Chicago Bullseye 89 - The Real 89

[TheStig]

Shakes wrote:

I like Aldridge, I think he'd be just what we need at PF for this team right now. The funny thing is that if we got Aldridge we probably wouldn't have been bad enough to get Rose.

I don't think he was such a great fit back then though. He's good as the second guy next to Roy, but our team had that and needed the first guy. We had the Knicks pick as our only realistic way to find a star, so we had to roll the dice. I mean would Kirk/Gordon/Deng/Aldridge/Chandler (remember we didn't know we were getting Wallace when we made the pick) really ever have a shot at being a contender? Maybe they sneak into the conference finals at best.

I don't think Aldridge would have been the glue to keep us together. He's just not that type of player.

Who said anything about leading us anywhere. He would have been a great piece to extend the offense on an offensively challenged team. We would have been able to address other needs as Aldridge would have given us much more than Joe Smith and TT did. Who knows, maybe he would have been forced to develop some post moves here.

 

[Shakes]

I meant that we'd have won a few more games with Aldridge's 18/8 than Tyrus' 7/5, not that he could have cured the Ben Wallace cancer. Win a few more games and no Rose.

I don't understand what you're saying about Aldridge allowing us to "address other needs". How? We had cap space but there was nobody good to spend it on. After that we had the Knicks pick swap (what because Noah) as an asset and not much else. I guess we could have tried to trade the Knicks pick and a future pick of ours or something and absorb a big contract with our space, but we could have done that after drafting Tyrus and didn't, so I'm guessing there was nothing on offer (or at least nothing we liked more than Wallace).

 

[TheStig]

It may have pushed up a few slots but its utterly dumb luck we won the lottery. You can't plan around or excuse bad management because they hit the lottery on 1.9%

Plenty of other things to do. You could always bank the cap space, made a deal to get a star and to get someone more useful the following year with the mle. We don't know what was available for a pure cap space trade like we could have offered.

 

[Shakes]

I'm not excusing bad management, I was just saying it was funny how that the scenario Aldridge is ideal for couldn't have come about if we'd drafted him.

Banking cap space would have been the best bet, but you would have been hard pressed to find a supporter of that idea at the time. Imagine the "JR is too cheap to even use the cap space" rants that would have gone on.

 

[mlewinth]

Shakes wrote:

I don't think drafting Tyrus was a mistake, it's a gamble that didn't pay off. Much like even if we don't get a 2010 free agent, it's not a mistake to have tried. If you don't take risks because of fear of making a mistake and only take safe choices you're very unlikely to win a championship.

I have to disagree with this. I don't care if a pick is ours originally, or given to us by another team, every pick you have in the draft is precious and I have always felt that you draft the sure thing, do not draft on potential,or don't draft on position, because 9 times out of 10 it doesnt work out.

I agree that Tyrus was part of a weak draft class. There was no clear consensus on the number 2 pick. If you remember, however, at the time, no one was high on Tyrus besides us. The clear "most NBA ready player" was Brandon Roy. Now, at the time, we had Ben Gordon, we didnt need a 2, we needed a big body 4 who could score. Well Tyrus isint a big body and tyrus couldnt score. No one wanted Tyrus besides us!! Alot of people werent high on LaMarcus Aldridge, but most felt that he was more NBA ready than Tyrus and was more of a prototypical 4. Both Roy and Aldridge were far more sure things than Tyrus and we decided to take a chance. At the end of the day that chance was a wasted draft pick and honestly, if you think about it, if we didnt have god grace us with D Rose, Tyrus would of been our last good draft pick and I am sure more people would be focusing on that as the reason we would of BLOWN, had we not of been incredibly lucky down the road.

 

[Diddy1122]

mlewinth wrote:

Shakes wrote:

I don't think drafting Tyrus was a mistake, it's a gamble that didn't pay off. Much like even if we don't get a 2010 free agent, it's not a mistake to have tried. If you don't take risks because of fear of making a mistake and only take safe choices you're very unlikely to win a championship.

I have to disagree with this. I don't care if a pick is ours originally, or given to us by another team, every pick you have in the draft is precious and I have always felt that you draft the sure thing, do not draft on potential,or don't draft on position, because 9 times out of 10 it doesnt work out.

I agree that Tyrus was part of a weak draft class. There was no clear consensus on the number 2 pick. If you remember, however, at the time, no one was high on Tyrus besides us. The clear "most NBA ready player" was Brandon Roy. Now, at the time, we had Ben Gordon, we didnt need a 2, we needed a big body 4 who could score. Well Tyrus isint a big body and tyrus couldnt score. No one wanted Tyrus besides us!! Alot of people werent high on LaMarcus Aldridge, but most felt that he was more NBA ready than Tyrus and was more of a prototypical 4. Both Roy and Aldridge were far more sure things than Tyrus and we decided to take a chance. At the end of the day that chance was a wasted draft pick and honestly, if you think about it, if we didnt have god grace us with D Rose, Tyrus would of been our last good draft pick and I am sure more people would be focusing on that as the reason we would of BLOWN, had we not of been incredibly lucky down the road.

I agree with some of this. Risks do need to be taken in order to win big. You gamble Mark, you should know this. And there were other teams interested in Tyrus. I was not a fan of him nor was I really a fan of Aldridge. I wanted Roy & if not him I wanted Rudy ***. Of all the top 10 picks that year, Roy was the only 1 I had seen that had that swagger & fire to take over when the game was on the line. He had that leadership quality about him & was in my mind, the best available player in that draft. But make no mistake, Tyrus' unique athleticism set him apart from almost everyone else in that draft & he was coming off an impressive run in the NCCA tourney. What happened was that we were an up & coming playoff team & Pax pulled a Dumars, taking upside over the sure thing because we were already a decent team. It happens alot. I've gotten over it & when Tyrus is gone after Sunday I'll completely put it out of my mind.

 

[Shakes]

mlewinth wrote:

Shakes wrote:

I don't think drafting Tyrus was a mistake, it's a gamble that didn't pay off. Much like even if we don't get a 2010 free agent, it's not a mistake to have tried. If you don't take risks because of fear of making a mistake and only take safe choices you're very unlikely to win a championship.

I have to disagree with this. I don't care if a pick is ours originally, or given to us by another team, every pick you have in the draft is precious and I have always felt that you draft the sure thing, do not draft on potential,or don't draft on position, because 9 times out of 10 it doesnt work out.

I agree that Tyrus was part of a weak draft class. There was no clear consensus on the number 2 pick. If you remember, however, at the time, no one was high on Tyrus besides us. The clear "most NBA ready player" was Brandon Roy. Now, at the time, we had Ben Gordon, we didnt need a 2, we needed a big body 4 who could score. Well Tyrus isint a big body and tyrus couldnt score. No one wanted Tyrus besides us!! Alot of people werent high on LaMarcus Aldridge, but most felt that he was more NBA ready than Tyrus and was more of a prototypical 4. Both Roy and Aldridge were far more sure things than Tyrus and we decided to take a chance. At the end of the day that chance was a wasted draft pick and honestly, if you think about it, if we didnt have god grace us with D Rose, Tyrus would of been our last good draft pick and I am sure more people would be focusing on that as the reason we would of BLOWN, had we not of been incredibly lucky down the road.

When people say Roy was a "sure thing" they forget the fact he dropped because he had knee issues. Sure he's turned out to be fine on that front, but you can't just say he's a sure thing. It could have just as easily turned out the knee issues did flare up and he would be out of the league right now.

As far as being able to score, Tyrus has been a disappointment on that front. But despite the hype about Aldridge being some kind of great scoring option in college, he really didn't score at that much higher rate than Tyrus. Sure Tyrus has been a bust, but his upside was just as good a scorer as Aldridge with better defense and rebounding. Heck, despite Tyrus' jumper being worlds better now than when he came into the league, he's scoring at the same rate as his rookie season. Really it's Tyrus who has held himself back, he certainly has the ability to be as good an offensive player as Aldridge.

I don't know if people can really predict which guys are going to end up being lazy and which will work hard to reach their potential. Look at Noah, last year people thought he was in the lazy camp, now nobody is saying that. If we can't work out which camp a player is in after a couple of years in the league, how can you do it based on a few years of college?

 

[Diddy1122]

Shakes wrote:

I don't know if people can really predict which guys are going to end up being lazy and which will work hard to reach their potential. Look at Noah, last year people thought he was in the lazy camp, now nobody is saying that. If we can't work out which camp a player is in after a couple of years in the league, how can you do it based on a few years of college?

You can't predict which players will be lazy, true, but you can look for the warning signs. Like in Beasely's case, something like 5 different High Schools in 4 years, that says alot about a person's maturity level. That's why teams conduct interviews with every potential pick.

And Noah was injured during training camp last year. I wouldn't call that lazy when you can't see out of 1 eye. Then he injured his ankle, which also kept him out, & his conditioning was greatly effected by it. Thats why he wasn't in game shape until the final two months of the season. People called him lazy because he got caught with pot & alcohol in the off season, like that's never happened to any other player before.

 

[TheStig]

Shakes wrote:

I'm not excusing bad management, I was just saying it was funny how that the scenario Aldridge is ideal for couldn't have come about if we'd drafted him.

Banking cap space would have been the best bet, but you would have been hard pressed to find a supporter of that idea at the time. Imagine the "JR is too cheap to even use the cap space" rants that would have gone on.

I lead the JR is too cheap campaign and I wouldn't have a problem with that. I would wait for a really good cap deal or fa. Not spending the LT pisses me off because it makes our team worse but banking money on a difference maker and then spending the lt makes sense. That team was a good star away from at least the ecf. We had solid guys at every spot.