NBA Superstars With Awfully Built Rosters In Their Primes

Andy Hoops

Let's take a look at some NBA superstars who've had terribly constructed rosters in their primes. Enjoy! contact@tablerock.com  I make all kinds of long-form NBA content which include player stories, analysis, breakdowns, and historical topics. Make sure to leave a like and subscribe if you enjoyed this video! ► X: https://www.x.com/@andyhoopsyt ► TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andyhoopsyt ► Music:  Black Vortex by Kevin MacLeod Movement Proposition by Kevin MacLeod Inspired by Kevin MacLeod Sardana by Kevin MacLeod Rynos Theme by Kevin MacLeod Our Story Begins by Kevin MacLeod Lightless Dawn by Kevin MacLeod Super Power Cool Dude by Kevin MacLeod Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 (incompetech.com) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ► Sources: Stats and box-scores from Basketball-Reference.com, NBA.com, Statmuse.com, PBPstats.com #nba

Transcript

00:00It's quite common to see the NBA's greatest superstars of their generation never see much

00:06playoff success, a result of their front office's incompetence, which leads to a roster that

00:11simply isn't built properly to support them.

00:17Take Damian Lillard, for example.

00:19In his best years in Portland, the team made just one appearance in the conference finals.

00:24That was in 2019, where they got swept.

00:26Besides that, the entirety of Lillard's prime was met with consistent first round exits

00:31year after year, as the Blazers could not field a competitive team to suit his greatest strengths

00:36as a player.

00:51In this video, let's take a look at him and five other situations where superstars

00:56were forced to endure the worst roster constructions I've ever seen, to the point where it almost

01:01seems like their own team sabotaged them and destroyed the rebuilding process before they

01:06can take off.

01:07Let's take a detailed look.

01:14When Damian Lillard joined the Blazers in 2012, he entered as a 22-year-old 4-year senior who

01:19became Weber State's first-ever first-round draft pick.

01:23Immediately, you could tell he was different than other rookies.

01:26He was mature, he was poised, and played the game like he was a 10-year veteran.

01:31However, despite winning rookie of the year and becoming an all-star in his second season,

01:35the truth is, this wasn't his team yet.

01:38It was LaMarcus Aldridge's.

01:40Though the two of them became friends, there wasn't the type of camaraderie that Lillard

01:44had hoped for.

01:45And in the back of everyone's minds, Aldridge was on his way out, as Lillard became the

01:50new exciting thing.

01:56When he hit this game-winning shot against Houston to clinch the series, this was the

02:01moment we all knew Lillard was destined to be the new face of the franchise.

02:06Unfortunately, with the departure of Aldridge in 2015, and the collapse of the old core,

02:10the Blazers sought to move on and fully commit to building around Lillard.

02:14This was a fresh new start to a brand new era, and with what we already witnessed from

02:19Lillard, he definitely had the chops to be a franchise superstar.

02:23Except they kinda ruined it immediately.

02:26The 2016 offseason was met with a massive salary cap spike that caused a lot of bad players

02:32to get overpaid.

02:33Do you remember Luol Deng, Timofey Mozgov, Joe Kim Noah, Chandler Parsons?

02:38Some of the worst contracts in history were given out in this one summer alone.

02:43But the Blazers jumped in as well, giving out some massive deals to players who severely

02:48underperformed.

02:49This included a four-year $70 million deal for Evan Turner, four-year $75 million for

02:54Alan Crabb, four-year $40 million for Maurice Harkless, four-year $41 million for Myers Leonard,

03:01and a four-year $106 million rookie extension for CJ McCollum.

03:05Former Blazers GM Neil Olshie was responsible for all these signings, but he wasn't necessarily

03:11a bad GM back then.

03:13He was responsible for building the core around Aldridge to begin with, and his reasoning

03:18for re-signing these guys was simple.

03:20Quote, player retention is huge for us.

03:23It's a big part of the organization, having consistency and stability.

03:27These were all young players who can, in theory, grow and blossom together.

03:30So, when the summer ended, the Blazers exceeded well over the salary cap, equipped with the

03:36third-highest payroll in the entire league.

03:38And what did this exorbitantly expensive team lead to?

03:42A 41-41 record, and barely squeezing in as the eighth seed of the playoffs.

03:47The thing is, they were simply a bad, poorly constructed team around Lillard.

03:52The biggest hole being at center.

03:54Going from a LaMarcus Aldridge and Robin Lopez front court to a Mason Plumlee Myers Leonard

03:59front court is hilarious.

04:01They knew it was bad, so they acquired Yusuf Nurkic from Denver.

04:05And Nurkic had a horrendous history of untimely injuries in Portland.

04:10Not just that, but Lillard is an absolute dominant powerhouse in the pick and roll.

04:15His combination of exploding to the basket with an unlimited three-point range, dude was unguardable

04:20if he had a great center to run with him.

04:23While Nurkic was a solid, big body who was quite skilled as a passer, the problem is, even

04:28when healthy, he was never the right center to play with him.

04:31He had pretty bad hands and not spectacular at rolling to the basket.

04:38From 2017 to 2021, Nurkic was in the 51st percentile in scoring off a pick and roll, which is not

04:44great.

04:45Heck, it was significantly worse than his backup, Myers Leonard.

04:48Nurkic wasn't bad, but what the team really needed was a much more athletic center who

04:53can finish the pick and roll at an elite level, kinda like a Daniel Gafford or Derek Lively,

04:58when they ran with Luka in Dallas.

05:01Dodges, Blazers, one inside!

05:03And Gafford drops the end.

05:05Lillard never had the chance to play with a center of their stock and he just needed someone

05:09who can put more pressure at the rim.

05:12Secondly, when the Blazers committed to CJ McCollum, they also committed to an incredibly

05:16undersized backcourt with two poor defenders.

05:20McCollum isn't a bad player by any means, but he was basically a worse version of Lillard

05:25with worse passing.

05:26But they needed somebody bigger, a bigger 3 and D wing to cover for Lillard's deficiencies.

05:31Technically, Maurice Harkless was supposed to be that guy, that big 3 and D wing.

05:36With his build, he was somebody who every team needed during this era.

05:40The issue is, he was quite young when the team signed him, and honestly, he just stopped

05:45caring when he got paid.

05:47Remember the time when he stopped shooting threes because there was a clause in his contract

05:50that if he maintained above 35% three-point shooting, he'd get a $500,000 bonus?

05:56Well, his solution to that was, when he was above 35% towards the end of the year, he

06:01simply stopped shooting them to maintain his percentage.

06:04For the last three games of the season, Harkless did not attempt a single three-point shot.

06:09When you sign a guy like this, who doesn't give a crap about winning, it's tough.

06:13This was compounded even further when Alan Crabb, who the team spent so much money to retain,

06:18was not even a starting caliber player.

06:21It was a confusing signing because they already committed to CJ McCollum.

06:25So Crabb became redundant, and frankly, useless.

06:41The fact that this team made the conference finals in 2019, even with Nurkic injured and

06:47a horrendous roster of bad contracts, it just proves how much potential this franchise truly

06:52had during the Damian Lillard era.

06:54If only they built a better roster around him.

06:58Durant and Westbrook

07:00After the departure of James Harden and before the departure of Kevin Durant, the Thunder had

07:05several chances of winning the title.

07:07They still managed to make several conference finals and was so close to reaching the finals

07:11again in 2016 before they blew a 3-1 lead.

07:15This Durant and Westbrook era from 2013 until 2016, it could have been so much better if

07:20they had any semblance of quality role players to fit next to them.

07:24For one, the absence of Harden left them with no shooting guard capable of creating their own play.

07:29Every shooting guard they had during this timeframe were only good at standing in the corner and watching.

07:34Tabo Cephalosha, Jeremy Lamb, Anthony Morrow, Dion Waiters, and of course, Andre Roberson.

07:44This consistently led to games where their offense was very predictable because all their role players were so one-dimensional.

07:50They had such little versatility and that was the case with Kendrick Perkins at center as well.

07:56Before Steven Adams became the full-time starter, Perkins was the starting center for several years

08:01and he was by far the least productive, worst starting center in the entire league.

08:06The toughness was there, but the talent wasn't.

08:10Durant and Westbrook needed a more skilled center who can at least do something in the paint to help them

08:15out, but he couldn't.

08:16He couldn't score to save his life.

08:18All of their poor roster construction culminated in the 2016 playoffs, their final season together,

08:24where it became painfully obvious how different the Thunder roster was constructed compared to the much deeper Warriors,

08:30who had every role player capable of doing so many things like dribbling, passing, shooting, everything.

08:36While the Thunder had to rely on Andre Roberson and Dion Waiters to hit open threes,

08:41while simultaneously manning an incredibly tight six-man rotation by games six and seven.

08:46And they still almost won, which goes to show how good this duo truly was, despite the disaster of a

08:52roster built around them.

08:54Even somebody off the bench like Ennis Cantor, who had a strong presence in the paint,

08:58saw his playing time drastically reduce, cause he was arguably the worst defender in the entire league.

09:04It seemed like they were so one-dimensional compared to the role players of other teams they had to face,

09:09like the Warriors or Spurs.

09:12Kevin Garnett

09:14There's one thing to improperly construct a good roster around your superstar, and then there's whatever the hell happened to

09:21Kevin Garnett in Minnesota.

09:23It started when former GM Kevin McHale attempted to cheat and circumvent the salary cap to pay Joe Smith, a

09:29free agent, under the table.

09:31Since you probably know about this already, I don't need to get into the details, but basically, they got caught.

09:36And the Timberwolves got punished by losing five future first-round picks.

09:40They eventually got one of them back, but the damage was done.

09:43These lost draft picks included some of the most iconic draft classes of all time.

09:48And considering the mediocre Timberwolves had no picks to benefit from them, it was the single most disastrous moment in

09:54the history of the Garnett era.

09:56And probably the worst thing in history to happen to a team trying to build around a star.

10:00The fact that KG was still able to lead terrible rosters year after year to the playoffs in the hyper

10:06-competitive West,

10:07it speaks volumes to how good of a player he truly was at his peak.

10:10A team like this has no business winning 50 games.

10:14Honestly, it's not even a matter of how the Wolves' rosters were constructed.

10:18Their players were simply bad because they had no options to build further.

10:22They lost so many assets.

10:24But with that being said, their bad decisions extended beyond that scandal.

10:28With the few first-round picks they did have, they completely whiffed.

10:32The 14th pick of the 1999 draft was William Avery, a benchwarmer who fell out of the NBA in three

10:39seasons.

10:40The 26th pick of the 2003 draft was Doody Eby, who played 19 games before getting cut.

10:47They also drafted Stefan Marbury, but they got rid of him too early in a horrible deal for a washed

10:52-up point guard in Terrell Brandon.

10:54Now, you know how I feel about Marbury.

10:57He was hard to root for on the Knicks, but he wouldn't have the same pressure in Minnesota with Kevin

11:01Garnett being the best player.

11:03They missed a chance for these two young players to grow together and they were legitimately very good friends.

11:10Goes behind the back, inside, and that's an all-star play. Wow!

11:15They also had Chauncey Billups for a couple years, another good friend of KG's, but they let him walk for

11:21nothing.

11:22Two years after that, Billups won the championship and finals MVP in Detroit.

11:27So, even with the Joe Smith scandal crippling them, the Wolves still had chances to build a good team, but

11:33they kept messing up.

11:35Without Billups or Marbury, their point guard situation was horrible because the Wolves invested too much into Terrell Brandon, who

11:42was completely washed by the time he got to Minnesota.

11:44This forced KG to play point guard himself, which is ridiculous. They needed him to do everything.

11:51I'm not even joking when I'm saying Garnett would have been their best player at every single position.

11:56Like, they'd rather run him at point guard instead of their actual point guards on the roster.

12:00By the time they actually did create a competent team around him, Garnett finally broke past the first round for

12:06the first time ever and reached the conference finals.

12:13The thing is, his supporting cast still wasn't that good. An aging Sam Cassell and Luttrell Sprewell was all he

12:20needed to claim the number one seed in the West and make it this far.

12:24So, just imagine how great the Wolves could have been if KG had a real team for his entire prime.

12:31LeBron James

12:33Is it reasonable to say that LeBron had already reached his prime in his first stint in Cleveland?

12:38I'd say, by 2009 and 2010, he definitely did. At least, his athletic prime.

12:50Those were the years where the Cavs claimed the number one seed back to back, yet the roster itself was

12:55abysmal.

12:56If Mo Williams is your second best player, that's a problem.

13:00The root of the issue, at least according to LeBron himself, was his failure to recruit high quality free agents,

13:06despite his intense efforts every summer.

13:09He mentioned a lot of people didn't want to come to Cleveland.

13:12I've been trying to get guys to come play with me since like 2007. I've got rejected a lot.

13:18A lot of people didn't want to come to Cleveland. Let me just throw that out there.

13:20Back then, the best free agent LeBron recruited was Larry Hughes, who dropped off immediately when he came to Cleveland.

13:27Maybe it's something in the water.

13:29As a result, for LeBron's entire first stint in Cleveland, they had to rely on low quality role players or

13:35washed up veterans chasing the title.

13:37Like a 37-year-old Shaquille O'Neal or a 34-year-old Ben Wallace or a 33-year-old

13:42Antoine Jameson.

13:44A 34-year-old Anthony Parker, who started for 81 games for the 2009-10 Cavs and provided very little

13:51outside of hitting the occasional three-pointer.

13:53Plus, an aging Zydrunas Ilgauskas was on his last legs.

13:57While LeBron was 24-25 years old at his peak athleticism, the Cavs were the sixth oldest team in the

14:03league because of all these old guys.

14:05The failure of the Cavs to build a competitive roster was quite apparent in the playoffs.

14:10Against much deeper, much more well-rounded rosters with talent across the board, it doesn't matter how good LeBron was

14:16as an individual when he's surrounded by complete sh**.

14:20Realizing how useless his entire team was, his playoff shortcomings in 2009 and 2010 were the final straw and convinced

14:27him to take a different path.

14:29We all know what happened next.

14:33Tracy McGrady

14:35T-Mat's four seasons in Orlando were the best individual seasons of his life.

14:40Although he technically didn't reach his prime years yet, injuries kinda ruined his time in Houston.

14:45In Orlando, statistically, he was at his peak.

14:48But injuries also ruined his time there but for his teammates.

14:52Back in the 2000 offseason, Magic head coach Doc Rivers had a genius plan.

14:56Well, maybe genius isn't the right word.

14:59It was a simple plan that could've built the biggest dynasty in the Eastern Conference.

15:04Signed Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill in free agency.

15:08It was as simple as that.

15:09And it seemed like it was gonna happen.

15:11They managed to get T-Mac and Grant Hill until his meeting with Tim Duncan for dinner, where Rivers said

15:17something to him that would forever change the course of NBA history.

15:21No, your girlfriend cannot travel with us.

15:24The Magic had a team policy that basically said friends and family members cannot fly on the team plane unless

15:30it's for business purposes.

15:31Say, I made my visit with Tim Duncan and I was at the dinner.

15:36Can significant others travel on the plane?

15:40And Doc said no.

15:42The moment Rivers said that to Duncan, it was like the oxygen got sucked out of the building.

15:46And for the rest of the nights, it was awkward.

15:49He should've just lied, honestly.

15:51Just lied to Duncan to sign him, and then deal with the whole plane policy thing later.

15:55Duncan would've been upset at first, but he'd still be in Orlando.

15:59Grant Hill was another major signing, a perennial all-star in Detroit.

16:03But the minute he joined the team, he was crippled by recurring ankle problems.

16:07These ankle issues would sideline him for years.

16:10And to make it worse, Hill's max contract clocked 30% of the team's salary cap.

16:15That's 30% of dead weight.

16:18As a result, the team had such little room to build or change anything.

16:22Without Hill or Duncan, T-Mac was basically the only guy Orlando got.

16:26And with Doc Rivers' dream for a super team disintegrated,

16:30McGrady spent his best four years with atrocious teammates.

16:34There were no redeeming qualities of these teams outside of him, and they didn't have a plan B either.

16:39It was either go all-in and form a super team, or bust.

16:43They couldn't even get to the super team part because of Duncan not coming, and Hill perpetually injured.

16:48Even with a roster like this, as the eighth seed of the 2003 playoffs, T-Mac almost single-handedly toppled

16:55the Detroit Pistons.

17:02That was his third straight year averaging over 30 points a game in the playoffs.

17:06But once again, it wasn't enough.

17:09Another first round exit.

17:11And that was what T-Mac became known for for the rest of his career.

17:15His inability to get past the first round.

17:18Until his final year in the league, where he rode the coattails on the Spurs bench.

17:24Kobe Bryant

17:26Kobe found himself in a unique position among superstars in the sense that when he was dropping 35 a game

17:31though during his peak,

17:32it was the worst roster he's ever had.

17:35The main reason for this is Shaquille O'Neal wanted out,

17:38and the Lakers couldn't get much back in return because they had such little leverage in negotiating.

17:42This led to a couple years, specifically the 2005-6 and 2006-7 seasons,

17:48where Kobe scored the most points he's ever had.

17:50Which included the iconic 81-point game against Toronto.

17:54Or the even more iconic 62 points in three quarters, which outscored the entire Mavs team.

18:01To this day, that remains the only time in history where a single player had more points than an entire

18:06team through three quarters of play.

18:08The team surrounding him, however, well, besides Lamar Odom, the Lakers had zero competent players in the rotation.

18:15Players that didn't even belong in the NBA.

18:17Their starting lineup included Kwame Brown, Smush Parker, Chris Mim or Luke Walton, both of whom started significant games during

18:24the best individual years of Kobe's career.

18:26They had no business being even rotation players, let alone starters.

18:31But there were multiple reasons why the Lakers wasted away Kobe's best two seasons.

18:36And the main thing is Mitch Kupchak's decision to be patient and wait for the perfect opportunity to make a

18:42trade to get them back into contention.

18:44With a roster filled with, let's be real, very low quality assets, they needed to be patient.

18:50To find a team out there desperate enough to trade away their star and blow it up.

18:54Not just any star, but somebody who could actually play alongside Kobe.

18:58Which is a tough task in itself.

19:00It wasn't for a lack of trying, however.

19:03Kupchak nearly pulled off a generational deal that involves sending Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum to the Timberwolves for Kevin

19:09Garnett.

19:11This deal would have involved some picks, I'd imagine, but it fell through at the last minute because the Wolves

19:16backed out.

19:18Not to mention, with back-to-back years of losing in the first round to the Suns,

19:22Kobe himself was increasingly frustrated with the team not being able to get anybody.

19:27So much so that his name was everywhere among trade rumors during the 2007 offseason.

19:32It almost seemed like a guarantee that Kobe would be gone.

19:35But it was also a reasonable trade request because, from his perspective,

19:39he was wasting the best years of his career on a team that seriously wasn't competitive.

19:44However, Mitch Kupchak's desire to find the perfect star for Kobe finally came to fruition.

19:50The 2008 trade deadline.

19:52The Lakers acquired Pau Gasol, a perfect compliment to Kobe.

19:56And this single trade was enough to catapult the Lakers back to the top.

20:00I guess you can say Mitch Kupchak's patience paid off after all.

20:05Anyway, that's all folks.

20:06Those were some of the most iconic superstars in history,

20:09with rosters constructed horribly to fit their talents.

20:13Let me know your thoughts in the comment section.

20:15Can you think of any others who might fit the theme of this video?

20:18Thank you all so much for watching.

20:19I hope you all enjoyed the video.

20:21And of course, as always, I'll see you next time.

20:24Peace.

20:26Peace.

20:29Peace.

20:33Peace.

20:35Peace.

20:36Peace.

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