https://global.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/38503924/nba-preview-2023-24-win-projections-all-30-teams

There’s a chicken or egg debate as to whether having first-ballot hall-of-famers creates championships, or whether having championships creates first-ballot hall-of-famers; got that all under the cap when one guy is giving you a lot of it on his own. ‘

You need “w” scoring, “x” rebounding, “y” playmaking, “z” defense etc.. to contend for a championship. It’s obviously easier to build a team with all that within cap rules if you have one player that gives you a lot of it on his own. The math is tougher when you don’t, but it’s not impossible. You need a lot of attractive contracts so you can fit a lot of above average players onto the same team instead of the more typical top heavy team with less depth.

There’s one major player weakness on this team and that’s RJ. Replace a two sided negative player with a two sided positive player and spacer and this team is on the short list of contenders.

That’s what I was hoping for this off season.

As to the quote above, there’s definitely a chicken and egg component to it.

No one thought of Brunson as anything special until he showed that his playoff performances without Doncic the prior year were legit. Most thought we overpaid. It was the perception that changed, not the reality. He was terrific all year without Doncic. He simply sealed it by inching forward and repeating it. If he inched forward again, we replaced RJ with a productive 2 way player, and we made the conference finals or finals, perceptions of what he is would change further.

The price paid for Garnett, though large, was significantly lower than the likely price for Embiid. And to me, Garnett was the better and by far the more durable player

You can’t compare the Garnett trade to anything happening now or ever really. Not only is the league incredibly different today in how players are acquired, but that one-sided trade was immediately panned by everyone, even to the point where people were wondering if McHale was secretly helping Ainge out. Jefferson and 2 picks might be the worst return ever for a legit 2-way star… anything like that trade is never happening again.

They deserved every bit of their success. There has been no team like them in my lifetime. Every other NBA champion has had a tier 1 superstar or two tier 2 superstars, or both. Maybe you could add the Isiah Pistons to that list, I was alive then.

Jordan/Pippen
Hakeem/Drexler
Duncan/Robinson
Kobe/Shaq
Duncan/Manu/Parker
Billups/Wallace
Garnett/Pierce/Allen
Kobe/Pau
LeBron/Wade
Curry/Draymond
Curry/Durant
Kawhi
LeBron/AD
Giannis
Jokic

I needed no reference to make this list. There are a lot of very-deserving MVPs up there.

You may infer that I am extremely confident Boston will not win the title, though. It might not be Giannis, but it’s going to be someone.

This is correct. In fact, the only two teams I can think of that traded a gartantuan package to acquire a superstar and went on to win a title are the Bubble Lakers, which have nothing in common with this team, and the Garnett Celts, which seems somewhat similar. The price paid for Garnett, though large, was significantly lower than the likely price for Embiid. And to me, Garnett was the better and by far the more durable player…he played 3,000 minutes like every pre-Celts year! Also, I think Pierce was better than Randle and Allen and Brunson are both great but different. The Celts Big 3 complemented each other perfectly, while Brunson, Embiid, Randle all want to occupy the same space.

And a key for Ainge was to keep Rondo out of the deal. If the Celts didn’t do that, they wouldn’t have won that one championship.