Hb31187;673546 wrote:Will be a team with more pieces than Cleveland, battling (although probably losing) for a playoff spot. Not a team who was planning its top 4 lottery pick already on new years day
Honest question: In the longer term, which is better: losing a superstar, sucking ass and being in position to (depending on the lottery) get the top pick OR losing a superstar, winding up with a low seed in the playoffs, getting eliminated quickly and having a blah pick? Obviously, in the short term Denver is in a far better position, but if you lose a superstar and can't position yourself to gain a superstar (or potential superstar), you could find yourselves spinning your wheels in purgatory where you're too good to get a top 1-5 pick, but not good enough to do anything significant.
Obviously, this also is determined by things like luck, smart drafting and good FA pick-ups (if sucking to be good, as a rule, worked, the Clippers would be the best team in the league), but when you consider how the East is a top-heavy conference with a lot of mediocrity after the first five or so teams, one or two good off-seasons could put the Cavs back in the hunt (their biggest obstacle is the vast amount of money put into mediocre veterans who might have been okay support guys to James, but aren't capable of leading a team). In the deeper West, Denver could be stuck in that "one guy away" zone where they're a perennial 7-10 ranked team (currently known as the Houston Zone) where they might make the playoffs, they might not, but they'll always be in roughly the same position.
