April 29th - New Orleans Pelicans @ Oklahoma City Thunder - 27-35

[Stalwart385]

Can you PROVE that? Or is it just something you heard that you want to believe and show some correlation with some past examples?

Because i can show many examples of teams winning late in season with young guys that have no carry over to following years. Do you believe Minny and Washington are setting the stage now to catapault next year too or is that just a narrative reserved for your favorite team as you look for hope.

I cant disprove it and i wont try to but what i do know is that TALENT moves the needle more than anything else. That is what history says is undeniable. Maybe the "learning to win" stuff carries over maybe it doesnt. But having more talent than less definitely helps

It's not really something provable. Technically maybe but it's going to be hard to dig up case studies. The thing you are really looking for is a team that had a problem and found a solution at the end of their dead year. The next year the problem was solved.

My opinion is that they have an experienced based problem, that problem is fixable with more experience. They have a talent problem also. The talent already on the team would benefit more if they fixed that experience problem than the talent they could gain by not fixing it. So Zion and Ingram figuring out how to close tight games > 8th versus 10th pick.

You don't have to agree with me, but there is certainly solid logic there that it is not asinine to want your team to win.

[MichaelMcNamara]

It's not really something provable. Technically maybe but it's going to be hard to dig up case studies. The thing you are really looking for is a team that had a problem and found a solution at the end of their dead year. The next year the problem was solved.

My opinion is that they have an experienced based problem, that problem is fixable with more experience. They have a talent problem also. The talent already on the team would benefit more if they fixed that experience problem than the talent they could gain by not fixing it. So Zion and Ingram figuring out how to close tight games > 8th versus 10th pick.

You don't have to agree with me, but there is certainly solid logic there that it is not asinine to want your team to win.

I wouldnt totally disagree with your premise but I dont see why that same experience cant be had in a loss. Take the Denver game. Say BI comes off that Bledsoe screen and drills a 3 instead of driving. Pels win by 1. You think that DEFINITELY helps them next year and years moving forward more than it playing out how it did?

I think playing in games that matter could help. Trying to solve problems always helps. But I dont think that if we go 6-4 down this stretch as opposed to 4-6 or 3-7 that we definitely are better off in following years. Because that sample size is so small, that numerous factors can swing the difference. If Steph gets hurt and we go 3-0 vs the Warriors coming down the stretch, did we learn anything or did we just win a game against a bad team?

I think the fault in the logic is that wins = learning things and fixing things and losses means you do neither of those things. And I dont think that is necessarily true.