One feeling I can’t shake for years now is that every team in the NBA that’s seriously contending and actually getting better with time has a young core they are building on

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76ers got rid of Harden and are looking great now - Maxey is a reason behind that
Celtics are an amazing team every year since they formed the Tatum x Brown duo
Memphis was carried on Ja Morant’s shoulders into becoming a scary Playoff team
Dallas is clearly Luka’s team (and Luka is our dad)
Sacramento was a beast last season with one of the youngest rosters
Cleveland went through a rough patch after LeBron but now with Mitchell and their young core they are an amazing team to watch
Wolves = Ant
Atlanta = Trae
A case could even be made that Denver got to the point they are now by the addition of Gordon and MPJ

And not to mention teams that are only just now starting to get scary:

OKC with MVP Shai and an extremely young roster
Spurs with Wemby are clearly going to be a playoff team next season if not this year
Utah will be scary
Orlando has a great young core
I still believe Portland can get it going with Scoot
Knicks have a young core

NBA is finally getting again to a point where you get drafted by a team and you grow with it creating culture and legacy

While on the opposite side of the spectrum are a couple teams that clearly chose to be a place where “stars” chose to play.

You have GSW who are still trying to ride that Steph Curry wave and if it wasn’t for him they’d be a bottom 5 team, Lakers thinking LeBron and AD can get them to the finals (which is our equivalent of thinking 213 with RW can get us there), Suns who think money can get them there, yet they already are haunted by injuries, and of course… there are the Clippers - just now throwing their rotation off balance by getting another former superstar instead of getting younger.

Nets were the first domino to fall because they were the most aggressive ones with their pursue. Traded their entire young core for old superstars and all it got them was one good series against Bucks that they lost. Look at them now - back to square one trying to build a young core.

And I believe each one of these teams will follow this path sooner or later. There’s just no way a team with an average age of 33 can out-hustle a team of 22yos (and we know that too well because playing “bad” teams was always our problem)

Am I wrong for thinking only way for Clippers to become a real championship team is to hit a soft reset button and do exactly what we did before getting Shai?
But this time instead of trying to hack the process by trading everything for superstars we should just stick to the plan and build a real core instead of trying to buy one?