re: Tom Ziller's top 100 free agents of 2016

quote:

---

I disagree. I was on board but after seeing it in action I don't think there's any way to avoid getting to where we are now with a "young vets" strategy. It inherently requires you to use cap space and picks to end up with pretty much all young vets. This is a psychologically/leadership challenged roster that is missing useful seasoned veterans leading from the top of the roster and young guys pushing them to get better from the bottom.

---

I think it could work with the right mix of players. Tyreke doesn't fit that mold. I think it's a valid method if your goal is to attract a big name FA to play with your young superstar.

I think we'd all feel a lot better about our situation if we were as good as we thought we were gonna be (7-5 in the West) with AD taking another step or leap forward from last year (serious MVP candidate). That hasn't happened, so it's kind of blowing up in our face.

We'd be fine with letting guys like Ryno and Gordon walk because we'd be able to make a strong pitch to all the best FAs that we're legit and one superstar can turn us from legit to perennial contenders.

Gentryfication got off to a very rocky start. We are still constantly dealing with months long injuries for starting players and it looks like we'll be another first round exit team, but that's not where we thought we'd be 6 months ago.

I guess it's fair to fault management for employing a strategy that banks on future success and the allure of playing with a guy like AD landing a guy we couldn't ever land normally. Demps probably looked ahead to the 16 and 17 summers and said if we can just get good enough to be one piece away, the superstars that become available in those years will be clamoring to join us. I guess it's fair to say that's a very high risk strategy.