NBA Offseason 2013 Thread

[Berto 338]

I love how being told you're wrong about something amounts to cries of condescension on this board. It's probably not a good idea to give opinions in a public place if you're not willing to defend it from criticism.

[Secretly Space Jesus 670]

If you don't want to reply to my comments, that would be fine with me. I'm happy to debate with others all day long but prefer civil discussion.

 

Your logical fallacy is: appeal to majority. And in this case, it's an imaginary one.

 

It's true that not everything that an authority on a subject says it correct. However, it certainly doesn't automatically make them wrong, either. In general, authorities will be correct more often in their field of expertise, assuming that objective knowledge is required, compared to a layperson. The logical fallacy of "appeal to authority" does not mean that you should simply ignore whatever experts in a field may say.

 

I'm very interested in the idea that you're suddenly an expert on the workings of a logical fallacy that you didn't know existed 4 hours ago and feel as though I need you to explain it to me.

 

Anyway, if you understand what the fallacy actually is, you'll understand why it's applicable here: you've yet to even make an argument as to why you think the Magic's plan of building around CAP space for next season, developing current youth, and aiming for high draft picks is bad. You just keep saying it is, as though the truth of such a statement was self-evident. When pressed, you made a reference to SVG saying it was bad for the league. If there were a textbook devoted to explaining logical fallacies, your behavior in this thread would LITERALLY qualify as a textbook case of appeal to authority. As in, your only arguments that the Magic's process is wrong have been 1) because you say so and 2) because Stan Van Gundy says so, sort of.

 

And as I already stated: there are multiple people with expertise in this particular instance who have differing opinions than Stan Van Gundy does, and as a point of fact, history is not on Stan Van Gundy's side on this, whether that fact is bad for the league or not.

 

And I'd even agree that it IS bad for the league, but it's no one team's responsibility to protect the league's image.

 

I happen to agree with you about developing young talent. Whether or not we're going about that in the right way remains to be seen.

 

What other way would you suggest? Be specific in your answer.

 

I'm also not certain by any means just how much "talent" we have, or whether the coaching staff is up to the job.

 

What level of talent do you think the team has? Be specific in your answer.

What level of talent do you think the other members of this board believes the team has? Be specific in your answer.

Why don't you think the coaching staff is up to the job? What skills or abilities do you think they lack or would need to be "up to the job"? Be specific in your answer.

 

I have not advocated making any short term trades. I also haven't said much about "tanking" per se.

 

No, you didn't use the word "tanking". You did, however, write your initial post in response to someone who did use the word tanking, and you've repeatedly made reference to tanking based off exact descriptions of what tanking is. So to say you weren't talking about tanking is roughly the equivalent of me using the phrase "pushing down with my legs against the Earth before propelling myself off the ground in an upwards motion" and then getting angry when someone says: "You mean jumping?"

 

But I'll bite, because I'm nothing if not fair:

 

If you're against "tanking", or whatever synonym for your perception of the Magic's current rebuilding strategy you prefer, but you're not against making trades that will make the team better in the short term, what exactly do you believe is the best strategy for the team to adopt moving forward?

 

And again: be specific in your answers.

 

What about the teams that have been bottom fishers for years and haven't prospered? There are probably lots more examples of that than of teams that have "successfully" used the strategy of becoming terrible.

 

Ok, full stop.

 

You need to understand this and the fact is that it's already been said multiple times: there is no strategy of "becoming terrible". Becoming terrible is an effect of bad CAP management and poor drafting. That's what we had previously. Now we're in the "having to make up for our previous poor decisions" phase of rebuilding.

 

Think about it like this: you've racked up 10k in credit card debt, and you can't afford to pay it off. So what do you do? Well, assuming you can't wave and make it go away, you have to make payments, and likely have to cut back for a while until you can get yourself out of the bad situation you've put yourself in.

 

That's what the Magic are doing now. They gave out a bunch of bad contracts, and now they have to wait those out. So they're doing that, and Hennigan has done a great job of limiting the damage of those bad contracts AND of aiming for a huge number of those contracts to be gone in time for next offseason. And in the meantime, the organization can focus on developing young players and gathering young assets, which in my metaphor would be, I don't know, installing a new deck to raise the value of your house and working to repair your damaged credit score, I guess.

 

Now, are there teams that seem to be in the lottery every year? Of course. All the high draft picks in the world won't help you

, for instance. That has to do with effective drafting, which some teams simply don't do. Others fail at intelligent management of assets and maintaining salary CAP flexibility. Those are all steps in the rebuilding process for successful teams.

 

The fact that you can point to teams who got to step one and then just stopped there is not really anything.

 

I'm really looking forward to hearing your answers to my questions, though.

[magicblue 315]

If you don't want to reply to my comments, that would be fine with me. I'm happy to debate with others all day long but prefer civil discussion.

 

It's true that not everything that an authority on a subject says it correct. However, it certainly doesn't automatically make them wrong, either. In general, authorities will be correct more often in their field of expertise, assuming that objective knowledge is required, compared to a layperson. The logical fallacy of "appeal to authority" does not mean that you should simply ignore whatever experts in a field may say.

 

I happen to agree with you about developing young talent. Whether or not we're going about that in the right way remains to be seen. I'm also not certain by any means just how much "talent" we have, or whether the coaching staff is up to the job.

 

I have not advocated making any short term trades. I also haven't said much about "tanking" per se.

 

What about the teams that have been bottom fishers for years and haven't prospered? There are probably lots more examples of that than of teams that have "successfully" used the strategy of becoming terrible.

 

 

My question is, was SVG applauding Houston's rebuilding plan prior to them trading for Harden and signing Dwight this off-season? I doubt it, because they were going nowhere fast. Let's be honest, they got lucky that OKC gifted them Harden. If every team took the exact same approach Houston did, 29 would have be disappointed, wound up with nothing, and continued down the path of mediocrity that Houston was previously on. I have no problem with the path we're on, acquiring young players with upside, building through the draft, and hoping to one-day sign some premium FA talent. I mean what are we supposed to do, blow our cap room on B talent, or trade away our young guys whose collective ceilings have yet to be determined, just to fight for one and done playoff appearances indefinitely? Houston didn't do that. They traded for Harden, arguably a top 10 talent, and used their cap flexibility to sign the best center in the game. Their execution was fantastic, but "the plan" was far from guaranteed. For SVG to say he agrees with the way Houston went about things is quite possibly the finest example of hindsight being 20/20 I've ever seen

[Soul Bro 1,419]

Please stay on topic and do not attack or inflame another poster. PMs sent. Thanks

[Zara 74]

Please stay on topic and do not attack or inflame another poster. PMs sent. Thanks

 

Great job :cheers:

[the notorious S.A.C. 89]

The appeal to authority fallacy is a way of deflecting responsibility for your own argument (I don't have any way to validate my own argument, so let me just name drop someone who sort of agrees with me), and more importantly, in most cases there will be more than one authority figure with differing, often completely opposite, opinions. Stan Van Gundy was quoted as saying that he thought mass tanking was bad for the league, and that he admired the Rockets for not doing that. That's fine. But the Heat have been to the last 3 Finals, winning 2, directly as a result of tanking first to rid themselves of the bad contract leftovers from the Shaq years, and then pseudo-tanking again a couple years later, ensuring that they'd be a first round exit multiple years in a row, to make sure they had max CAP space for Lebron and Bosh. The Thunder ensured they had lottery picks in multiple consecutive drafts by tanking. It's a valid strategy, and has shown enormous effectiveness. That's true regardless of what Stan Van Gundy thinks of it on an ethical level.

 

It's absolutely the best option we have, but not for the reason you seem to want to assert. Orlando's main priority right now should be developing young talent, if not for the future then at least as trade assets, and clearing CAP room from the Otis mess. And that's what they've been doing. Making short term value trades right now accomplishes exactly not a goddamned thing, and the Magic won't be any closer to a decent CAP situation. And a decent CAP situation is what the Magic need most if they're going to obtain any kind of significant success in the short term or the long term.

 

However, by this time next year, assuming no CAP destroying trades between now and then, the Magic will have CAP space for a max free agent with room to spare past that. And if we happen to end up with a super high draft pick in one of the deepest drafts ever, well that's a nice bonus to have as part of the plan.

 

"Tanking" is just a word. You really need to let it go. Refer to it as "youth development" or "long term asset management" or whatever else you want to call it. It's one year.

 

 

Not long term asset management or youth development...why dont we just call it "do the exact 100% opposite of what Otis did"

[Shine88 80]

Pistons and Bucks work out a sign and trade for Jennings.

[Mauro Pedrosa 1,031]

Pistons and Bucks work out a sign and trade for Jennings.

Good deal, I've never liked Brandon Knight

[OrlandoFeds 34]

Good deal, I've never liked Brandon Knight

 

I disagree completely. Detroit now have some quality bigs but instead they decided to trade for a point guard who won't pass it to them. Sure Brandon Jennings has talent but he continues to be an inefficient bulk shooter who doesn't play defense and that just doesn't win games.

[BN 44]

Jeez, Jennings and Smith in the same offseason. Chauncey needs to work some miracles here.

[Mauro Pedrosa 1,031]

I disagree completely. Detroit now have some quality bigs but instead they decided to trade for a point guard who won't pass it to them. Sure Brandon Jennings has talent but he continues to be an inefficient bulk shooter who doesn't play defense and that just doesn't win games.

I think that it's a good move for the Pistons, and they're also not massively overpaying Jennings (8 mil a year, pretty good)

 

With Chauncey Billups backing him up and teaching him some stuff he could become a better PG, and he has the potential to be a much better shooter than Brandon Knight, and the Pistons need shooting BADLY.

 

With that said, having Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings on the same team could turn out really bad, but it's a risk I'd take, since they are in win-now mode.

[OrlandoFeds 34]

I think that it's a good move for the Pistons, and they're also not massively overpaying Jennings (8 mil a year, pretty good)

 

With Chauncey Billups backing him up and teaching him some stuff he could become a better PG, and he has the potential to be a much better shooter than Brandon Knight, and the Pistons need shooting BADLY.

 

With that said, having Josh Smith and Brandon Jennings on the same team could turn out really bad, but it's a risk I'd take, since they are in win-now mode.

 

Curious though, how does Brandon Jennings has potential to be a much better shooter than Brandon Knight? They are roughly the same now with Brandon Knight being two years younger. I agree they need shooting but Rodney Stuckey is the reason for that.