The Brooklyn Nets Are Here To Stay
The modern NBA has hammered home many new ways of thinking about the game, but perhaps the most universally agreed upon mindset is that you need superstars to compete for championships, and if you don't have a superstar, you better get one by tanking through the draft. Like any strategy, everything works and everything doesn't. The Philadelphia 76ers tanked their hearts out for five years and are now a juggernaut sporting three top-20 players in Hakeem Olajuwon-clone Joel Embiid, nightly triple-double threat Ben Simmons and the ferocious Jimmy Butler. Then there are the Orlando Magic, who have been drifting in a subdued land of nothingness ever since trading Dwight Howard in 2012. When a team lacking a superstar decides to jump the gun by siphoning off all their quality players in return for improved chances at a high draft pick, they are taking a risk that they can become the next 76ers, and not the next Magic. Sometimes staying in the middle can yield success as well. After