Tanks, but NO Tanks: The lottery odds against drafting a franchise player

you guys are missing the point . . .

THE DRAFT NEXT YEAR IS GOING TO BE WEAK!!!!!

no tanks to tank

 

Elmore Smith - 3
Bob McAdoo - 2
Ernie DiGregorio - 3
Tom McMillen - 9
Adrian Dantley - 6
Michael Brooks - 9
Tom Chambers - 8
Terry Cummings - 2
Byron Scott - 4
Lancaster Gordon - 8
Benoit Benjamin - 3
Reggie Williams - 4
Hersey Hawkins - 6
Danny Manning - 1
Danny Ferry - 2
Bo Kimble - 8
Lamond Murray - 7
Antonio McDyess - 2
Lorenzen Wright - 7
Michael Olowokandi - 1
Lamar Odom - 4
Darius Miles - 3
Tyson Chandler - 2
Chris Wilcox - 8
Chris Kaman - 6
Shaun Livingston - 4
Eric Gordon - 7
Blake Griffin - 1
Al-Farouq Aminu - 8




Clippers top 10 draft picks for the last 40 years.


#1 overall picks - Danny Manning, Olowakandi, and Griffin

That's 1 for 3, if Blake doesn't get hurt or flake out somewhere down the road that they've hit on.

Out of 29 guys they took in the top 10 over the last 40 years, only 11 have had careers that you could describe as substantial, and that is including Eric Gordon and Blake Griffin, who are still young and haven't been in the league very long. I think they will have good careers. I am giving them the nod.

The rest of the 29 top ten draft picks, that is to say, 18 of the 29 top 10 picks drafted by the Clippers going clear back to 1970, have had very pedestrian to poor careers.

The NBA lottery is a crap shoot. Just ask the Portland Trailblazers. And the Clippers have proven very good at drafting like it is a crap shoot.

There are two factors working against you in the lottery. First of all, the ping pong balls are working against you. The odds of getting in the top 3, even when you have the worst record are still skewed negatively.

Secondly, even when you get a top 3 pick, you cannot predict injuries and you cannot predict just how a player is going to develop. Griffin is shining now. But he's already been down with one major injury. What if he tears up a knee again? You see........all your hopes and dreams playing the lottery. It's a tax on the poor teams. Tanking to be in the lottery is a terrible way to strategize building a franchise to a championship contender.

More evidence???

LA Lakers
Boston Celtics
Detroit Pistons

The luck of SA in getting David and Timmy out of the lottery was just that, luck. The luck of the Rox getting Hakeem and Ralph out of the draft was just that, luck. Perennial winning franchises do not depend on luck. They make luck the smallest part of winning.

 

LTF, I've gotta agree with topfive on this one.

Your examples are not the same as the Kobe scenario. The Rockets COULD have just taken Donte Greene at #25, but Morey instead chose to work his draft magic and make two trades to move down to #28 to get Greene along with the #33 pick and a 2009 Memphis second rounder. In the Roy example, the Rockets HAD a lottery pick (#8), but it just wasn't quite enough to move up to #6 to get Roy.

In the Kobe scenario, the Lakers did not have a lottery pick. They had the #24 pick that year, which they used to select Derek Fisher. But they were able to acquire a lottery pick by trading a PLAYER ON THEIR ROSTER. Vlade was a nice trade asset. Of course, a lot of that deal had to do with Kobe holding the league hostage to force his way to L.A. The Nets were fully prepared to take him at #8 overall (instead of Kerry Kittles), but Kobe threatened not to play for them. Kind of like Francis did three years later to Vancouver.

If the Rockets were to trade for a lottery pick, it could happen in one of two DIFFERENT ways:

(1) Move up in the draft by trading a lower lottery pick plus additional considerations; or

(2) Trade a player or two on the roster for the pick, which is more of what topfive may have been referring to earlier.

 

You guys are missing the point when I say I'm in favor of 'tanking'; I should use a different word for it. Let's call it 'rebuilding'.

I am NOT in favor of a coach/GM/owner telling his team to lose every game. (there goes your 'breeds losing culture argument') I am NOT in favor of purposely sitting key guys in our rotation (Spurs - Duncan) in order to put out a lesser product on the floor that will lose.

What I want is for the Rockets to break up the current core of Brooks, Scola and Martin. They are not good enough to be the three best players on a championship team. Look around at the elite teams and compare them -- they flat out don't stack up to them. Hell, the Thunder have a much better core than us and are infinitely younger. The Rockets 'big three' are not good enough to even be three of the four best players on a championship team (Iguodala/Wallace won't save them).

We need to break up the core three and rebuild with a different core -- that doesn't mean you have to trade all of them. It doesn't mean you have to trade them right away. It doesn't mean you trade them just to trade them. I was in favor of the idea of dealing one of them to help move up in the draft with.

But the fact remains, we're going to have three of the highest paid guys on the team not be good enough to compete for championships, no matter what role players surrounds them. Even if we 'tanked', there's no way we'd land a top pick this year. I'm not for that -- what I am for is breaking up the Scola-Martrin-Brooks trio.

 

So you're telling me if you trade a player for a draft pick on draft night, it's NOT drafting them. But if you trade a player + a draft pick, it IS drafting them? Semantics.

The Sonics traded Ray Allen for the 5th pick in the draft. Would you say they didn't build their team through the draft because they traded a player for Jeff Green and not a draft pick? Come on.

Trading players for draft picks IS still building your team through the draft. You're taking a chance on a player whose never played a minute in the NBA and developing him from day 1. Whether you were the team who called his name the first time he was announced is irrelevant.

 

First post I have ever agreed with you on... Great post. People saying winners become winners solely because they got a high draft pick is only a small part of the big picture.

 

Lakers are one of top destinations for NBA players, if not the #1 destination.
Kobe already had his mind made up to sit out and go to Italy, if he was drafted by anybody else. Shaq left Orlando for LA, because he wanted to make movies(Kazaam!) and get more endorsements from moving out of a small city like Orlando to Los Angeles.

Celtics got Pierce the 10th lottery pick and flipped 5th lottery pick Jeff Green for Ray Allen.

Pistons - They did succeed through mostly trades, but they haven't been able to repeat that feat.

 

Uhh.. that's just not true.

John Wall, Blake Griffin, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, Deron Williams, Chris Paul.. that's seven guys right there and I only made it to 2005.

It was also without me counting Derek Favors and DeMarcus Cousins, who a lot of people feel will both develop into franchise players. I also didn't count Brandon Roy (franchise player before injuries), Brook Lopez, Kevin Love (killing it this year), Noah (made untouchable by CHI in Melo talks), etc.

 

What are the Rockets odds of trading hidden gems/assets in the 15th-30th spot in a package deal for a franchise changer? It's failed every year.

Brooks and Budinger isn't going to get you a Durant, Duncan, Kobe, Lebron. 5% odds is still better than zero for trading Budinger/Brooks/Scola for a franchise player.

 

LTF, I was under the impression that this entire conversation was in the context of whether a team needs to "tank" in order to get THEIR OWN draft pick in the high lottery.

Big difference between my two scenarios there.

If the Lakers had tanked to get a top-8 pick to select Kobe in 1996 (since New Jersey would have taken Kobe if they weren't such wusses), that would have been a COMPLETELY different strategy then what they ACTUALLY did (make the playoffs but then trade a player for a lottery pick).

 

I didn't mention Brook Lopez's name as a franchise player -- in fact, I said I excluded him from the list. That said, Russell Westbrook is absolutely a franchise player. Go watch the Thunder sometime. A lot of people will tell you he's been their best player this year.

I wasn't commenting on the odds, only pointing out that your bolded assertion passed off as fact was anything but.

 

5% is HUGE.

you can get into the lottery many times by tanking.
every time you have 5% to get a superstar?
again, only idiot not do it.

 

You're missing the point. Nobody in favor of rebuilding thinks we're going to do it in a year. I don't expect to draft the superstar that is going to save us in the upcoming draft. I expect that if we trade away our core, we'll continually have a high lottery pick every year for the next three or four years minimum. We are thinking long term instead of looking for instant gratification.

 

I think, in a round about way, we're walking down the same path to the same destination.

I don't want our team to purposely lose -- that's not what I've been arguing for. I'd like to break up the current core three for a piece that we can build around. To me, that's rebuilding. Given the availability of truly elite players and how valuable (or not valuable) are assets are, I think we have a greater likelihood of finding that player in the draft than being in the position to trade for him. The Melo sweepstakes were the big wake-up call for me in that regard.

Say we end up trading Martin and the #16th pick for the #5th pick this year, a guy Morey really coveted and thinks can be a game-changer. That kind of satisfies both of our approaches. We broke up our core to land a guy we can hopefully build around in my instance. In yours, we remained competitive and traded an 'asset' for a (potential) upgrade.

There are some little things we may disagree on (I'm in favor of playing Hill over Hayes even if it costs us a few games), but in the end we may just be arguing with each other while standing on the same side.

 

Nobody is disagreeing with you that we should upgrade. But if they are going to get a good pick its going to be by eating salary, not by moving Martin.

They tried once already to get Cousins by eating Brand for the number 2 pick. They tried again, once Philly took turner, to get the third pick to get Cousins. The quote was "Sacramento's asking price was just too high"

Sorry to dissapoint you, but they like the Brooks, Martin and Scola trio. And if any of those guys is moved, its probably going to be Scola.