If you want to win a championship, hang on to your rookies. While researching a post on playoff teams and rookies, I noticed an interesting pattern. Since 1980, which was as far as I went, every championship team had been able to load up on significant rookies no more than 3 years before their victory run. And the better dynasties continued to load up as they continued to win. (By "significant", I mean somebody who plays more than 1000 minutes in his rookie year.) There were absolutely no exceptions: this seems to be an iron rule. So developing a significant rookie is extremely important if you want to win a championship! Here is the data. I have listed each dynasty separately. Each player is listed with his rookie year. <dl> <dt>LA Lakers (Kareem and Magic Show) (1980-1988)</dt><dd>Norm Nixon (1977), Magic Johnson (1979), Kurt Rambis (1981), Byron Scott (1983)</dd></dl> <dl><dt>Boston Celtics (Larry Bird era) (1981-1986)</dt><dd>Larry Bird (1979), Kevin McHale (1980)</dd></dl> <dl><dt>Philadelphia 76ers (Dr. J and Moses Malone) (1983)</dt><dd>Maurice Cheeks (1978), Andrew Toney (1982)</dd></dl> <dl><dt>Detroit Pistons (Bad Boys) (1989-1990)</dt><dd>Joe Dumars (1985), John Salley (1986), Dennis Rodman (1986)</dd></dl> <dl><dt>Chicago Bulls (Michael Jordan era) (1991-1998)</dt><dd>Horace Grant (1987), Scottie Pippen (1987), Stacey King (1989), B. J. Armstrong (1989), Toni Kukoc (1993)</dt></dl> <dl><dt>Houston Rockets (Hakeem the Dream) (1994-1995)</dt><dd>Robert Horry (1992), Sam Cassell (1993)</dd></dl> <dl><dt>San Antonio Spurs (Tim Duncan) (1999-today)</dt><dd>Tim Duncan (1997), Tony Parker (2001), Manu Ginobili (2002), Beno Udrih (2004)</dd></dl> <dl><dt>LA Lakers (Shaq 'n Kobe) (2000-2002)</dt><dd>Vlade Divac (1989)</dd></dl> <dl><dt>Detroit Pistons (Wallaces) (2005)</dt><dd>Zeljko Rebraca (2001), Mehmet Okur (2002)</dd></dl> <dl><dt>Miami Heat (Shaq 'n DWade) (2006)</dt><dd>Dwyane Wade (2003), Udonis Haslem (2003)</dd></dl> The Rockets are past the 3-year rule with Yao. If we want to win a championship, we need to find good rookies and start developing them pronto. This probably means dumping JVG, because "develop" is not in his vocabulary.
Damn it, I knew trading our own rookies Francis and Mobley for that vagabound McGrady guy was a MAJOR mistake. Celtics would have won a few more championships, too, if they just retained Joe Barry Carroll. Instead of giving him up for some old dude and an inferior unibrow draftee from Minnesota.
I wish the rockets never traded horry and cassell. They were really fun to watch, good guys, and I miss them.
Tayshaun only played 435 minutes in his rookie season. But Rebraca and Okur are enough to prove my point with respect to the Pistons: that this is a good, patient organization. The rookies don't actually have to be on the team when it finally wins the championship: if you carefully develop your young players, they become valuable, tradeable assets.
I said nothing about trading the players later. It's only important to draft and develop your rookies. They may become important contributors to your championship, or, because you let them grow, they could become valuable assets that you could trade for the final championship pieces. Either way, you benefit when you develop your kids. Joe Barely Cares never played for Boston.
Kobe is past my 3-year cutoff before a championship. But if we include him, that would only reinforce my point.
Umm.... he's just mentioning it was the Hakeem show, for time reference. Notice the other star players of other teams he mentions.
Which was why we needed Horry and Cassell to push us over the top. It seems to be an unbreakable rule that you need to load up on rookies -- good rookies -- just before a championship.
Of course, having good rookies is no guarantee that you will win it all. But it seems you must have them if you want to have a chance.
Define "your rookies" please. If somenoe is dealt away on a draft day trade, are they still "your rookie"? Also, by your definition of "develop", then since the predominant majority of teams keep their rookie players (either those that they drafted or those obtained on draft day trades) around for a while, don't most teams, championship or not, develop their rookies anyway? The Clippers "developed" Danny Manning, the Hawks "developed" Dominique Wilkins, the Nuggest "developed" Raef Lafrentz, the Hawks are "developing" Childress, Smith, the Hornets "developed" J.R. Smith...
No. By my somewhat arbitrary definition, in order to become a "significant" rookie for a team, you have to play 1000 minutes in your first year for that team. And it doesn't matter if you were drafted by a different team. Yes. But see message #16 in this thread: having good rookies is not by itself a championship guarantee. But you need them if you want to have a chance. In other words, whatever you do, do not follow the disastrous JVG model in New York, where they developed zero (0) significant rookies in 6 years. By no coincidence, their number of championships was also zero.
I think it would be interesting to see how many rookies are actually kept on their original team. It seems that unless you are a superstar, role players or good contributors get traded or leave during FA. I'm starting to believe that the draft is only good for getting superstars. Getting role players should be left to trades and free agency. For example, who thinks that the Celtics and Hawks (who have built through the draft) will win a championship soon? Who also thinks that these two teams will have the same roster in five years.? Essentially, it seems like you are grooming talent for other teams. I actually think the Rockets look at the draft like that. It actually begins to make sense to me. I would think the odds of Luther Head leaving the team either by trade or in FA in the future seems to be relatively high.
