In any given era, there are only a handful of guys who, if they are your team's best player, can get you a chip. I'm talking about bonafide MVP caliber players.

In the previous era, there was Shaq, Duncan, Kobe, KG, and Dirk. If you surrounded these guys with another two All-Star level players (almost a minimum of two), you had yourself a genuine contender year in and year out.

In today's era, there's Lebron, Durant, and Dwight Howard. Maybe D-Rose and CP3, if they can ever stay healthy. That's a short list. Five guys between 30 teams.

Those are the odds we've been working against.

If we truly want a championship in the near future, we NEED one of the guys on this list. There is just no other way around it.

Morey has to applauded for doing what he could to secure Howard. AND, if we get another shot at Dwight before he bolts to Brooklyn, we have to take it (even if he often comes across as a self-involved brat). Landing Howard is our only legit chance to win a championship within the next 5-8 years. He's pretty much the only thing standing between OKC and Miami as they go about hoarding all the rings during this timespan.

If we strike out on Howard, we need to tank and tank and tank until we land either an MVP through the draft, or real assets with which to trade for one.

I get the impression that Daryl is prepping for a tank job of the highest order. This is good news. Tanking is no quick fix, unless extremely lucky, so we may as well start now.

I do get the sense that our embattled GM is putting together another three year plan, given the fighting over four year contracts he seems so hellbent on not handing out. I don't have the time to look at who becomes available at that point, but hopefully we'll have drafted a few gems that these mystery free agents may actually want to play with.

In the meantime, I hope we get Jeremy Lin because I'd like to see him play ball with our youngsters. We won't be good, unless one of our rookies comes in and surprises us, but we could be fun to watch.