spot and was like niggas ain't even competing?  Yes, enough of the bullshit already.

Fuck happened to David vs. Goliath?  Where are the underdogs these days?  There's this video just uploaded to YouTube where dude is like the NBA rigged the 2023 Draft, because the Spurs have proven that they know what to do with players like Wemby.  Yeah, fuck that.  Draft picks don't win championships (most of the time) - braintrusts do.