As time wore on that owner got replaced by a tremendously laid back owner with fat purse strings. We ended up building a team around the back court of DRose and Evan Turner, with fat Kevin Love at PF. While we put together some nice runs and got 1st seed in the west a few times, we only made one finals prior to 2019, losing to the Nets (in this universe DWade and Lebron went there instead of South Beach) as Lebron went crazy on Ronald Harringon (a solid SF we drafted who unfortunately has no D)
Anyway, 2019 comes around, we go 59-23, getting first seed in the West but getting taken to 7 games by the Clips in round one. Looked grim, but we ended up making the finals and the stage was set for DRose's Hornets vs CP3's Bulls, ultimately validating the huge trade from almost a decade earlier for one team or the other.
DRose and CP3 alternated dominating games pushing the series to 3-3, and then a 45 pt performance by Evan Turner in the final game won it for us! Good stuff, really enjoying the game.
e: Also pretty cool was getting head coach Shane Battier a ring in his first year
