Where
should Bledsoe go?
Personally
my hobby horse is the Sixers: they got plenty of money, plenty of room in the
offense for him, a collection of talented rookies to mold to his game, a city
that loves its six-gun heroes. They don't even have to trade for him, they've got money to send him an offer sheet right now. He’s
perfect for the Sixers and vice versa.
And it could totally happen making it all the more tantalizing. But I don’t reckon it will happen. Bummer.
My
take on the Sixers: The hope and dream, I suppose, of Philly fan is that
this rebuilding thing will run its course, clouds will part, sun will shine,
and we’ll all just wake up one day and the Sixers will have the most
devastating roster since Jordan’s Bulls and Philly will win championships for
years to come. But I’m not sure that’s
actually the plan. The Sixer management
may be successfully stockpiling talent now but don’t surprised if that’s the
management team’s only notable skill! Perhaps they have a great eye for valuing future talent but not for valuing current talent! The stockpiled talent then gets traded forward for new prospects
and a cycle of permanent rebuilding sets in. Think of the Donald Sterling Clippers (cool that
that’s past tense now!): for years they shuffled lottery pick after lottery
pick in and out of there until one day Chris Paul fell into their lap and suddenly
the Clippers are better than ever. And I
mean ever. The Clippers have really only
been good in the last two years of the Paul and Blake pairing, the only time in
the entire history of the organization where they were considered a
championship contender. That took 30
years! 30 years of sucking, getting a
draft pick, sucking a little bit less for a while, then shipping the good
talent out for more sucking. That could
be the Philly model, folks. Very
possible that the crop of MBA-types running the business ends of teams these
days will prefer profitable mediocrity to grinding success. We’ll see.
All a matter of how Nerlens and Embiid turn out, could be Philly get
good on the court and starts to take on high priced free agents instead of
sitting on the capital (a la Microsoft). Could be this team will love success on the
court when it comes…but I don’t think I’d put money on it.
I
fear the Sixer leadership is akin to the cyborg from Alien: the cyborg worked
with the humans but was secretly rooting for the alien to win because the
corporation they all worked for valued the new-fangled alien more than the same
old humans. The Sixer cyborgs—I mean GM
and President—may see the upside of losing clearer from their spreadsheets than
the fans do from the loge or their couches.
The cyborg says all the right things in the press conference about success but the definition of
‘success’ may be more elusive than you realize.
And
that’s why they won’t get Bledsoe even though he fits them a T and vice
versa.
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