Yes, I know it’s more fun to watch a team just win, but there’s something to watching a team grow from the bottom up.
Consider the Raptors at the start of the past decade.
- 2010: 40 wins
- 2011: 22 wins
- 2012: 23 wins
- 2013: 34 wins
The team was seemingly going nowhere. We had zero blue chip prospects on the roster. Guess how we finished the rest of the decade? Championship aside, we also ended up with the second most wins in THE ENTIRE LEAGUE. Only behind one of the great dynasties of the modern era, the Warriors, who by the way had a 73-win season to add to their total.
And through that entire run, not until near the end when we acquired Kawhi did we get an established superstar. Everyone else like Kyle and DeMar and Pascal and Fred were homegrown AND were not widely expected to become all star or All NBA players. None of them were Top 5 picks. DeMar was the highest at 9th.
The point is, as Daryl Morey once said, trust the process.
Trying to win through mid to late draft picks and undrafted players is dumpster diving. You gotta assess and polish a lot of turds to get a gem. Its cheap but very low rate of success for the amount of work coaches have to do to get a player up to speed.
This is why teams tank. Its a bit easier and faster to draft better talent, but talent in no way guarantees future success.
Basically the draft is a crapshoot. Its slow and it depends a lot on luck and opportunity. For every Siakam you have dozens of no-name has-been/never-was.