Building a Winner, Part 2
2012-02-14Part 2a: How did the best teams of the last 10 years get there?
The first step I took when researching this was to check if high-lottery teams were more likely to be better in five years than mid-lottery teams or borderline playoff teams. The answer was no; on average, every draft range regresses to the mean. From the 2001 – 2002 season through 2005 – 2006:
- The teams with the five worst records in each season (23 wins per season) averaged 39.8 wins in the 5th season after their ineptitude.
- The teams finishing with the 6th – 10th worst records (33 wins per season), improved to 41.2 wins 5 years later.
- The teams with the 11th – 15th worst records (40 wins per season), decreased to 38.4 wins per season.
All this really told me was that there’s nothing simple and draft related about building a winner. From there I started digging deeper, into what lead to the greatest success stories of the last 10 years. San Antonio, Dallas and the Lakers were the three teams that averaged 50 or more wins per season from 2001 – 2002 through 2010 – 2011. How did they get there?
San Antonio
The Spurs averaged 58 wins per season. That’s really amazing, but what’s even more astounding is the personnel they started the period with. In October 2001, Spurs fans probably thought re-building was imminent. Their under-30 core was basically one player. Fortunately, Tim Duncan was one of the best big men of all time, but there appeared to be very little around him. Antonio Daniels, Malik Rose and Charles Smith were already in their “primes” as average to below average NBA players. The newcomers were the 28th pick in the draft (19 year old Frenchman Tony Parker), Bruce Bowen (30 year old all-defense wing with 37% career field goal shooting and only 33% on threes), and Stephen Jackson (signed to 2 year, $1.2 million contract). David Robinson was 36 and Sean Elliot, Avery Johnson, and Vinny Del Negro were retired. With no lottery picks on the horizon, everyone must have been scouring the lists of upcoming free agents.
Except we know how this story ends; two seasons later the Spurs are again the NBA’s best. Parker averages 16 a game with Jackson tallying 12. Bruce Bowen continues a streak towards 8 straight all-defensive teams, while becoming a 3-pt marksman (41% during his Spurs career). The player they drafted 57th in the 1999 draft comes to the US and embarks on a hall-of-fame career. A series of well-considered free agents (Robert Horry, Brent Barry, Michael Finley, Fabricio Oberto), trades (Nazr Mohammed), and late draft picks (George Hill, Dejuan Blair) leads to two more championships and the nearly 60 wins-per-season decade.
Dallas
The Mavericks won 57 games per season over the last ten years. Their early decade success required the use of one top 8 draft pick. And that was an indirect use, as they traded Jason Kidd (2nd pick in the 1994 draft) for Michael Finley. Another player responsible for a lot of wins, before leaving as a free agent is Steve Nash, who was acquired by trading a Mavs 9th pick (Shawn Marion). Also contributing to a lot of wins from 2003 to 2009 was Josh Howard, who was drafted 29th.
The construction of their champions is convoluted, but it never required higher than a 9th pick (Dirk Nowitzki). I’ll again note that when referring to not requiring better than a 9th pick, I mean Dallas’ picks; several players were drafted by other teams at better spots in the draft, but the Mavs acquired them through other means. Basically, Dallas’ success was built on always being willing to take on longer term salary, while upgrading to the right mix of players. It started when they traded Tim Hardaway and Juwan Howard for Raef Lafrentz and Nick Van Exel. LaFrentz eventually became Antoine Walker, who became Jason Terry. Van Exel became Antawn Jamison, whose value returned Devin Harris and Jerry Stackhouse. Harris and two late 1st rounders brought back Jason Kidd, while Stackhouse’s expiring contract (plus cash) was eventually used towards acquiring Shawn Marion. Finally Tyson Chandler was acquired for Erick Dampier’s expiring contract (who was acquired via trade, essentially for two late 1st round draft picks and cash) and JJ Barea was an undrafted free agent.
In summary, Dallas’ 10 years of success was built by indirectly using one high-lottery draft pick from seven years prior, two other top-ten draft slots, a video-game like series of trades, and cash.
Los Angeles Lakers
The Shaq and Pau acquisitions could basically only happen to the Lakers, so they’ll be addressed briefly. Still though, they were built while never using a pick higher than 10th.
Aside from Shaq landing in Hollywood as a free agent, Kobe was scored with the 13th pick in the draft, when NBA teams still weren’t sure about drafting high-school kids. The rest of the core of their three-peat team consisted of Derek Fisher who was picked 24th in the draft, Rick Fox a free agent, and Robert Horry gained through trading Cedric Ceballos. The 2009 & 2010 champs relied on Andrew Bynum being snagged 10th. Pau Gasol came aboard through what appeared to be a heavily lopsided trade; Kwame Brown, Pau’s brother Marc (48th pick in previous year’s draft, had not come to NBA yet) and two future, surely end-of-first-round draft picks. Shaq was then eventually traded for Lamar Odom, which rounded out this squad.
What this means for the Cavs
None of these teams are easily duplicated (Shaq’s not walking through the door), but that’s not the point.
The top 3 teams of the last ten years relied on two total draft selections inside the top 8 to build their cores: Tim Duncan and Michael Finley (We can debate about including David Robinson. He was the #1 pick fourteen years earlier and played only the first two seasons of these ten, while averaging 10 & 8). Compared to the less capable teams that drafted early in the lottery repeatedly, either immediately proceeding or early in these ten years (Memphis, Clippers, Toronto), that’s a pretty sharp contrast. The teams were built by signing free agents at a good value, making great talent evaluations later in the draft, and always getting the better end of a trade.
Besides LA, I can’t say market size was a huge influence either. San Antonio was the original small market model team in the NBA. Dallas was an atrocity before Nowitzki and Mark Cuban came around, averaging 20 wins per season through the 1990’s. Their “big three” top 5 draft picks of Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn and Jim Jackson brought them to a summit of 36 wins before needing to be dismantled. Cuban’s willingness to spend was immensely important in building their championship team, but they never had to lure a free agent through “big city, bright lights!” Assembling the original Nowitzki, Nash, Finley, Howard core occurred very organically. Through trades; Tim Hardaway and Juwan Howard eventually became Jason Terry, Shawn Marion, and Jason Kidd. Basically they made a lot more good decisions than bad decisions for a long time, with wheels greased by Cuban’s money.
The Cavs have one blue-chip talent, tons of draft picks, and plenty of cap space; they should be able to reasonably duplicate the Spurs. Probably not to the tune of three championships, but at least a 55 win contender.
Perhaps based on the Dallas model of “never let a good expiring contract go to waste”, the Cavs can flip Jamison’s expiring contract to a floundering team for a longer, non-horrible contract that could also eventually be traded as an expiring contract for another upgrade. Maybe this was even a reason to keep Baron Davis around. It is interesting that neither the Spurs nor Mavericks assembled their cores with a big free agent signing; Dallas in particular always chose to trade expirings instead of waiting & gaining the cap space.
I don’t want these posts to be misconstrued that the high lottery is inherently worthless. If the Cavs fail this year and end up with a top 3 pick, my reaction will not be “what a disaster!” At the same time, the likelihood has to be acknowledged that the losing may not result in the asset everyone hopes for. This recent-NBA history lesson leads to the conclusion that there’s no reason to hope for losses. The assets and cap flexibility the Cavs have accumulated are sufficient, without needing further failure. Tomorrow we’ll look at the next best teams of the last ten years: Detroit, Phoenix, and Boston, and continue to build on the themes of “good management / decision making = winner, high lottery = crap shoot”.
Kevin, I assume your play on the Anderson Verajao trade was that the draft pick might we get in return not be worth losing a proven player as the draft picks are no guarantee of future success. If I am wrong in assuming that you want to keep Andy, correct me. I too believe the Cavs should keep Andy, at least until his final year. I think he is a valuable piece not just for his play, but for the leadership and examples he sets for the younger players. Andy’s presence alone thwarts the loosing culture / mentality that a… Read more »
Thought JDW had a great point about looking for players where other teams weren’t. I think the next frontier on that is the D-League. We found a solid player in Gee, and the Knicks seem to have hit a lottery pick in Lin (who I think was unfairly evaluated for years). There are players who are good in the D-League that need to be in the right system to succeed, but I want a player that is constantly trying to improve his game. Dick Vermeil always said that you build a roster from the bottom up. If the guys at… Read more »
Tom,
I echo Keith P, thanks for the tip on the Hollinger article and the other comments.
Over the last few weeks, as I’ve pretended to have time to publish 10,000 words on the NBA in 8 days, it’s limited my ability to do things like ummm…watch or read about much basketball (or sleep).
Kevin, Thanks again for a very well thought out article. Your numbers on how the different lottery draft groups all basically ended up improving to be, on average, middling teams does seem to support the theory that draft position alone is not a good predictor of future success. I’m thinking that in the long run you will find that the number of opportunities to add players will be a major factor. The preferred destination franchises will always have more opportunities than the norm because of location alone. That puts the flyover cities at a disadvantage so they have to find… Read more »
Tom P, loving your insights here. I’m not even gonna throw in a big response.
As an aside, Of all the things that were unfortunate about Andy getting hurt, a very minor thing was that this series became even less relevant than it was before. To some extent, the whole series was conceived to play into the trading Andy debate.
Isaac,
I 100% agree. The teams listed above were selected because they were the winningest regular season teams of the last 10 years.
It’s unlikely the Cavs build a team that is so overwhelmingly dominant that a championship is a given. What they can do is build a well structured team with smart cap management, win 55 games for an extended period and hope one year ends up being their year. I’m not opposed to that, and I think they can build that whether they pick 3rd or 11th this year.
Kevin, I don’t think it’s a disaster one way or the other either. But put it another way. Can we leave ‘championship’ out of the equation as a way of determining success? I know this sounds silly because its the ultimate determination of success in sports eyes, but really its open to all kinds of crazy fluke and misfortune. If we look at regular season wins as something more easily predictable and quantifiable (or whatever the right word is) then I think the value of high draft picks becomes a little clearer. Take the best run of success the Cavs… Read more »
As far as the draft goes, I think it’s worth noting that all three teams were able to score big in the draft by scouting for players from populations that other teams were ignoring. When the Lakers got Kobe, teams were wary of drafting high school players. The Mavs got Dirk where they got him because Euros were for the most part considered not NBA-viable at the time (and they were mocked for the pick). And San Antonio did a better job scouting Europe than anybody else for a long time, which allowed them to get Parker and Ginobili. Plus,… Read more »
I agree that good management/decision making is the most important thing when building a championship quality team. You can argue that the Spurs, Mavs and Lakers all did this. But anytime you have a top 5 player in the league (not necessarily all-time top 5, just that season/era) that makes things a lot easier. Arguably, the Pistons are the only championship quality team to win without a top 5 player (Hamilton, Prince, Wallace etc pistons, not the Isah, Dumars, Lambier version). What I think the Cavs did NOT have in place during while we had LeBron was good management or… Read more »
I think that there is a Z variable not talked about all that much. Teams who consistently draft in the top 10 are bound to be run by poor organizations who either draft poorly, evaluate personell poorly, or develop players poorly. Think about it, the Bulls got good when they radically overhauled their organization. Same with Seattle (to OKC), Us (Danny Ferry did some incredible things, and some incredibly bad things but still), and Dallas (Mark Cuban). It starts from the top, OKC did well with the lottery model because they drafted well. San Antonio did well with their model… Read more »
im not a huge fan of the OKC model, and wrote about it on fear the sword. That being said, if we dont get MKG, Barnes, Beal, Lamb, or Drummond in the draft i will be really, really depressed
Kevin, The main problem facing the majority of NBA teams is that they don’t have a player capable of leading a team to a championship. With the exception of the Pistons, every title team has had at least one guy that could put the team on his back in crunch time. While there are quite a few All-Star caliber players coming into the league every year, 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),… Read more »
I think Tom hit the nail on the head too here, with Jefferson being a perfect example. RJ was an inefficient, ball in his hands, volume scorer. These players are important in the NBA because they can dominate mismatches and create scoring when the defense tightens up at the end of games (see Bryant, Kobe). The thing is, this isn’t what San Antonio needed. They had Manu for that and he is better at it. So Jefferson adapted, bought in, and filled the role the system required of him. They needed a knock down shooter who could play off the… Read more »
Good points to James, GoCAVS, Tom, and Isaac about player development, continuity, finding the right players for a system. Ultimately I have lumped all of that into a huge heading of “good management / decision making”, as my posts are primarily about how personnel were acquired. A totally separate series could be written on what “good management / decision making” entails. Obviously Tom pinpoints a John Hollinger article that discusses exactly that. Isaac, I am not arguing that a high lottery pick is not better than the 20th pick or that it’s not worthwhile to have. I’m mainly arguing that… Read more »
I’m with GOCAVS on this: I think we are dramatically understating the value of the organisation’s ability to develop talent, keep players interested, run a system effectively, and maintain continuity. Reading Kevin’s posts has, for me, just made it clear that there is no one way to win a championship. And the routes there are convoluted and full of moves that only make sense in hindsight. Which probably means that they could have gone another way – as someone said in part 1’s thread, only 1 team in 30 wins each year. And this isn’t the NFL, so that one… Read more »
OKC has done a great job, but drafting well doesn’t always ensure anything. Look no further than the OKC Supersonics Northwestern rival. The blazers got rid of the inmates, hired a great coach, drafted an excellent cast of young talent, signed some proven veterans – and…..
their franchise player retires because of injury, and their future franchise center, and potential top 10 center of all team (Oden EASILY had this much potential) can’t stop getting injured. Sometimes you can make good moves and still not win.
Here is an excerpt – it’s definitely worth the read. “Go back and look at the histories of these Spurs players. With the exception of Neal, none went gangbusters immediately upon arrival. Ginobili came off the bench his first season despite having starred in Europe, and Splitter had a similar history overseas but hardly played at all in his first season. Green had been cut by San Antonio once; Hill saw limited duty as a rookie; and Jefferson’s first season in San Antonio was a major disappointment. What they all have in common is steady improvement, not just in their… Read more »
Josh, We may end up still disagreeing after these five days, but I am convinced that not getting a top eight pick is not a distaster. I’m obviously not opposed to picking #1 if the season goes sour and that’s what happens, but I can’t imagine resigning myself to essentially rooting against the Cavs. To some extent, proving that basic premise is why I wrote 7000 words on (I need to reconsider my priorities in life). The Spurs years that I covered today were almost completely non-reliant on Robinson. And I agree that Irving will likely not be a top… Read more »
I don’t know if any of you guys have ESPN insider but John Hollinger wrote a great piece on the success of the Spurs. basically, the Spurs develop their players better than anyone else. Guys come to the Spurs, and either play better than was ever expected, or develop a few skills that work perfectly and allow them to thrive. I remember thinking the Richard Jefferson move was so ridiculous and anti-Spur, giving that kind of money to a no defense volume shooter. And now he’s playing hard and one of the best spot up corner 3 shooters in the… Read more »
Then, discouraged with his early taste of success now followed by terrible 10-turnover nights from Parquouir and 22% 3-pt shooting (6 attempts per night) from Gizzopoli… Duncan’s traning slips a bit… and he sustains a few injuries that shorten seasons – and doesn’t quite come back the same. What’s he training so hard to come back for? Another first-round playoff exit? Everyone considers him the great talent that rode Robinson to some early championships… then disappointed. Vince Carter with rings.
Plus – while this may be heresy to suggest – if the Spurs don’t find Tony Parker (instead they find, say, Tone Parquouir from France) and Ginobili (instead, the promising Minu Gizzopoli) – aren’t they more likely to be a 45-win team, with no post-Robinson championships? Is Tim Duncan still an all-time great?
Josh – I agree with some of what you are saying here, however there are a few other aspects no one is talking about, The question is – would Manu and Tony, Fisher and Ariza, Marion and Old Man Kidd be as good on any other teams as they were when they were pieces on championship contenders? EVERY player who sticks around in the NBA does so because they have NBA skills, or potential to have NBA skills. The trick is getting these players NBA skills to fit, and buy into an NBA system. Now you combine that with a… Read more »
I like the research you did and you bring up interesting points, but like with part I, I think this is extremely flawed. First, lets look at the Spurs. Number one, they got extremely lucky to bottom out due to a Robinson injury and were able to pair two historically good 7 footers. The Cavs zero chance of this happening. Second, even if you take out the Robinson part of the equation, every Spurs championship was centered on a historically great, top ten all time player, anchoring the team. Sure, excellent scouting with the Parker and Ginoboli drafts and a… Read more »
I can only repeat how important it is to have organizational continuity. You have to look no further than San Antonio to be reminded of the value of this factor. Or Kupchak/Jackson in LA, or the Nelson lineage in Dallas.
Knowing how to handle/maximize expiring contracts(and having an owner willing to absorb long-term financial commitments) is as critical as straight player trades and the draft. It is a mix of all these things predicated on the above point and, most of all, being outstanding evaluators of talent and character..