A different perspective: Odds of lotto pick becoming Howard caliber vs Howard staying

One team, one exception, in 30+ years.

 

I'm with Aruba77 on this one and I get his argument. His point is every championship team has drafted at least one star player that has resulted in a championship. Those who say Miami got Lebron through trade, well.. Wade a had a lot to do with him coming here. You can bicker and fight on the caveats but at least focus on his bolded, bottom line point here.

 

But why does that matter?
Let's pretend like this is the draft, we are drafting Howard. at the end of the day, he's in his mid 20's and, assuming he signs an extension, is here for the next 5 or 6 years.

What does it really matter how he got here? I don't see how the drafting of a guy first is a causation of the championship, merely a correlation.

 

And if Dwight stays in Houston past this season, will any of that matter?? What difference does it make if we draft him, or trade for him? All that matter is that said star is wearing the uniform.....the rest sorts itself out. I don't understand what the crux of the point is, to be honest. Who cares HOW you get your star....the point is, you have the star. Isn't that the ultimate goal here?

 

Lebron and Bosh don't even come to Miami if former NBA champion and Heat draftee, Dwayne Wade, isn't there.

 

Great post. Rep'd. Here're the probabilities of landing one game changing star if you constantly get a top 10 pick.

Year Probability*
1 6.4
2 12.3
3 17.9
4 23.1
5 28.0
6 32.6
7 36.9
8 40.9
9 44.6
10 48.2

That means if you land in the top 10 for 10 years, your chances of getting one of these game changers is about 1 in 2. This is why if you're Morey, gambling that Howard will realize that a fifth year at 25mil when at the peak of his bargaining power to stay at Houston probably is a good deal more likely than landing someone of his caliber through the draft. I'm guessing very few of these max players ever turn down an extra year of guaranteed money for their biggest contract of their careers.

Nevermind the fact that once you draft, you have to develop him for 5 years after the draft since only someone as rare as Duncan would be able to win right away.

*The probabilities are a bit different from OP's.
Pr(Superstar|years)=1-[1-Pr(Superstar|1 year)]^years=1-(1-.064)^years

 

and Larry Bird was picked #6 overall by Boston and went back for his Senior year... then signed his contract. Very likely he would have been the #2 pick behind Magic in the 1979 draft which went down like this:

1 LAL Earvin Johnson Michigan State
2 Chi David Greenwood UCLA
3 NY Bill Cartwright San Francisco
4 Det Greg Kelser Michigan State
5 Mil Sidney Moncrief Arkansas
6 Sea James Bailey Rutgers

I don't remember any other players who did what Bird/Celtics did and I don't remember the specific "loophole."

Imagine Bird as a Bull (maybe no Jordan for them) or a Knick (maybe no Patrick Ewing) if Bird helped make those teams even mediocre.

Hard to remember and realilze that the history of the NBA is written by these quirky, unpredictable outcomes.

And look at the top of the 1978 draft:

1978 DRAFT
First Round
1 Port Mychal Thompson Minnesota
2 KC Phil Ford North Carolina
3 Ind Rick Robey Kentucky
4 NY Micheal Ray Richardson Montana
5 GS Purvis Short Jackson State
6 Bos Larry Bird Indiana State

Had Indiana the acumen of Boston, Bird could have been their's....

 

Orrrrrr.....

....now most of the premier teams have blown their cap space you focus on building a team a star would want to sign with. People seem to somehow forget that this is not only an option but something a GM you'd want to keep around could do.

Everyone keeps talking about how hard it is to draft a guy like Howard. Well, there is thing called FA Howard definitely seems destined for. We could just as easily make smaller moves throughout the course of the year and become an enticing team in that regard. Morey has failed to sign anyone of note that he has gone after....many will say that is completely out of his hands. But at some point, that is part of your job description. We all talk about what a God Morey is at turning trash into potential (assets) but I'm starting to wonder if we should focus more on building a young team a star wants to come to for once. Not a team so loaded with random assets of picks and potential that you gut it just to get one guy over under the assumption you will THEN be able to sell him on your plans. Why not build a team worth coming to and then sell someone on your plans during FA....

 

I agree that we should be exploiting teams that have blown their cap space. But Morey is the most aggressive GM as evidenced by his poison pills to take advantage of the repeater offense provision. I'm guessing the Lin poison pill was done mainly to push the Knicks deeper into the cap to keep one of the premier destinations too high above the cap to really be a player in free agency for the next year (no way Lin wasn't getting matched).

Problem is that the things that make a team enticing for a superstar are mostly things the GM can't control:
1) Desirable destination: Only LA, NY, Miami, and possibly Chicago have this major advantage
2) Willingness of owners to go deep into luxury tax: LAL, NYK, Nets, Mavs. Lot's of overlap with #1 since they have the most fans that gives them tons of revenue from TV deals.
3) Culture of winning: Spurs, LAL, BOS, MIA, OKC, Mavs. A lot of this overlaps with #2 since you need money to win. But to have a culture of winning, you already need to have a star (Duncan/Durant), a good GM (Presti/Buford) and good coach (Popovich, Jackson).

 

Would rather tank for Jabari Parker or Andrew Wiggins, we have a strong chance to get them too

 

It is easier to get the star player first and then build the team around him, rather than have a team and then add a star. Firstly you would approach building the team around the star you had, different people would take different approaches. Building needs for Dwight Howard would be different from building needs for say Chris Paul. You would need different sets of personnel to build around different players. Secondly, if you did build a team with a particular FA in mind and they dont sign then you up **** creek without a paddle and will be stuck in a rut. The rockets are a case in point, the team was built around Yao . Every Move that was made was to complement Yao. When Yao went down all the decent pieces around him got them the 9th seed and the 14th draft pick.

 

Good thinking, but it's not that simple.

The chance of Howard staying is near zero if we gut all of our assets for bad contracts. We'll be Bobcats in a couple years.

 

Better Odds No Picks and No Dwight Plus Cap Hell... if he walks with no extension...

 

Golf clap for OP.

 

Thank you, my exact point. Howard is the number one pick in the next ten years of drafts-if we have a chance at a year with him you do it EVERYDAY!
We gave up a farm for Stevie and look he ended up below superstar, but def all star baller, yet everything we gave up amounted to not even remotely close.
Also Yao was forgot off the list....injuries, or not should of won at least one TSlack

 

Dirk
Pierce
Deron Williams (if CP3 is included above)

Then there's the next subset of players that were all-stars, damn good but on their own might not have had the team success you'd otherwise think of.

Gasol (maybe in the above group, at least if you consider him the "star" that got LA over the top)
Brand
Yao
Amare
Carter
Baron Davis
Francis
Chandler
Melo
Bosh
Bogut
Bynum
Aldridge
Roy
Gay
Randolph
Westbrook
Horford
Harden
Love
Griffin
Rubio
Wall
Cousins
Irving
Davis

With few exceptions, all of the above players in their best 3-4 year period would have been better than any player we had on our squad in the last 2-3 years in their best 3-4 year period.

Still, with many you would more or less be stuck in some kind of perpetual state that isn't deep playoff runs without more talent around them. But that's obvious. Even with the guys in the first group, they ALL need other guys around them.

Then you start talking about the distinctions between the first and second group. Could Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and Rudy Gay, for example, team up to win a championship? Are they those types of players? Well, I think so. It's not a guarantee, and it's not Lebron/Wade/Bosh, but it's pretty damn good and close. And that's how those guys get moved up to the first group. I mean Dirk would have theoretically been in the second group before he won his championship. And you already put CP3 in the first group for some reason.

Finally, the comparison analysis ignores the fact that a team very well could have more than 1 lotto pick every year or for multiple years.

At it's core, pretty much all great players have been drafted. So is the argument about drafting and keeping those players to a championship? If so, then CP3, Howard (after he's traded) and Lebron shouldn't be on the first list, as they all would have been traded before winning a championship. Moreover, how you manage your team after you acquire the players you need to acquire is a different issue, and points to team mismanagement as much as anything else (i.e. Cleveland, NO, Orlando surrounding those guys with the wrong pieces, though they certainly tried).

So when it's all said and done, I think the probabilities to start acquiring the talent required to make long, consecutive playoff runs are a lot closer than the original post made it out to be.

That said, at this point it time I can't say for certain we'll have even 1 high lotto pick in the future, much less multiple. We have Toronto's, but that could be in the teens. We have our own, but our squad always seems to win when they shouldn't. Moreover, if we don't trade the farm for Dwight and get to keep some of those potential lotto picks going forward, then if he does walk, we can take the draft route anyways (though that's the catch-22 for Morey. If he trades for Dwight and wants to keep future picks, he has to take back more salary and hurt his cap and thus his ability to sign the other players required to get the team where it needs to be. If he is willing to trade future picks and prospects in exchange for taking back less salary, but then Dwight walks, he's really totally f'd the team).

Anyway, I'm all for trading for Dwight. I'd RATHER acquire Bynum. He's clearly in that next group, I think you CAN win a championship with him as one of your Big [ ], he's much less likely to walk and you theoretically don't have to trade as many assets to acquire him (or take on as much salary). But he is immature and not as good as Dwight, clearly.

 

No we won't - he will be signed and trade so he can get paid a tad more...if he refuses to stay, or he can leave....and we rebuild. Whomis to say we don't make
another weird trade ifnhoward bolts.
The point is...Howard is a once in a few generations of big men dominant
Caliber, he's a BEAST face it hate him, or love him. So what one year one chance what ifs.
This is a once in a lifetime type of player now a days, even for a one year gamble, you've never seen an extra 30 mil in front of you to decline.
-his shoe deal and marketing will be just fine for the diva in Hou just wait.
-the rap scene will put him in videos, everything screw jay z this is home of Robert Davis ya feel me

 

You forgot about dirk and paul pierce. I think if bosh had better players in toronto,he would be on par with wade at least. I understand what you're saying, but if you can layer those classes together,that's what makes you a contender. If cleveland had kept boozer and hit on that pick where they drafted luke jackson,they could've won a title in cleveland. I don't think getting howard here and he bolts or milks that back injury while he's here is the way to go. Check this out.

The rockets give up martin and the whole 2012 class for garbage and howard. Howard milks the back injury to the point its close to the deadline and now morey is entertaining trades. The lakers offer bynum and some form of 1st rd picks. Ok, that's cool,the rockets have bynum who will be winning to stay,but look at what the lakers have created again. They would have howard,kobe,nash,and gasol for at least a yr. They could probably trade gasol and break his expiring into 2 9m players or trade him for josh smith and change. The rockets would never beat that team even with a declining kobe and nash.

 

they actually drafted Kobe first, then signed Shaq. They had to trade Divacs first to make cap room.


And people who say that L.A. didn't Draft Kobe is ridiculous. It's the same thing.

Charlotte drafted Kobe for L.A. anyway.

 

This is a valid point. But then, won't he want to go to the Nets, still? He'll certainly use walking to a team with cap space (Dallas, Atlanta?) as leverage to try and get sign and traded to the Nets.

DM could refuse to do that - because what would he want in return from the Nets - but I'd have to imagine eventually Dwight signs with the Mavs before signing with the Rockets. Or the Hawks. This is all under the assumption he just won't resign with the Rockets so his salary will be the same regardless.

In other words, there's no way to take away every option for Dwight. he ultimately has the leverage, if he is willing to sign a non-bird's right contract.

it could still work out. Maybe he accepts the Lakers on his list, and they don't win a championship and are willing to trade a signed Bynum for a signed Howard (that is if Bynum then agrees to it at that point, when he'll be pissed about not getting his own Bird's right extension). Maybe he accepts the Thunder at that point (cause he says at least it's better then the Rockets and the Thunder need to try a different approach by then) so the Rockets can get Harden/Ibaka combo of sorts.