I would add that Randle and Brunson are via free agency, I-Hart is free agency, J-Hart is trade, and we’ve done a very good job with non lottery draft picks (Mitch, Quick, & Grimes). So we’ve used a balanced approach to building a good young team with upside, while retaining excess draft capital. The big mistakes have been draft lottery picks or we’d be further along. Only Obi can be blamed on Rose. Even dopey ideas like Fournier and Kemba were not killers.

I think you have to build x% mistakes into any approach regardless of what it is and who the GM is. They all make big mistakes now and them. What you want to do is avoid the disasters and make a couple of big winning moves.

Like who? Santi Aldama? No one mentioned him on draft night or before this year that I can recall.

Herb Jones? I agree that taking Rokas over him was a bad move. But that had nothing to do with the 19th pick unless one is so committed to that narrative that anyone would even hypothesize that he’d be taken there. Of course, my guess is that some would have advocated even more vociferously for dumping Randle with significant sweetener, since Jones is even better than Obi, who some thought could replace Randle and improve the team.

And I post this with the usual caveat that the argument has never been about defending the moves as much as it has been about the actual long-term impact on team-building.

With the 19th pick I’d be just fine with any of those players. Missing on all of them doesn’t yet appear catastrophic,

this was never the argument…. late first rd’ers don’t carry a whole lot of value in a vaccuum… everyone here knows how much they’re worth… where we are on the win curve they are worth a lot just as someone like the pistons would value any of those highly…. they need players.. they need assets….

incinerating the pick is a wasted opportunity… just like you might miss a few hundred dollars now you could probably overcome that…. but if you’re poor you might have trouble keeping the lights on…. the pistons are poor… we are only slightly richer than them….

we lit a few hundred dollars on fire…. and you can see it on the roster… you can play whatever shell game you want but eventually giving up an early 2nd rd pick for free… trying to replace your eventual all star pf in favor of an all-nba level player and another very good starter….. giving up a first rd pick literally for nothing…. and then getting 50 cents on the dollar on another mini-incineration…. you will pay the piper eventually….

and you’re not going to give up all star level talent every time…. but we could have had haliburton… vassell .. .jalen williams… eason… and a whole lot of other names that would be helping us a lot more than obi.. mcbride or sims now….

and this is not some revisionist history where we pick the best players in hindsight either… we and i have covered all of these players at length…. and look we don’t really talk about it all that often cause there’s no need.. but if you’re going to be all like who cares it didn’t matter… no it does matter a whole lot…. any of those four players we might not even need to deal for another star….

I don't think the gap between us and anyone else is insurmountable, but I have no confidence in our 3 point shooting come playoff time. I think RJ is going to struggle and Randle could easily have a lot of rough nights due to his shot selection and the tougher defense.

from game to game and quarter to quarter…he’s like taking psychadelics…you know you’re going on a trip…but never quite sure if its going to be a good one or a bad one…

This is 100% correct. Every player cited as someone we missed out on likely could have been had for a similarly protected first as the CHA pick, as Bones Hyland just demonstrated. As to the 2022 draft, I trust ptmilo’s analysis that we got back commensurate value for those picks.

Continuing to believe that this team or its prospects would have been improved in any significant way by making picks (without hindsight cherrypicking) especially when ignoring all the extremely dumb things that those same folks advocated for, will never cease to amuse me.

not really that bad considering the absolute scarcity of a missy performance – not an awards show or festival event – her performing, hasn’t really ever happened…

the thing that turned me off – the venue, an exactly one hour and fifty minute performance, security everywhere, weird crowd…

instead i’m gonna go see george thorogood by myself, i’ll drink alone…

My brother in christ

oh yeah – was happy that my eye caught this phrase on the page – and i smiled 🙂

just had a passioned conversation a moment ago with someone about these early mission sites out here in cali being plague sites to the indigenous population, whom were sadly not prepared for the level of pestilence that would be brought upon them…how could they ever have imagined what was to come…

not long ago visited the mission in carmel, just kept thinking – they should have never let you build here…god came as the second wave…scouts were the first wave…

1. Have you read anything I’ve said today?
2. Do you follow Dallas basketball at all?

I’ve been criticizing the team building of Cuban and not Doncic, but as long as you brought it up imo Doncic is more flawed than popular perception. He’s not a good defender and he clearly hasn’t learned to play off the ball yet as his time short time with Irving is showing. The latter being because Cuban was essentially building teams and the offense to maximize him instead of the team result.

And I’ve acknowledged it! But it can be true that Rose has made both shrewd moves and mistakes and that *as of now* it all adds up to a team that loses in the first round of the playoffs. That would mean he still has a lot of work to do.

I will repeat that I think we’re decently well-positioned for him to do that work, and that’s a major change from my POV prior to the season. But losing in the first-round of the playoffs is not an end unto itself, so I am not going to apologize for ever having doubted Leon Rose.

“Jalen Johnson, Keon Johnson, Bones Hyland, Ayo Dosomnu, etc, etc.”

Maybe not, but some of the guys you conspicuously didn’t name would make a big difference.