Except it doesn't change the fact that every lottery team in the West last season had at least one "newbie" on their team. I'm willing to bet every lottery team in the East had at least one as well. Heck, I'll go out on a limb and say 90% of all teams in the NBA since its inception has had at least one player who played "significant" minutes before his third year in the league.
I've said umpteen times already that merely having significant rookies does not guarantee you success. But if you want to win a championship, you have to have them. The cllncher is that those who don't have significant rookies for 3 years or more, never win it all in the 4th year. But I'm busy fixing up my data to account for the confused year numbering. We'll see if my conclusions still hold.
I'm not sure how you are interpreting the data you're looking at but think about this. What year was Rudy Gay drafted? If the Grizz win the next NBA Finals, what year will it be?
It doesn't, unless I missed somebody. 1997-1998 Lakers (Year 1, no siginficant rookie) http://basketballreference.com/teams/teamyear.htm?tm=LAL&lg=n&yr=1997 1998-1999 Lakers (Year 2, no significant rookie) http://basketballreference.com/teams/teamyear.htm?tm=LAL&lg=n&yr=1998 1999-2000 Lakers (year 3, no significant rookie) http://basketballreference.com/teams/teamyear.htm?tm=LAL&lg=n&yr=1999 2000-2001 Lakers (year 4, Championship) http://basketballreference.com/teams/teamyear.htm?tm=LAL&lg=n&yr=2000
Terse... winning a championship is a rare event (only 1 team a year gets to claim this) and having no rookies play 1000 minutes in a 3 year period is also a rare event (look at your previous posts to convince yourself of this). The fact that these 2 rare events have never (or infrequently) overlap doesn't mean they are tightly associated and it's probably more just a demonstration of their rareness. Here's one to think about: no championship team has ever started a Chinese center or a Canadian point guard; what would you conclude about this? (nothing, I hope...) I think your point that healthy franchises generally draft well over the long term is true and doesn't require any data "analysis", but playing a rookie at least 1000 mintues in a 3 year period probably isn't a prerequesite to winning a championship for a _particular_ year.
The new data is taking a bit longer than expected to analyze, so I will keep this thread going for one more day. No surprises in the new data so far.
They would of course be the same NBA season but different calendar years. That would not be a problem if sites like www.basketball-reference.com would indicate which convention they use on which page, but they almost never do.
You are mistaken. The Lakers won it all in 1999-2000. They got Kobe in 1996-1997, so the 3-year rule continues to hold.
I just don't see what's so shocking about this proposition. Rookies give you a good opportunity to get talent for less than it's worth. Most free agents have a more representative sample size for their body of work, so it's harder to underpay for them. A good team maximizes value - that includes exploiting all avenues of getting good players. Of course, I'd also wager than you could find a correllation between "key" veteran additions and winning.
But every] championship team I have looked at so far (60 of them now) has satisfied the 3-year rule. What are the chances of that happening at random? Furthermore, no team going through a 3-year drought of significant rookies (about 31 since 1980) has ever won the championship in the 4th year. Again, what are the chances of that being a coincidence?
Yeah, but as I said before the same also holds true for the "no Chinese starting centers" condition too and that doesn't much mean much either. Here's something for you to consider: Per your work, the champion each year has never satsified your 1000 minute rookie drought for the previous 3 years. I'll bet that this is nearly true for the 2nd place teams, and the 3rd, and the 4th, and the 5th, etc... In fact, I'll bet if you look it up that you'll find that at least 90% of the teams at each particular spot (all the 2nd place teams for the last 60 years, etc...) also fail to meet the no significant rookie condition. Lastly, I'll go out on a limb and predict that like the champs, 100% of the worst teams in the league for the last 60 years didn't satisfy this condition either (that one seems like it should be true because teams that totally tank are more likely to play rookies...) Look Terse, you'll get no argument from me that trying to develop players is critical to a succesful team, but defining a rigorous condition that separates champions from non-champions isn't really that useful if almost all of the time everyone else is doing it too...
I'm sure drafting a contributing rookie within the last 3 years, whether that guy is your superstar (Kobe) or semi-important role player (Okur) helps with your chances. But we can also say the same about other positive things happening to a team like "No team has won a championship without trading for a significant veteran contributor within the last 3 years of the championship run".. and then conclude "Trading for veterans is vita!" Basically all your theory said was that when teams make good moves, they tend to have a better chance of winning.
If Chinese centers in the NBA have been common in the NBA for the last 50-odd years, you might have a point. But they have not been.
In the <a href="http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?p=2424159>new thread</a>, I show that there is a very strong "if and only" relationship between significant rookies and championships. Get back to me when you can demonstrate that your veteran trading rule also holds as strictly. Until you can do that, you are just guessing.
Good analysis and all but at times changes has to be made. So for the Rox, team has to find players that understands the coach and that compliments greatly with star players. So far most of the rookies such as Bookie, Francis n mobley has not taken the Rox to higher level and barely made playoffs. Its all about team chemistry and winning, if either of it is missing then there will always be changes to be made to make it work.
Thanks. I just want you to note that an "if and only if" condition that holds without exception for 50+ years is very strong. I don't know if the reason it holds without fail is because of chemistry, astute management, or whatever, I just know that it always holds. This might have serious implications for the future of the Rockets, unless you believe that Luther is a significant rookie.
No team has ever won a championship if they start a PF that eventually goes on to score 20,000+ points, grab 10,000+ rebounds, and dish 4,000+ assists. This occured 35 times since 1983. Whatever the Rockets do, they must not get one of those again.
