"If you're not contending, then you're rebuilding.

Many front office execs in sports accept this maxim as an article of faith. Once the championship window closes for a team, the theory goes, it's best to blow things up, particularly in basketball, where a salary cap generally prevents a team from adding high-dollar talent to bolster an imperfect roster. Whereas the Yankees and Red Sox can erase personnel mistakes by signing a couple of All-Stars, NBA organizations don't have that kind of flexibility -- not in the last collective bargaining agreement and certainly not in the next one.

But rebuilding is painful, and like many painful exercises, it's prone to procrastination. We tend to put off breakups, hernia surgeries, spring cleanings and bankruptcies. Denial isn't always the factor that fuels this holding pattern. We consciously know these chores need to be tackled, however unpleasant they might be, and rebuilding is no different. "