Which GM Will Lose His Championship Virginity First?
Posted: Mon Jul 22, 2019 5:39 pm
When 30 adult-ish men are all willing to spend non-trivial amounts of time crafting a simulation basketball team out of imaginary players, there can be no doubt in anybody's mind that the ultimate prize of a PBSL championship is an honor that one may wear proudly until death and beyond. With the departure of Philadelphia GM ballsohard, a tremendous GM talent is leaving...and leaving the door open for a first time champion to emerge over the next few seasons. It's an exciting time. Three of the division leaders have not won championships yet, and any one of them has a shot this year.
But overall, 13 active GMs are looking for their first grand prize. We'll take a look at each of them, by record ascending, and I'll take an arbitrary guess as to what they'll have to do if they want to win a championship in the next 10 seasons.
MexicanMamba - Los Angeles Clippers
Freshman GM MexicanMamba, despite starting out with a grotesque 3-43 record, could be in much worse shape taking over a team. In fact, of the open teams at the beginning of the season, the Clippers and the Grizzlies had the brightest future. Mamba's going to need to be patient if he wants to win a championship in the next 10 seasons. He's got a great young core of Chris Pallies, Norrin Radd, and Michael Garvin. He's got a high pick coming...probably multiple high picks.
His best player right now, Colby Lopez, is still young, but he's coming up on RFA. Even though Zach LaVine's contract falls off next year, he might want to keep that cap space open and see if he can get a good deal on Lopez now or in RFA, before he has to pay Lopez, so he can continue stockpiling assets. After Lopez commands a max contract, he might want to use that space on win now players to flip later. After all, you can only insure three guys, and he's already got more than that.
Virgilio Carrasco is also a player that might have to be cashed in for assets. The value of PGs is higher than ever, and while Carrasco is still young, his ceiling isn't as high, so the longer he goes uninsured in training camp, the more of a risk he becomes. He might be able to be traded for more value than he'll eventually be worth a few years down the road.
There's also the learning curve, but from my inside track on talking to Mamba, he's picking up on things pretty fast, and in a few seasons, he'll be ahead of the curve of GMs who are a few seasons more tenured than him.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 40.
C-Prej - Golden State Warriors
C-Prej returns for a second tenure after a run as the original owner of the Utah Jazz. He's been as far as the conference finals a few times, and his career winning percentage is a hair below .500 (present season not included). For the most part, he doesn't need to play catchup, though there is still a slight difference in how to approach the game in the draft-file era. Player training and new tax laws make for slight but important differences, but Prej shouldn't have a difficult time adjusting.
The Warriors have a mix of win-now players and young guys. McNary's contract might be too oversized to move, so that's probably a team option decline. Lemke's is still moveable (see comments on Carrasco above). The real key here is what to do with Timo Cruz. Like Colby Lopez, he's hitting RFA, but I don't see him as the first...or even the second...option on a championship squad. He's super athletic and putting up good scoring numbers, but his defense is terrible, and his scoring isn't very efficient.
The development of Ernest Long and William Jackson is far more tantamount to the Warriors long term success. At 3-41, they're also in line for a nice juicy draft pick, so the draft class probably has a lot to do with it, too.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 45...even though Prej already has experience with the game, I think the Clippers have a head start on building up a suitable youth movement.
LHamilton - Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cavs have faced a really dry spell, and it's been a decade since they've even made the playoffs. They are in what looks like the easiest division to win, but aside from their picks, they don't have too much that they're building with towards the future. They've got Roland Petit and Andrew Baldwin on big contracts, but they need more than that to compete, and one more max guy isn't going to get them a ring unless they perform some kind of Jeffrey Duren-like coup. Still, you see what's going on in Sacramento with Hield, Haynes, and Mitchell, and that big 3 looks fiercer than anyone you can pool with Petit and Baldwin.
LHamilton has it in him, his last playoff run saw him assemble a hell of a team in the offseason through trades and timing. But to get out of this rut, it's going to require a lot of hustle, and it starts with tearing it all down. Petit should fetch a nice rebuild package at 24, and Baldwin should get you something decent, too, but what the Cavs need is a focused rebuild where they are still putting in work and knocking doors to get points and picks even when they're in the tank...especially when they're in the tank...if they want to hoist that hardware.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 50. Until LHamilton has an offseason where he's really moving and shaking, I'd still pick the Dubs and Clippers over the Cavs in terms of long term potential given that the Cavaliers don't really have anything boiling for the future.
digiskunk - Utah Jazz
If at first, you don't succeed, try again. After making two conference finals with his mega-tank that netted him Joseph Kight and "Juicy" James Gebhardt, digiskunk is at it again, and he's sitting pretty with 6 blue potential players on rookie contracts. I don't think any of them on their own look like they'll reach the caliber of prime Kight and Gebhardt, but Bias, Johnson, and Kidd all look pretty close to me.
Not having enough insurance might come back to haunt them, but Slim Jenkins and Mike Piazza going into RFA make it a little easier to decide who to dish off for win now pieces when the time comes (or, since RFA is coming up, who to dish off for win later pieces to dish off for win now pieces when the time comes).
It'll be a while until his best potential players are playing to their full potential, but he should be able to craft one hell of a team by picking the players he wants in his backcourt and trading any redundant superstars for equivalents in positions of need. In any case, despite being a wildcard, I feel pretty confident that Gary sees this rebuild through properly and has a solid three or four year stretch where he's knocking on the door a few times...even if his team isn't as good as the Gebhardt/Kight Jazz, his GM experience should help balance that out. If it does become as good, it's almost a sure thing that Utah will have a title before season 50.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 8...would be higher, but I also have odds at about 1 in 8 that Gary gets kidnapped by a public masturbator who forces him to quit sim league to play lookout for his public masturbatings.
greepleairport - Los Angeles Lakers
This freshman GM is starting with a 14-31 record despite being in the tougher Alpha Conference and despite having the toughest road ahead in terms of undoing the damages done by the previous GM. TrayWithAnA returned about once, or so, every offseason or two to make a confounding move that would hamstring any future GM if he were ever to be stripped of his GMing due to inactivity. A few seasons ago, it was trading one of his best players to the Nuggets for pretty much nothing. Last offseason, it was offering a max contract to an old as hell Giannis Antetokounmpo. It's going to be a few years before that Antetokounmpo contract is off the books, and that's going to be too expensive to move, so the Lakers pursuit can't even really start until that happens.
Moreover, they won't want to be paying tax for a team that's not competitive just because it's been saddled with a huge and awful contract, so players like Ronald Jackson, Andre Nickels, Joe Furtell, and Kane Jacobs might not be part of the Lakers' future plans. Luckily, they won't have to pay their two most promising young guys, David Leiker and Dominick Cobb, until after that Antetokounmpo contract falls off. They're going to want to retain those guys on small contracts because overpays would be pointless for the Lakers. Sorry, greeple, prepare for all sorts of goons to throw big money at your guys.
Again, there's also the new GM learning curve, and while greeple is eager to learn, I get the sense that he wants to win sooner than later, and there's nothing wrong with that. Having a winning season now can teach you a lot that being patient wouldn't teach you once you eventually get deep in the playoffs.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 50. Hopefully, greeple is patient and can enjoy slowly churning what he has into points and such for the future. He'll definitely be able to field good teams and get some wins...just not all of them, not for a while.
Amir Khanmannu - Vancouver Grizzlies
The Vancouver Grizzlies had a very different offseason than most new GMs went for, and it's not a bad strategy, but it was the wrong time and the wrong players. Pretty much any available green got a mid-sized long term contract, and green players are dangerous guys to have on the books long term. The best case scenario is that a guy like Kirkendall jumps in TC and catches a blue potential, but even so, you know that player is still closer to green than purple. The worst case scenario is that a green player dies and you've got a 10 million dollar bench guy on your books for the next 4 years.
This isn't the end of the world, Elisha Davis and Joshua Schumann are both raw but promising rookies, and Amir's draft scouting left him with the best players available at those picks. The rebuild should definitely be build around them. The Grizzlies should be able to move some of their many g/g contract guys in the offseason, and I'd suggest they do it before any disaster strikes in TC...especially since all of their efficiency seems to be coming from their 4 Centers.
Because their best players are so far away and their depth is so present, at current pace, they're not going to be adding great players with their own draft picks unless they have some lotto ball luck. Might as well churn those depth players and get new ones until you need depth players. Get a nice piggy bank going.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 50. I think the Grizz are going to be able to move some of those contracts, but the ones that remain might make it rough for them to improve their team (or properly tank) for a few seasons. They're also in the tougher conference, so the reshuffle in a few seasons might be a breath of fresh air.
letsplayhorse - Dallas Mavericks
After 8 seasons, the Mavs are at a 50% clip of making the playoffs under letsplayhorse. In their 9th season, the Mavs appear entrenched in that will they or won't they mentality, teetering around the 8th or 9th spots. With Joseph Kight dropping off the books next season, that opens up some cap space for the Mavs, but even 9 seasons in, there are still some questionable contracts (long term contracts for guys like McNiell, who are pressing up against that age wall).
Still, letsplayhorse's GMing has been a bit tentative. He hasn't done anything that's going to ruin his prospects, but I've yet to see a home run swing, which is what it's going to take to win a ring. He's got enough of the game down by now that he should start swinging for the fences in free agency and on trades, taking more calculated chances. Trae Young and Joseph Kight might have been inklings of that, although the Kight deal was just as much to get out of a bad Joshua Swan contract early than a real swing at a ring.
If the Mavs can resign Jarrett Allen in RFA and sneak in another max caliber player before resigning Trae Young at a decent clip, they'll have a solid team...but it still probably won't be a championship team. Knowing that, it might be just as wise to swing the other way...trade his contracts for points and picks, and try again in free agency with a youth movement ready in the wings.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 40. He's in a similar boat as the Cavs, but I think letsplayhorse is slightly more invested and has better players. LHamilton probably knows a little more what kind of team it takes to win because he put one of those together before.
PaulyP - Indiana Pacers
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The thing that's kept the Pacers from winning the ring (although they came about as close as you can get to Bailey's without getting your eyes wet in the Deron Williams era) is Pauly's fiscal responsibility. We saw what happened when Chad tried to build the 200mm dollar team, and we've seen teams win who are under the apron, but the teams that are there time and time again know how and when to pay the tax and how to duck under.
They've got Jayson Tatum and James Gebhardt, who are both fantastic players, but a year closer to their primes with the Spurs, they couldn't win with a better team. They're definitely on the downswing of their careers...though still extremely potent...but the Pacers need a lot more around them for a championship team if they don't have someone as game changingly good as Deron Williams was for them.
With John Stoll waiting in the wings, they need to commit to him. He has no contemporaries on this team, and unless the Pacers decide to trade Juicy James and Juicier Jayson, they're not going to surround Stoll with talent that peaks at the same time. I see them rolling again with Tatum and Gebhardt and a round 2 ceiling over the next couple of years.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 37.5. Pauly's a solid, longstanding GM, and he make some interesting moves, but I don't see him winning one by S50 unless he gets good value for Gebhart and Tatum to go with Stoll and then times the contracts to be able to add win-now pieces at the right time. The path is there, it's just the willingness to ignore the tax for a season or two.
AngryBanana - Oklahoma City Thunder
Now we're getting to teams that I think have a real shot at a ring. The Thunder might be at the top of the list over the next 10 years for me. They've got Pistol Pete, and he is going to have the impact that Deron Williams had on the Pacers when they reached game 7 of the finals. They've got a bunch of young players like Clifton Cage and Nathaniel Anderson who are solid, too.
The one thing that might hold them back is that Eckbert Winkler contract. Winkler looks like their best player now, but that'll change as their younger players keep developing. He won't be a BAD player, but he won't be a 40 million dollar player...not even close...by the time the Thunder's young core is competing deep into the playoffs.
Maravich is still that good, though, and they should have a path to a ring if they can make the right trade for the right guy...a guy who can replace Eckbert as a peak scorer to make Maravich that much more dangerous. That trade opportunity will come at some point, they just have to take advantage of it.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 8.
78# - Houston Rockets
Of all the GMs to not win a championship yet, this one is the most surprising. He's above a .500 GM. He makes the playoffs most seasons. He checks all of the boxes of things a good GM does. And he's had plenty of teams that look talented enough to win a ring. It just hasn't happened. I'm not really sure what would put the Rockets over the edge, but I know what's going to hurt them...that's the tax. They've got a big bill coming this year, and they're going to need to probably reset.
If they don't win it this year (which is still possible), I'd like to see the Rockets try something that I haven't seen...them selling off their best players for players that could develop in the future. Knowing 78's style, I'm not holding my breath for this, but if it ain't fixed, don't break it...or something. In any case, dude's been the computer's GMOY 4 times, so he knows what he's doing.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 10.
kucoach - Portland Trailblazers
I guess I could say that I'm equally surprised that kucoach7 hasn't won a ring yet. Namely, I'd figure that if he wanted to ruin the magic, he could put an algorithm together that would spit out a championship team pretty much every year. Lately, he's had some really good teams, and Ronald Small is a fantastic point guard. I think he's tried several looks around Small, and they all pan out pretty well, but not CHAMPINOSHIP well.
Unfortunately, I think that if he hasn't won it yet with Small, it's time to try something new compeltely. Andrew Wiggins on a one year contract represents this for me. We haven't seen MUCH of the Blazers with Wiggins, but what we've seen so far has been strong. They've also got some pretty solid depth around him. If not this year, though, the odds drastically go down, and it'll probably depend on what happens with Ronald Small. They'll probably need a supermax (or a regular max) to keep him, and he'll lose some athleticism, so a sign and trade where they get tremendous value is probably the only thing that increases the odds for me after this year, and I don't see sign and trades as a surefire way to get tremendous value. I do like this team, though.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 10.
logpmess - Miami Heat
The Heat might be the most surprising team to me. They looked good, but I didn't see them this strong. They might come down a little bit because of the home road split, but I think that Division 1 is still within their grasp. They've had some good training camps, and I think this is a team that will get better as Grayson Allen gets better, so they'll have plenty of opportunities to put talent around him.
One warning sign for me is Timothy Pulley's contract. He's still performing well, and they have Long Anderson as an alternate in case Pulley declines, but I think that's a weak warning sign. Perhaps the bigger need to address is a backcourt. They could really use a deeper backcourt than World B. Free and a double green more-athletic-than-skilled rookie.
With the Heat, it's going to come down to the next few seasons, how willing to go into the tax they are and how creative they can get with their roster moves.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 9. Grayson Allen gives them the edge over the previous two teams.
xist2inspire - Washington Wizards
Speaking of being willing to go deep into the tax, the Washington Wizards top this list. They're the second best team in the PBSL as of this writing--despite a couple injuries this season--and they're the team I'm giving the highest odds. Their depth is fantastic and they have plenty of stars who are playing great basketball right now.
The window, however, is tight. After this season, the Wizards are almost surely going to have to sell off and reset to pay their tax. They'll be alright in the long run, they'll just need to take a step back. However, like with cock pushups, one might be all they need. There aren't many teams out there built like the Wizards, and they're my odds on favorite to win it all this year. And if they don't, we'll see what happens after they recover...a team so deep, even in tax trouble, can definitely sell off in the offseason and get a really good rebuild package.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 3.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 1 SEASON? 1 in 3.000001.
But overall, 13 active GMs are looking for their first grand prize. We'll take a look at each of them, by record ascending, and I'll take an arbitrary guess as to what they'll have to do if they want to win a championship in the next 10 seasons.
MexicanMamba - Los Angeles Clippers
Freshman GM MexicanMamba, despite starting out with a grotesque 3-43 record, could be in much worse shape taking over a team. In fact, of the open teams at the beginning of the season, the Clippers and the Grizzlies had the brightest future. Mamba's going to need to be patient if he wants to win a championship in the next 10 seasons. He's got a great young core of Chris Pallies, Norrin Radd, and Michael Garvin. He's got a high pick coming...probably multiple high picks.
His best player right now, Colby Lopez, is still young, but he's coming up on RFA. Even though Zach LaVine's contract falls off next year, he might want to keep that cap space open and see if he can get a good deal on Lopez now or in RFA, before he has to pay Lopez, so he can continue stockpiling assets. After Lopez commands a max contract, he might want to use that space on win now players to flip later. After all, you can only insure three guys, and he's already got more than that.
Virgilio Carrasco is also a player that might have to be cashed in for assets. The value of PGs is higher than ever, and while Carrasco is still young, his ceiling isn't as high, so the longer he goes uninsured in training camp, the more of a risk he becomes. He might be able to be traded for more value than he'll eventually be worth a few years down the road.
There's also the learning curve, but from my inside track on talking to Mamba, he's picking up on things pretty fast, and in a few seasons, he'll be ahead of the curve of GMs who are a few seasons more tenured than him.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 40.
C-Prej - Golden State Warriors
C-Prej returns for a second tenure after a run as the original owner of the Utah Jazz. He's been as far as the conference finals a few times, and his career winning percentage is a hair below .500 (present season not included). For the most part, he doesn't need to play catchup, though there is still a slight difference in how to approach the game in the draft-file era. Player training and new tax laws make for slight but important differences, but Prej shouldn't have a difficult time adjusting.
The Warriors have a mix of win-now players and young guys. McNary's contract might be too oversized to move, so that's probably a team option decline. Lemke's is still moveable (see comments on Carrasco above). The real key here is what to do with Timo Cruz. Like Colby Lopez, he's hitting RFA, but I don't see him as the first...or even the second...option on a championship squad. He's super athletic and putting up good scoring numbers, but his defense is terrible, and his scoring isn't very efficient.
The development of Ernest Long and William Jackson is far more tantamount to the Warriors long term success. At 3-41, they're also in line for a nice juicy draft pick, so the draft class probably has a lot to do with it, too.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 45...even though Prej already has experience with the game, I think the Clippers have a head start on building up a suitable youth movement.
LHamilton - Cleveland Cavaliers
The Cavs have faced a really dry spell, and it's been a decade since they've even made the playoffs. They are in what looks like the easiest division to win, but aside from their picks, they don't have too much that they're building with towards the future. They've got Roland Petit and Andrew Baldwin on big contracts, but they need more than that to compete, and one more max guy isn't going to get them a ring unless they perform some kind of Jeffrey Duren-like coup. Still, you see what's going on in Sacramento with Hield, Haynes, and Mitchell, and that big 3 looks fiercer than anyone you can pool with Petit and Baldwin.
LHamilton has it in him, his last playoff run saw him assemble a hell of a team in the offseason through trades and timing. But to get out of this rut, it's going to require a lot of hustle, and it starts with tearing it all down. Petit should fetch a nice rebuild package at 24, and Baldwin should get you something decent, too, but what the Cavs need is a focused rebuild where they are still putting in work and knocking doors to get points and picks even when they're in the tank...especially when they're in the tank...if they want to hoist that hardware.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 50. Until LHamilton has an offseason where he's really moving and shaking, I'd still pick the Dubs and Clippers over the Cavs in terms of long term potential given that the Cavaliers don't really have anything boiling for the future.
digiskunk - Utah Jazz
If at first, you don't succeed, try again. After making two conference finals with his mega-tank that netted him Joseph Kight and "Juicy" James Gebhardt, digiskunk is at it again, and he's sitting pretty with 6 blue potential players on rookie contracts. I don't think any of them on their own look like they'll reach the caliber of prime Kight and Gebhardt, but Bias, Johnson, and Kidd all look pretty close to me.
Not having enough insurance might come back to haunt them, but Slim Jenkins and Mike Piazza going into RFA make it a little easier to decide who to dish off for win now pieces when the time comes (or, since RFA is coming up, who to dish off for win later pieces to dish off for win now pieces when the time comes).
It'll be a while until his best potential players are playing to their full potential, but he should be able to craft one hell of a team by picking the players he wants in his backcourt and trading any redundant superstars for equivalents in positions of need. In any case, despite being a wildcard, I feel pretty confident that Gary sees this rebuild through properly and has a solid three or four year stretch where he's knocking on the door a few times...even if his team isn't as good as the Gebhardt/Kight Jazz, his GM experience should help balance that out. If it does become as good, it's almost a sure thing that Utah will have a title before season 50.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 8...would be higher, but I also have odds at about 1 in 8 that Gary gets kidnapped by a public masturbator who forces him to quit sim league to play lookout for his public masturbatings.
greepleairport - Los Angeles Lakers
This freshman GM is starting with a 14-31 record despite being in the tougher Alpha Conference and despite having the toughest road ahead in terms of undoing the damages done by the previous GM. TrayWithAnA returned about once, or so, every offseason or two to make a confounding move that would hamstring any future GM if he were ever to be stripped of his GMing due to inactivity. A few seasons ago, it was trading one of his best players to the Nuggets for pretty much nothing. Last offseason, it was offering a max contract to an old as hell Giannis Antetokounmpo. It's going to be a few years before that Antetokounmpo contract is off the books, and that's going to be too expensive to move, so the Lakers pursuit can't even really start until that happens.
Moreover, they won't want to be paying tax for a team that's not competitive just because it's been saddled with a huge and awful contract, so players like Ronald Jackson, Andre Nickels, Joe Furtell, and Kane Jacobs might not be part of the Lakers' future plans. Luckily, they won't have to pay their two most promising young guys, David Leiker and Dominick Cobb, until after that Antetokounmpo contract falls off. They're going to want to retain those guys on small contracts because overpays would be pointless for the Lakers. Sorry, greeple, prepare for all sorts of goons to throw big money at your guys.
Again, there's also the new GM learning curve, and while greeple is eager to learn, I get the sense that he wants to win sooner than later, and there's nothing wrong with that. Having a winning season now can teach you a lot that being patient wouldn't teach you once you eventually get deep in the playoffs.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 50. Hopefully, greeple is patient and can enjoy slowly churning what he has into points and such for the future. He'll definitely be able to field good teams and get some wins...just not all of them, not for a while.
Amir Khanmannu - Vancouver Grizzlies
The Vancouver Grizzlies had a very different offseason than most new GMs went for, and it's not a bad strategy, but it was the wrong time and the wrong players. Pretty much any available green got a mid-sized long term contract, and green players are dangerous guys to have on the books long term. The best case scenario is that a guy like Kirkendall jumps in TC and catches a blue potential, but even so, you know that player is still closer to green than purple. The worst case scenario is that a green player dies and you've got a 10 million dollar bench guy on your books for the next 4 years.
This isn't the end of the world, Elisha Davis and Joshua Schumann are both raw but promising rookies, and Amir's draft scouting left him with the best players available at those picks. The rebuild should definitely be build around them. The Grizzlies should be able to move some of their many g/g contract guys in the offseason, and I'd suggest they do it before any disaster strikes in TC...especially since all of their efficiency seems to be coming from their 4 Centers.
Because their best players are so far away and their depth is so present, at current pace, they're not going to be adding great players with their own draft picks unless they have some lotto ball luck. Might as well churn those depth players and get new ones until you need depth players. Get a nice piggy bank going.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 50. I think the Grizz are going to be able to move some of those contracts, but the ones that remain might make it rough for them to improve their team (or properly tank) for a few seasons. They're also in the tougher conference, so the reshuffle in a few seasons might be a breath of fresh air.
letsplayhorse - Dallas Mavericks
After 8 seasons, the Mavs are at a 50% clip of making the playoffs under letsplayhorse. In their 9th season, the Mavs appear entrenched in that will they or won't they mentality, teetering around the 8th or 9th spots. With Joseph Kight dropping off the books next season, that opens up some cap space for the Mavs, but even 9 seasons in, there are still some questionable contracts (long term contracts for guys like McNiell, who are pressing up against that age wall).
Still, letsplayhorse's GMing has been a bit tentative. He hasn't done anything that's going to ruin his prospects, but I've yet to see a home run swing, which is what it's going to take to win a ring. He's got enough of the game down by now that he should start swinging for the fences in free agency and on trades, taking more calculated chances. Trae Young and Joseph Kight might have been inklings of that, although the Kight deal was just as much to get out of a bad Joshua Swan contract early than a real swing at a ring.
If the Mavs can resign Jarrett Allen in RFA and sneak in another max caliber player before resigning Trae Young at a decent clip, they'll have a solid team...but it still probably won't be a championship team. Knowing that, it might be just as wise to swing the other way...trade his contracts for points and picks, and try again in free agency with a youth movement ready in the wings.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 40. He's in a similar boat as the Cavs, but I think letsplayhorse is slightly more invested and has better players. LHamilton probably knows a little more what kind of team it takes to win because he put one of those together before.
PaulyP - Indiana Pacers
I've said it before and I'll say it again. The thing that's kept the Pacers from winning the ring (although they came about as close as you can get to Bailey's without getting your eyes wet in the Deron Williams era) is Pauly's fiscal responsibility. We saw what happened when Chad tried to build the 200mm dollar team, and we've seen teams win who are under the apron, but the teams that are there time and time again know how and when to pay the tax and how to duck under.
They've got Jayson Tatum and James Gebhardt, who are both fantastic players, but a year closer to their primes with the Spurs, they couldn't win with a better team. They're definitely on the downswing of their careers...though still extremely potent...but the Pacers need a lot more around them for a championship team if they don't have someone as game changingly good as Deron Williams was for them.
With John Stoll waiting in the wings, they need to commit to him. He has no contemporaries on this team, and unless the Pacers decide to trade Juicy James and Juicier Jayson, they're not going to surround Stoll with talent that peaks at the same time. I see them rolling again with Tatum and Gebhardt and a round 2 ceiling over the next couple of years.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 37.5. Pauly's a solid, longstanding GM, and he make some interesting moves, but I don't see him winning one by S50 unless he gets good value for Gebhart and Tatum to go with Stoll and then times the contracts to be able to add win-now pieces at the right time. The path is there, it's just the willingness to ignore the tax for a season or two.
AngryBanana - Oklahoma City Thunder
Now we're getting to teams that I think have a real shot at a ring. The Thunder might be at the top of the list over the next 10 years for me. They've got Pistol Pete, and he is going to have the impact that Deron Williams had on the Pacers when they reached game 7 of the finals. They've got a bunch of young players like Clifton Cage and Nathaniel Anderson who are solid, too.
The one thing that might hold them back is that Eckbert Winkler contract. Winkler looks like their best player now, but that'll change as their younger players keep developing. He won't be a BAD player, but he won't be a 40 million dollar player...not even close...by the time the Thunder's young core is competing deep into the playoffs.
Maravich is still that good, though, and they should have a path to a ring if they can make the right trade for the right guy...a guy who can replace Eckbert as a peak scorer to make Maravich that much more dangerous. That trade opportunity will come at some point, they just have to take advantage of it.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 8.
78# - Houston Rockets
Of all the GMs to not win a championship yet, this one is the most surprising. He's above a .500 GM. He makes the playoffs most seasons. He checks all of the boxes of things a good GM does. And he's had plenty of teams that look talented enough to win a ring. It just hasn't happened. I'm not really sure what would put the Rockets over the edge, but I know what's going to hurt them...that's the tax. They've got a big bill coming this year, and they're going to need to probably reset.
If they don't win it this year (which is still possible), I'd like to see the Rockets try something that I haven't seen...them selling off their best players for players that could develop in the future. Knowing 78's style, I'm not holding my breath for this, but if it ain't fixed, don't break it...or something. In any case, dude's been the computer's GMOY 4 times, so he knows what he's doing.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 10.
kucoach - Portland Trailblazers
I guess I could say that I'm equally surprised that kucoach7 hasn't won a ring yet. Namely, I'd figure that if he wanted to ruin the magic, he could put an algorithm together that would spit out a championship team pretty much every year. Lately, he's had some really good teams, and Ronald Small is a fantastic point guard. I think he's tried several looks around Small, and they all pan out pretty well, but not CHAMPINOSHIP well.
Unfortunately, I think that if he hasn't won it yet with Small, it's time to try something new compeltely. Andrew Wiggins on a one year contract represents this for me. We haven't seen MUCH of the Blazers with Wiggins, but what we've seen so far has been strong. They've also got some pretty solid depth around him. If not this year, though, the odds drastically go down, and it'll probably depend on what happens with Ronald Small. They'll probably need a supermax (or a regular max) to keep him, and he'll lose some athleticism, so a sign and trade where they get tremendous value is probably the only thing that increases the odds for me after this year, and I don't see sign and trades as a surefire way to get tremendous value. I do like this team, though.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 10.
logpmess - Miami Heat
The Heat might be the most surprising team to me. They looked good, but I didn't see them this strong. They might come down a little bit because of the home road split, but I think that Division 1 is still within their grasp. They've had some good training camps, and I think this is a team that will get better as Grayson Allen gets better, so they'll have plenty of opportunities to put talent around him.
One warning sign for me is Timothy Pulley's contract. He's still performing well, and they have Long Anderson as an alternate in case Pulley declines, but I think that's a weak warning sign. Perhaps the bigger need to address is a backcourt. They could really use a deeper backcourt than World B. Free and a double green more-athletic-than-skilled rookie.
With the Heat, it's going to come down to the next few seasons, how willing to go into the tax they are and how creative they can get with their roster moves.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 9. Grayson Allen gives them the edge over the previous two teams.
xist2inspire - Washington Wizards
Speaking of being willing to go deep into the tax, the Washington Wizards top this list. They're the second best team in the PBSL as of this writing--despite a couple injuries this season--and they're the team I'm giving the highest odds. Their depth is fantastic and they have plenty of stars who are playing great basketball right now.
The window, however, is tight. After this season, the Wizards are almost surely going to have to sell off and reset to pay their tax. They'll be alright in the long run, they'll just need to take a step back. However, like with cock pushups, one might be all they need. There aren't many teams out there built like the Wizards, and they're my odds on favorite to win it all this year. And if they don't, we'll see what happens after they recover...a team so deep, even in tax trouble, can definitely sell off in the offseason and get a really good rebuild package.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 10 SEASONS? 1 in 3.
ARBITRARY ODDS OF WINNING A CHAMPIONSHIP IN THE NEXT 1 SEASON? 1 in 3.000001.