With 54% of the vote, you chose DeShawn's dagger to beat New Orleans as the best non-playoff shot of the year.  In honor of the selection, here's is DeShawn's much less heralded Dagger: Part II.

In a lot of ways, this dagger was just like the first one except it was much less dramatic, less people were on their feet, the game was already decided, and Buck forgot was constituted a safe lead.  But other than that, very similar.

For this week's poll, we focus on a question that has haunted GMs of all sports.  In the draft, should you focus on getting the best talent available or filling a specific need?  The inspiration for this week's post comes from the Salt Lake Tribune, who asked Jerry Sloan about the how he feels about the issue

[...] Jerry Sloan, meanwhile, told a story from his days coaching the Chicago Bulls and a mistake they made in the 1979 draft.

The Bulls missed out on the chance to draft Sidney Moncrief because they already had Reggie Theus on the roster and felt they needed a forward. They used the No. 2 pick on UCLA's David Greenwood; Moncrief went on to become an All-Star.

"We felt like we had to have a forward so we took a forward and passed on a guy who's an All-Star player," Sloan said. "That doesn't help the value of your franchise, in my opinion, when you make decisions that way."

In that case, I'd agree with Jerry that it's better to take the player with more talent.  When you have a top-5 pick, you're looking at someone that you can build a franchise around, so I say the more talent you have to build around, the better.  However, since the Wizards don't have the luxury of a top-5 pick, I don't think the decision to go with the best talent is as clear cut.  With the 18th pick, you're most likely going to find a role-player level talent, so I say take the player that's best going to fit a role that can benefit the team rather than a player that might have more talent, but doesn't fill any area of need.  Of course, if a lottery-level talent falls to #18, or if you have to make a big reach to find someone that can your needs, the circumstances change, but I'd say those two scenarios are the exceptions rather than the rule.

That's just my two cents on the issue.  You can either go with that, or agree with the coach that's had a winning record 19 of the last 20 seasons.  The choice is yours.