A couple of years ago, I was on the phone with a front office executive who works for a perennial playoff team. It was about a week before the trade deadline as our conversation bounced around a few targets they may want to acquire. I made a few suggestions that, in theory, could help correct an imperfection or two. He politely dismissed each one with the same rhetorical response: “How does he complement our best player?” A beat. “Exactly.”
That interaction clarifies and complicates the team-building process. All pieces should fit, sure, but whenever a new one joins a contender, the degree to which he directly accentuates the star(s) can be more important than how any particular strength fills a roster hole or erases a flaw.