Since the Cavs descended to the NBA’s bottom last year, everyone has been thinking about moving back to the top. There are alot of ideas: Accumulate draft picks…don’t get too good, too fast…don’t build a losing culture, etc. Every idea has merits, and leaves me questioning what moves really build winners in the NBA.
This month, instead of a Destination: 2013, I will be posting a five part series on Building a Winner. The posts will look at most of the signature teams of the last twenty years, looking at the personnel moves that drove their success. Lessons learned from these teams will be applied to the Cavs current situation. Obviously there is no one rule for constructing a great team, but these posts basically boil down to:
- There’s no magic associated with picking high in the lottery for a few years in a row. Continued trips to the lottery are more likely to result in mediocrity, rather than building a championship contender.
- Good teams make the right personnel decisions. It’s really that simple. This happens through all sorts of means, but the exemplary teams make the most of what they have; the lesser teams squander it.
In Part one, I’ll start by exploring the first bullet.
Part 1: Why the “OKC plan” is barely a plan
The Thunder are current NBA darlings; they’re young and exciting and poised to be an NBA contender for at least the next half-decade. This was accomplished through accumulating draft picks, maintaining salary cap flexibility, and pulling off shrewd trades using those assets. This post certainly is not intended to downplay the brilliance of what OKC has assembled; it’s intended to show that the plan rarely works this well.
The list of solid role players acquired through excellent scouting and taking advantage of other team’s cap mismanagement is impressive: Serge Ibaka, Nick Collison, Eric Maynor, Kendrick Perkins, Thabo Sefolosha, Daequan Cook; each player occupying valuable roles within the OKC system. Still though, the difference between the Thunder and any number of 45 win teams is their back-to-back-to-back high lottery draft picks: Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden.
Unfortunately, this is where the whole setup fails to be a “plan”. Making this work requires a lot of luck; the Sonics had an 80% chance of NOT drafting 1st or 2nd when they picked Durant. In 2009, they had a 37% chance of their ping-pong ball rising to the top three. Beyond that, they had to rely on other teams selecting lesser players instead of their stars: Hasheem Thabeet, Michael Beasley, OJ Mayo, and Greg Oden all came off the board prior to their picks. If the paint on a ping-pong ball is a little heavier or Memphis was better at drafting, then OKC looks a lot different. A recent John Hollinger post on ESPN explains that this year’s Thunder rely on their “big 3” for a higher proportion of scoring than any other team in the league. If one or two of these picks goes differently, the Thunder are probably not dreaming of championship parades.
No amount of genius can guarantee three stars in three drafts (or even two in two). For reference, the other three year runs on the high lottery in the last ten years include:
- As an expansion team, Charlotte drafted #2 in 2004, #5 and 13 in 2005, #3 in 2006 and #8 in 2007. Emeka Okafor, Ray Felton, Sean May, Adam Morrison, and Brandan Wright aren’t raising any Bobcats banners anytime soon.
- After scoring Chris Bosh at #4 in 2003; over the next three years, the Raptors chose Rafael Araujo at #8, Charlie Villanueva at #7 (with Joey Graham at #16 that year) and Andrea Bargnani at #1. Ummmm…Bargnani hasn’t been a complete failure.
- From 2007 – 2009 (same three years as the Thunder), the Grizzlies ended up with Mike Conley Jr, OJ Mayo, and Hasheem Thabeet in the top five (Mayo and Thabeet came before the Thunder picks). For good measure, they also drafted in the top six for eight years from 1995 to 2002, all for the eventual benefit of building a 50 win team.
- Minnesota has picked in the lottery forever, making seven top-seven picks in the last six years (with three additional first round picks). They’ve finally got a few keepers and should be a playoff team soon.
- Atlanta accumulated losses to the tune of a top six every year from 2004 – 2007, eventually building the playoff road-bump that they are today.
- I’m starting to get depressed; the Clippers picked in the top eight for four years in a row, including #2 and #3 picks. Alas, they are not retiring Darius Miles’ jersey.
- Finally, over the last three years, Sacremento has finished with the league’s worst, 3rd worst and 5th worst records. For their pain; they’ve built a nucleus of Tyreke Evans, DeMarcus Cousins and Jimmer Fredette. That group at least surpasses OKC at one thing – getting coaches fired.
Many of these teams drafted poorly, but the ratio of “teams that built contenders from lottery scratch” to “teams that did not” is really lopsided. The lottery is a crap shoot, starting with the need to get your ping pong balls vacuumed out of glass sphere. Add that to projecting the future exploits of 19 year olds, and the result is pretty frequently continued mediocrity. Speaking of, there is another young NBA contender built through the draft.
The Chicago Bulls are not a “lottery success story” in any easily definable way. From 2000 – 2007, the Bulls picked #4, #9, #2, #4, #2, #7, #3, #7, #2 and #9. Where did that leave them? Back in the lottery, as a 33 – 49 team. Fate smiled on them and with a 1.7% chance to win the lottery, they were able to add Derrick Rose, who became the youngest MVP in league history. Besides the fact it took ten years, that’s pretty irreproducible. Luckily for Cleveland, Irving came with the first dip into the lottery.
What this means for the Cavs
The concept for this series of posts as well as much of the writing happened before the Varejao injury. This whole five day series started with the simple question, “Is it really that bad if the Cavs end up with the 11th pick?” Based on the experiences of the nine teams discussed above and the construction of the thirteen teams covered over the next four days; my answer is no. Really good teams are built through all sorts of means, and most rarely relied on picking in the lottery. The eight championship franchises of the last twenty years relied on a total of 10 of their own top eight picks, either directly or indirectly (i.e. trading a player they drafted in the top 8 for something useful). The signature teams of this timeframe were built by making good personnel decisions, using whatever was available to them. There’s minimal correlation between having multiple high lottery picks and eventually winning championships.
Obviously recent injuries have increased the likelihood of failure for the Cavs this year, but over the next five days, I’ll show why it’s not justified to feel the need to root for losses. The difference between 20 and 28 wins in 2011 -2012 is one of a multitude of factors that will influence Cleveland’s path to contention. With Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson, seven more 1st round draft picks, and plenty of salary cap flexibility; the Cavs are able to build a contender regardless of 2012’s draft position. Whether they do so, is up to them.
Thanks for the actual analysis. By now it’s become rote to point to OKC as the paragon of NBA team building. It’s good to learn that real success proceeds more generally from the competence of the front office and not repeated regular season failures.
BOOM. Thanks for this. Down with the blind advocacy of the OKC plan!
I’ve been impressed with Grant’s work thus far. Irving was a crafty trade that turned into a winning Power Ball combination. The Cavs and Grant are lucky they got the right guy in his first draft, which was a weak one. Thompson should develop into a quality rotation player or a trade asset down the road if they come out of the draft with a better PF prospect.
The Hickson deal was a good trade when you factor in the lockout. Hickson can’t defend down low or hit a j. Ideally you like to pair your post players where each can do one of the two. His rookie deal was coming up and the Cavs didn’t want to commit 8-10 million a year for him. They dealt him for Cassepi and a future first rounder, and if the lockout would have lasted the Kings may have given up a rotation player and a future first for a player who never actually played for them. They will receive the Kings pick eventually.
If the Cavs can parlay Sessions into a first rounder it will be another savvy deal. They picked Sessions up for Delonte and Telfair and two years later will have a mid to late first rounder to show for it. There are good players late in the first round in each draft.
Another trip to the lottery won’t start a culture of losing. If they hit on their 2012 first rounder(s) they will be on their way back to the playoffs soon and still own other teams first rounders that they can use themselves or trade away in deals. Everyone discounts the Miami Heat picks they received from Lebron but both could have value. The 2013 first is unprotected in 2015. That’s the draft after any member of the collusion 3 can opt out of their deals. The 2015 first is unprotected in 2017. That’s the draft after the contracts of Waboshames expire.
The Cavs are heading in the right direction and a part of that is them landing a top 5 pick in the 2012 draft. Andy going down was bound to happen and it happening at this point in the season could be a god send.
A few trips to the lottery won’t build a losing culture though. It’s a part of the The lottery is the only place the Cavs will be able to obtain star quality players.
I’ve always been of the opinion that there are no roadmaps to NBA success, there are no tried and true methods, there is only reduction of front office mistakes and devoting resources in a cognizant manner. With the front office makeover involving Chris Grant, it makes me feel even more secure than Heckert+Holmgren do with the Browns, they’ve shown a legitimate interest in young talent production and they never seem rushed into ANY decisions they make. I’ve never been disappointed with any changes or decisions made about the future of this program in the past two years and I’m confident that this cultural shift will end up giving the Cavs a reliably contending product in the long-term.
Sadly the whole piece starts off on the wrong foot and ends on the wrong foot. Two crucial errors prevent this from being a useful analysis.
1. There’s no magic associated with picking high in the lottery for a few years in a row. Continued trips to the lottery are more likely to result in mediocrity, rather than building a championship contender.
Of course there are more mediocre teams trying to implement a strategy than great teams. That’s the definition of elite, in a zero sum game like shooting for a championship (the NBA itself isn’t a zero sum game) there, by definition, must be many non winners for every winner. If there are 4 real contenders each year then there are 26 non contenders, so you will always have a high ratio of “busts” verses success stories.
2. The eight championship franchises of the last twenty years relied on 10 total lottery picks, either direct or indirect (i.e. trading a player they drafted in the lottery for something useful).
Quick list of the best players on the past 20 championships
Jordan/Pippen
Hakeem/Clyde/Cassell
Duncan/Robinson
Shaq/Kobe
Duncan/Parker, Ginobili
The Pistons
Wade/Shaq/The Refs
KG/Pierce/Allen
Kobe/Gasol/Odom
Dirk/Marion/Chandler
How many UDFA are on this list? 1. Ben Wallace
How many 2nd round picks are on this list? 2. Okur, Ginobili
How many of these teams ended up with 2 high draft picks on their team (regardless of who picked them)? All with the exception of the First Rockets championship. Of course that anomaly was created by the best player of all time retiring in his prime.
Consider the “everyman” champion Detroit Pistons of 04. Billups was the #3 draft pick, Rasheed the #4, Hamilton the #7 of their drafts.
The reason you follow the “get high draft picks” plan is that all winners have 2-3 top players who were lottery picks because the talent pool is heavily skewed in the NBA towards the lottery. Far more than any other sport. If you have to find elite talent then you might as well have high draft picks. Is it still a crap shoot? Yes, but you get much better odds with lottery picks than you do with the 18th pick in the draft.
“The Chicago Bulls are not a “lottery success story” in any easily definable way.”
1 team in 30 wins the championship. Going 10 years without being a serious contender is the norm. The Bulls are a lottery success because without the drafting of Rose they would have zero shot at being a contender until they did draft such a player.
Lastly Cleveland is not a big market. Every FA worthy of the max will have 3-4 teams offering it to them. We aren’t going to land a Wade, Bosh, Howard, Amare, Paul or Shaq. The Cavs probably can’t even land a Carlos Boozer as a FA. Remember when they went after Ray Allen and Michael Redd but had to give Larry Hu(ge contract)ghs a max deal that messed them up for almost a decade?
I could go on seeing as the new CBA has implications that make drafting high even more important but the point is really simple.
There is one blueprint to getting to the Finals and winning- get some damned good players and a dammed good coach and having a high pick in a deep draft gives you a hell of a lot better chance at that than having a middling pick 3 years in a row because you refused to trade a boarder-line allstar so you had an outside shot at the #8 seed.
baconisgood,
thank you for alerting me to a very embarrassing error in my post. that’s the trouble with not having editors. i meant to say the champions od the last twenty years had used 10 of their own TOP 8 PICKS (not lottery).
also by indirect, i mean that a team used their own lottery pick. Just because tyson chander was at one point a #2 pick, the fact that Dallas traded for him using Dampier’s expring contract does not mean that Dallas needed a lottery pick to acquire CHandler.
regarding the bulls, they went 12 years from losing Jordan to being a contender. If that’s how long you want the Cavs to take to contend, that’s unfortunate.
Regarding max free agents and success, of the 10 teams that i’ll cover over the next 3 days, i think only one max free agent was signed (shaq).
I stand by my post, with the exception of the one unfortunate error. I guess you’ll have to keep reading this week to see why.
Well baconisgood, at first I laughed at how much you wrote, but it’s a great rebuttal.
Hopefully over the next 4 days and with the one edit I made above, I will dispel all of baconisgood’s rebuttal. I think that I will.
THe one point I agree with is that to be a contender you need good players and a good coach.
Well, the hardest part is getting a player talented enough that he lead a team to a championship. Fortunately, we may already have that in Irving. Now we just need one borderline All-Star (2012 draft pick?), two very good starters (Andy + free agent?), and some decent role players (Gee, Gibson, TT).
See, we’re already half way there.
Kevin,
I really enjoyed this piece. It’s a pretty well known fact that Chris Grant sees free agency as a tool, but not the focus for the Cavs. Sometimes I wonder if the Cavs would be better off holding onto their own assets and signing some young free agents. The Cavs have around 30 million of cap space this season. I know that it would be very hard to sign them, but three free agents I would be interested in would be Brook Lopez, Nic Batum, and Landry Fields. I understand that Batum and Lopez are restricted free agents, but the Cavs may be able to outbid their teams without using all of their cap space. While Lopez’s rebounding is an issue, playing alongside Varejao and Thompson would negate much of that and he is a very good scoring big to match with Kyrie. Batum may never be what people think he could be, but he is a very solid young small forward who is a two way player. It really comes down to the Blazers retaining him or Wallace. Fields is a solid role player who thrives in an offense that promotes ball movement. With Iman Shumpert a potential starting shooting guard, the Knicks may let him go. I would then let Jamison, Parker, Erden, Hollins, and Harangody leave (they are all free agents), resign Gee, and draft the best available players with my picks. This gives you a roster of Irving, Fields, Batum, Thompson, Lopez, Varejao, Sessions, Gibson, Gee, Casspi, Samuels, Eyenga, our first round pick, our second round pick, and the second round pick from the Hornets. Moving Casspi and Varejao to the bench creates a deep roster ala Denver or Philadelphia, but with a potential superstar in Kyrie Irving. I guess it’s my destination 2013.
One factor in comparing teams…you can’t compare the big markets of LA, Boston, or Chicago to small markets…that’s why we keep referencing the OKC method…it’s a small market method.
Also, the lottery does require a lot of luck…but so many great players are there. If Kahn drafts Rubio and Curry instead of Rubio and Flynn, that team is so much for the better.
There’s always the allure of the Thabeets…stay away from those guys!
I like where the Cavs are headed. With a smart offseason, this team can be a playoff team next year.
bacon is good,
I’d like to hear your thoughts on how the new cba makes picking higher even more important? I think it may make it less important and lower picks more important to get right; the new stiffer luxury tax is going to result in more lopsided trades and also potentially some teams to think twice about adding an extra free agent or extending a free agent. Due to the prohibitive tax, good free agents may not be as able to flock to one team without taking severe pay decreases.
Finding good value with cheap free agents and finding good, cheap players with late first round picks will be more important for good teams than ever towards building depth.
Some teams where a fire sale could occur if things turn bad, or teams that may not extend a player they would have under the old CBA may include:
The bulls have $60 million tied up in Boozer, Noah, Deng and Rose in 2013 – 2014. They’ll need to sign 10 more players for about $1.5 million a year if they want to stay under the luxury tax. In 2014 – 2015, it’s $50+ million for Rose, Boozer and Noah. Hopefully that big three is good enough. If they’d be $15 – $20 million into a steep luxury tax, they may let Deng walk away (he would be a free agent at age 29). This may not have happened under the old cba.
Miami has $76 million committed to six players in 2014 – 2015. If that’s not working out (say wade is battling yearly injuries); won’t Miami be trying everything they can to unload someone rather than pay fortunes in luxury tax?
OKC has $50 million committed to Durant, Westbrook, Perkins and Collison in 2014 – 2015. If they extend Harden, Ibaka and want to roster 8 more players…how far into the extremely prohibitive luxury tax could they be? Harden or Ibaka may have to be allowed to sign elsewhere.
Keith,
Chicago primarily built through the draft, but after ten years. Did their market have much to do with it?
Kevin Garnett initially refused to be traded to Boston. He wanted traded to Phoenix. After the Celtics got Ray Allen, he agreed to a trade to Boston.
Bottom line:
Unless the Cavaliers strike it rich with another STAR QUALITY lottery pick, the team’s apex will be a winning team but not a championship-caliber team. Ultimately, this team needs a scorer that puts fear in the competition and can light it up and take over games. Kyrie is absolutely a great coup for us but he needs his running mate.
my 2 cents.
I’m of the mind that championship coaching is as important and difficult to obtain as a championship roster.
I truly believe Coach Scott can be that next great one…
haha wow. our expectations for the fourth pick of the draft are already so low. let’s hope he can be better than just a decent role player
Kevin,
Thanks for some very good insight into the number of successes and failures of teams acquiring players primarily via the draft lottery. It looks like OKC has had a great deal of luck in having the right players drop to them. They also should be credited for taking advantage of their opportunities better than most teams do. There are a lot of ways of building a team and hopefully the Cavs will find their own way to succeed. Grant has definitely maximized their options going forward. I am looking forward to the rest of your series.
gd this is such logic fail. well, except baconisgood. not sure wtf hes doing slummin around these parts.
Great post KH!
I’m still crossing my fingers every night that we (somehow) get Anthony Davis…but I do think you’re right. A lot of things have to fall right, not just the ping pong balls…and provided you’re working with at least one elite guy, there are a number of ways to skin the cat. The team that drafts Drummond will look back on this article in three years and solemnly nod.
Re: trading Varejao (as some of the comments have hinted at)… I realize that keeping him on the team pre-injury was killing our draft position, but you can’t justifiably trade him solely with the intent to suck more. Only possible way to explain an Andy trade (to the team, to Kyrie and Tristan…) would be if it came with substantial and obvious compensation. No one who needs Andy has that type of haul. We were never going to trade him. Provided he returns to health, and provided this team can handle some adversity emotionally… this may be (and I hate to acknowledge this) a positive. Or, as KH pointed out, the opportunity to make a positive.
Kevin,
Correct. Chicago has mostly built through the draft, yet the city helped them get the little pieces like Boozer. Boston drafted Rondo and Pierce, but had to pull major trades where guys wanted to get traded to Boston. To get KG they had to give up Al Jefferson…again, the draft set the table for their success. The allure of the big market has helped them though.
There are definitely plenty of guys in small market who can carry their teams…Minnesota is one team that has major potential in the next few years. My comment stems from the fact that bigger markets have appeal. HOWEVER, your front office needs to be able to make good decisions. New York is the example of major mistakes even today…gutting almost every prospect just to get Melo / Amare.
I am a big believer in building your team through the draft…if you are smart and pick the right guys. I don’t think we should trade Anderson. The energy and intensity is too valuable…he anchors our center spot as we develop other positions.
Keith,
I’m definitely not arguing about building through the draft. I’m just saying that picking in the high lottery (top 8), has a pretty bad track record of being the place that teams build. I completely agree that the front office “needs to be smart and pick the right guys” and that tradaing Varejao is not the right idea. Really that will be the whole point of this series. Maybe that will be more clear over the next few days.
Also, Garnett was acquired by trading players drafted 17th, 18th, 50th and two future, likely late 1st rounders. They didn’t even need a lottery pick. And again, he actually REFUSED a trade to Boston one month before the actual trade. He didn’t want to go to Boston until they had also acquired Allen via trade.
To some extent, I think the 5 year, $73 million had as much to do with signing Boozer as the Chicago market. Also, as I allude to in a prior comment, this could be a mistake. The Bulls are going to need to decide whether to re-sign Deng or go far into the luxury tax in a couple of years.
Backonisgood already covered most of the reasons this article’s logic is extremely flawed, but let me add this specifically about OKC being “lucky” their plan worked out:
While winning the pick that landed Durant was all luck, the “luck” of their drafting almost entirely ends there. Most people had Russell Westbrook going at best 8th overall. A few had him out of the lottery entirely. James Harden was pegged as the fifth or worst best prospect by most in the 2009 draft when the Thunder grabbed him with the third pick.
The fact that the Grizzlies chose Thabeet over Harden wasn’t “lucky” for the Thunder. The fact that the Timberwolves chose OJ Mayo over Westbrook wasn’t “lucky” for the Thunder. These things happened because the Thunder relied on their scouting and had picks high enough to get the guys they wanted.
So no, drafting in the top eight doesn’t guarantee success, as the bad examples of Minnessota and Sacramento show. But drafting in the top eight and having excellent scouting all but guarantees success, with injures being the only factor that can derail it (as Portland would attest to). The fact that the Grizzlies owner stepped in and forced his team to draft Thabeet, who everyone knew had an extremely high bust potential, does not change the fact that small to medium market teams can’t become contendors without multiple top eight picks.
It’s similar to the quote “I’m a firm believer in luck, and I’ve found the harder I work the more I have of it”. Just change it to “I’m a firm believer the draft is luck, and I’ve found the higher I pick the more I have of it”. Without at least three top eight picks, with one of them turning into a superstar and at least one more turning into an all star, the Cavs have almost zero chance of ever becoming a contendor. Top eight picks, excellent scouting and a little luck are the only way we will get back to contendor status.
Looking at the number of high lottery picks on teams that win championships can be deceiving. High lottery picks that fail tend to be good enough players to stick in the league as good role players for years. The Lakers having Odom and Gasol on their roster gives them two top five picks. A#13 pick Kobe Bryant was the key player and a #10 pick Bynum was as important as their two higher lottery picks. Tim Duncan was a #1 overall but Parker a #28 and Ginobili a 2nd Rd #28 for the Spurs. Bruce Bowen was a big contributer for SA and was a UFA. Paul Pierce was a #10 pick and Rondo a #21 pick, while Garnett and Allen were top five picks. Nowitzki was a #9 pick while Kidd and Chandler were #2′s, Marion a #9. The Pistons were a collection of high draft picks that were HQ role players with a UFA in Ben Wallace as a cherry on top. The current Cavs have a #1 pick and two #4 picks on their roster.
My point is that key contributors have been and can be found outside of the top couple of players in the draft. Building through the draft is about drafting good players with the picks that your team has. Then it is a matter of keeping the right ones and trading the others until the pieces fit together well.
The Cavs might add another star via trade or from one of their later picks and could become a great team. If that happened would it be right to say their turnaround was mainly due to having a #1 and #4 pick from 2011 draft on their team? It takes several key contributors and they all are important no matter how they are acquired.
Looking at the list of failed teams Kevin cites in his article, trying to build by lottery picks alone is a shortsighted plan.
Kevin,
I am trusting that you will touch on the number one imperative, in my view, that is the key ingredient to the kind of success we all are looking for,. which is “organizational continuity.” This implies an extremely close working relationship between general manager and coach, supported by ownership that lets these guys do their job. This translates into the development of an identifiable team culture, which makes the “choosing” of players that best “fit” less problematic. It goes without saying that player/talent evaluation has to be top notch.
There seems to be a reasonable consensus that the Grant/Scott team is positioned to provide the above. Additionally, as Grant has said many times, the organization places a high priority on flexibility. This means that the Cavs will be well-positioned financially and with draft choices to take advantage of any/all situations that will inevitably arise in the next few years.
There is no question that having a higher draft choice or choices is a good thing if for no other reason that it gives a team a little more flexibility to choose the player that best fits the team’s needs/character. This does not mean necessarily taking the best available player. It’s the best player for the system, which has to include a very focused eye on 8 man, 9 man rotations and team depth, now and for the future.
If we want “competitive continuity” then a little patience is going to be required. The track record so far of Grant/Scott suggests they know what they are doing and where they want to take the organization. Let’s stay the course, wish for a little luck, but stay absolutely true to the team culture that is emerging before our eyes.
james,
I’m all for everything you said with one exception, for now. Acquiring Complementary players, pieces that fit together if you will, is a key ingredient. Right now the Cavs need to take BPA until they have a core to work with. They are fortunate that BPA will probably not be a PG in this draft and that they already have a player in Irving that should be able to play with almost anyone. In the short term, AV is also the type of role player that can be a universal good fit. The only caveat I see for taking BPA is that he not be a disruptive force attitude-wise to what they have in place. Continuity and finding the right role players become huge factors once they acquire a couple of stars to build around.
Josh,
I’m really not trying to downplay what OKC did, but you have to acknowledge that it requires luck, regardless of their scouting acumen. OKC had great scouting, but luck is certainly part of the reason why the post above includes 8 mediocre-to-failed teams and one easy-in-easy-out lottery success story. Unless all 8 of the other teams are horrible at scouting. I guess that’s possible.
Only 20% of the time do they get a chance at Durant. If the Durant pick becomes Al Horford or Mike Conley Jr, the Thunder are not title contenders.
And also I dispute the logic of your statement of “the fact that the Grizzlies chose Thabeet over Harden wasn’t lucky for the Thunder”. The Thunder had zero influence on the Grizzly selection and were relying on the ineptitude of the Grizzlies. The fact that the Thunder drafted Harden, once he was available, is not based on luck. The fact that he was available relied to an extent on luck.
I guess I still think that 1 success story and 8 non-success stories means that no one should view going back to the the high lottery with too much importance. I’m not opposed to the Cavs going to the high lottery, I just won’t be rooting for the Cavs to lose so that they get there.
Sacremento is a great example of how fickle the lottery can be. Over the last three years, they had the worst, 3rd worst and 5th worst records – yet they picked 4th, 5th and 7th.
JAG,
Clearly the Cavs have starter needs at SG, SF, and C, so it is likely they would(in the upcoming drafts) take the BPA as long as he fits the teams criteria in all phases. But they are not limited to the draft. I fully believe that Grant has his eyes on a handful of players on other teams that could supplement the various drafting scenarios that Grant et al. have. no doubt, begun developing. As for AV, I really do see him staying on the roster for the length of his contract but returning to a reserve role. He really does epitomize the right “culture.” In this sense, he is irreplaceable.
Kevin,
The main issue with teams getting stuck in the lottery year after year is that they don’t have a player capable of leading a team to a championship. There are quite a few All-Star-caliber players in the top 8 every year, but often only one or two players in each draft that have the ability to lead championship-contending teams.
The other main ingredients are an All-Star level player (which is fairly common amongst top 8 picks), a very good starter or two, and a handful of solid role players.
Fortunately, I think we may be closer than many people think. We might have our leader in Irving and a smart draft pick this year could give us the All-Star sidekick. If Varejao returns to the level he played this year, he would be in that third tier along with a potential free agent signing. We’ve got plenty of role players in Gibson, Gee, TT, and some late first/early second round draft picks.
Add in Byron Scott, a cupful of chemistry, and a bit of luck…
“There’s no magic associated with picking high in the lottery for a few years in a row. ”
There’s no magic associated with picking anywhere in the draft. High lottery picks can turn out to be busts, just as low second round picks can. However, just by the very nature of the draft, the top picks have an advantage due to more players being available. There’s a reason the team with the top pick never trades down to accquire more picks.
There’s also a reason that most mock drafts look similiar. Scouts and GMs can see and usually agree on who the best players are in a draft. Those players are taken with lottery picks. There’s no way to predict who will be a bust. You go with the knowledge you have. I’ve never heard of an NBA analyst, commentator, scout or GM to actually predict a player to be a bust. With all things being equal, if you can have one pick in the draft, where would you want that pick to be? The first pick.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like seeing the Cavs lose. I love this team, always have. But I know come draft day, the higher the Cavs are picking, the better the chance of getting a great player.
Scuzz,
Certainly the point of these posts will not be that high lottery = bad and low picks = good…more like, losing = bad, I won’t root for the Cavs to lose, and the Cavs don’t need to lose anymore to build a winner.
If I don’t communicate that well, that’s my fault.
Kevin,
I understand what you’re trying to say. I think what I’m trying to say is that the best players are, most often, taken with lottery picks. I think it’s fair to argue that Chicago, Miami, and OKC would not be doing well without their players taken with lottery picks. All of them taken higher than 8th, I believe. I know Miami got two of those lottery-picked players through FA. But they were still taken in the lottery.
At any rate, I enjoyed your post and will keep an open mind when reading the next one.
Kevin,
I think we are all in agreement that picking in the lottery doesn’t guarantee success and still requires some luck. But like Scuzz said above, it’s common sense that you have a much higher chance of landing a star player with a high lottery pick than you do with a mid to late pick.
So unless you can sign star free agents (we can’t) or are willing to build very slowly through trades similar to what the Mavericks did, you have to build through the draft. And building through the draft is infinitely easier with high picks.
The Kings, Grizz and Wolves all have horriblely run organizations. Picking in the top eight isn’t the problem. Being a horrible organization is the problem. Give the Spurs those the Kings draft picks and they have an all time great dynasty on their hands.