Chris Paul and Dwight Howard were stars from day 1. Everyone else had adjustments to make.

Like I said, The Process almost certainly took into account that you can’t predict whether a player will become a superstar AND that even future stars most always have bad rookie years relative to the average NBA player.

he did have that anti-data rant

That seemed like it was directed specifically at someone saying that he was ‘eye-testing’ the refs or something, not that he was anti-analytics. Fizdale seems like he’d be fine. I worry that he might get into arguments with the press which is a losing battle here.

Jackson seems like he’d at least be a good defensive coach, and probably a non-entity in terms of offense. Also might be a reasonable choice for not fucking up players’ development. There’s so much potential baggage there that I’d steer clear. That was an interesting article though.

JVG apparently isn’t even interviewing.

If it takes a rapper at Ice Cube’s level to attract this sort of talent, in what rappers’ league would most of our roster get to play in? I’m guessing Vanilla Ice or Kris Kross?

Am I the only one supporting Fizdale based 75% on that one amazing press conference? plus….as someone correctly pointed out yesterday; sweet glasses?

Minnesota nailed the Towns pick and were right back in the top 5 the next year while we were trying to make the playoffs.

I’m looking through recent draft history… almost every team that got a good player with a top 5 pick was in or around the top 5 again next year.

New Orleans nailed Anthony Davis. Picked 6th the the next year.

Cleveland nailed Kyrie. Picked 4th the next year.

Bradley Beal was a good top 5 pick. Washington picked third the next year.

John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins were good top 5 picks. Their teams were 5th & 6th the next year.

Golden State got Steph Curry at 7. Next year they moved up to 6.

Minnesota got Love in the top 5. Got a top 5 pick the next year.

LaMarcus Aldridge was the 2nd pick in the draft. Portland picked 1st the next year.

You have to go all the way back to the 2005 draft to find top 5 picks that moved their teams up the next year: Chris Paul and Deron Williams. Dwight Howard did it in 2004. And LeBron/Melo/Wade did it in 2003. Those were all time great rookies.

Derrick Rose a top pick but Chicago was a borderline playoff team that won the lottery on long odds.

Does that mean I should throw out all the data and stats I’ve studied for decades?

Getting high draft picks will tend to add better players to your team, which in turn will make your team better, which in turn will produce lower picks going forward.

Maybe once a decade a rookie comes into the league that, by himself, can take one of the 5 worst teams in the league and improve them by 10-15 wins the next season. Even if you nail the pick, it takes time to develop him into an impact player.

More often than not, a bottom 5 team stays in the bottom 5 unless they hit on their pick *and* acquire extra talent.

It’s really easy to stay in the bottom 5 two years in a row. Minnesota nailed the Towns pick and were right back in the top 5 the next year while we were trying to make the playoffs.

I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a few more jobs opening up that are more attractive than the Knicks. I liked our position relative to Charlotte and Orlando. Damn. I thought we had our choice, but maybe not. If Fizdale keeps us on the hook, that might increase the chances of someone like Blatt because of the connection to Mills (not that I have a problem with Blatt) .

Yeah I don’t think a Kerr/Fisher scenario where we end up with our 2nd choice is at all out of the question here.

I’d love to see this organization try to move past its awful history with women (kind of hard to do when your slimy owner remains in charge and the guy who helped screw over his friend when she was being sexually harassed is the current president of the team) by giving a great coaching prospect like Becky Hammon a shot. I don’t think it has any chance of happening, but I’m all for it!

It’d be a cool story but I don’t think she’s quite at that level yet. She has only been an assistant for a few years and isn’t the lead assistant (Messina, who by the way I’d strongly prefer to Blatt if we wanted to go for a Euro connection). I think she probably needs a little more seasoning (and possibly to do some coaching outside the Spurs bubble, either as a lead assistant somewhere else or as a G-league head coach maybe) before she’s really in the running for head coaching gigs.