In a very general way it is fair... then it becomes not fair if you then take out teams because they had succeeded in the past like a Hawks team, or a or take out a team because they finish a few points ahead of the Canucks currently like a pens team (who I only primarily used as that is where our President and GM came from), and so on.
This also doesn't take into account your harsh strict definition of a rebuild.
This doesn't take into account it doesn't matter how a team got to a point either.
You like to strip out variables that don't suit your narrative for no reason. I mean you will give one, but it isn't really valid to the point we are discussing.
How then do you suppose we compare the strength of each team from the beginning points of the re-tool?
This is in fact key to the discussion. You said I was fair in assigning the following to you "re-tools have been done in the past and so should work for this team". Meaning, the strength of the team at the start of the re-tool doesn't matter. Correct? If so, then do you think CLB, SJ and CHI have an equal chance at re-tooling successfully as do NJ, CAR, TBay and TOR (teams at random that have their cores in place, and that are already good)?
Last, I don't need to eliminate variables that don't suit my narrative. The precedent of a rebuild is well known. That is, to focus on futures. It's a liquidation of non-essential assets. This is why random callers were upset at the Hronek trade. They know it too, and they see that management is trying to cheat the process once again.
Actually, there's a more strict understanding of re-tool as well. In the past, the cores of DET and CHI were much stronger and these teams were in the playoffs prior to re-tooling. But now, re-tooling a 25th placed team is just as plausible...?
At a basic level, the more the traditional understandings of these words, rebuild and re-tool, change to fit whatever direction management is currently going, the less they mean.
