Stuck in a Rut

Stuck in a Rut is the worst place to be for any sports fan and for any sports franchise. When your stuck like that the team is just good enough to compete for the playoffs every year. Never can it put together the right pieces to the puzzle, and move up the ladder. Management thinks the nucleus will grow and move up, but that never happens everything just stalls. This creates a huge problem for the everyday fan however; how many years of the same exact team getting around the same exact record can you take?

Smart owners need to eliminate this possibility for fans, there should be 3 different levels that the team is at; rebuilding, youthful, conference championship contender. Each level is different, but they are the only three that owners should look at. Rebuilding is simple try to gather as much young talent and draft picks in a 2 or 3 year period as possible. During this time you need to find the center piece for your team that can lead them to a championship. A youthful team should come right after that rebuilding stage, adding key veteran free agent and letting your youth grow into solid rotation players. Conference championship contender, this is the final stage, as long as your competing for your own conference's title you have a shot at getting to the championship. That team should have a 4 or 5 year window of competing before slowly falling apart; when that happens owners need to realize and sell off whats left of their best players to build back up.

Now obviously this plan requires smart drafting and players to develop into the potential they have. If you draft well throughout the 10 or so years of the plan then you can possibly continually compete for a championship. But you don't want to force something that's not there and just be close. Some teams that are stuck right now from the NFL are the Jaguars, Giants, Falcons, NBA Pacers, Lakers, Clippers, Kings, T'Wolves, 76ers. With the offseason nearly complete in the NFL and about to begin in the NBA it will be interesting to see if these teams take the next step or realize that this current plan is not going to work and rebuild. No matter the choice each franchise takes, either of these options is better than being stuck in a rut.