How to build a championship NBA team

Seattle is facing the prospect of bringing a young NBA team to town, and expecting them to be bound for greatness right out of the gate is certainly asking a lot.

Former NBA general manager Kiki Vandeweghe said he knows what a great basketball city Seattle is. He joined Seattle’s Morning News to talk about what it would take to turn the now Sacramento Kings into a Seattle Sonics team that was successful in the NBA.

Sacramento is a young team full of players that are finding their way, according to Vandeweghe. Their young draft choices are playing a lot minutes, which is good for building players. “But that also means you don’t win a lot of games.”

While these newer players are finding their way, Vandeweghe said Seattle has an advantage to grow the team. Good players often want to come to “cool” cities, and “Seattle definitely has an edge in that regard.”

The other thing that speaks volumes? Money.

“From what I read, it’s a very wealthy group,” said Vandeweghe of Chris Hansen’s investment group. But money may not always be the answer.

If Seattle wants to build NBA champions in five years, there is one game plan we could follow.

Vandeweghe said that an owner who recently came into the league, Mikhail Prokhorov, said he was going to do just that. And he still might.

Prokhorov started by spending a lot of dollars immediately on big, free agents, and on making trades where he took on big salaries.

“I’m not convinced that’s always the way to do it,” said Vandeweghe. “Probably the most tried and true way to go about it is to accumulate as many assets as you can. Assets – being young draft choices on good contracts and cap space on draft choices, and then building internally. And whether it takes two years or three or four years you’re going to end up with a good team that way.”