Author Topic: Lets look at history and drafting in the lottery related to NBA championships.  (Read 7165 times)

0 Members and 0 Guests are viewing this topic.

Offline BballTim

  • Dave Cowens
  • ***********************
  • Posts: 23724
  • Tommy Points: 1123

  Maybe it's not as hard as it looks. Maybe you just need to look at your roster and notice you have a player who led the team deep in the playoffs at a young(ish) age and build around him instead of getting rid of him, going to the bottom, hoping you eventually get a star and hoping that you can win with him before he decides to go to a different team (as many of them seem to).

Yes, Tim, but can you identify such a player on the Celtics right now? Curious to know your thoughts about this.

Boris, haven't you posted here long enough to know Tim's answer before you ask?

  Haha.

 

I guess that one went right over your heads.

Yes, I am in fact aware of Tim's views. I figured I could get away with needling him since I've also been a pretty big Rondo supporter.

  All in good fun.

Offline LatterDayCelticsfan

  • Bailey Howell
  • **
  • Posts: 2256
  • Tommy Points: 175
  • Ruto Must Go!
I suppose what got me angry with the starting post of this thread is this fixation that winning a title is predicated on the team having a player that they drafted themselves on the roster. Well as much as lottery picks do often pan out to be world class ballers there are so many other more bigger independent variables involved in winning a title and that teams that are perpetually in the lottery without even getting to be mediocre at any point it beggars belief that this one aspect is being made the be all and end all of winning an NBA title. Anyway just for fun, out of the Current 30 NBA franchises how many don't have a  player drafted in the lottery on their current roster?     
Ruto Must Go!

Offline Celtics18

  • Ed Macauley
  • ***********
  • Posts: 11688
  • Tommy Points: 1469
People hate rebuilding. It's a slow and boring, painful and frustrating experience.
There are a few ways to do it. Many Celtics fans are disgusted at the thought of tanking for a top 5 pick next year or the shot at a franchise level player, thinking the better option is to add some free agents to our core and work around Rondo.
It's an honourable thought, an idealistic idea that we could re tool on the fly and become a contender relatively quickly. Unfortunately history and evidence don't agree with this option at all.

If you disagree, i want you to brainstorm.
First tell me which current players or free agents could we get to join Rondo that would make us a legitimate contender with teams like Chicago and Miami and OKC around for the next 5 seasons?

Ok so you've got a list. Lets put that list of players out there on the floor against the last 25 years of NBA championship teams. Then lets compare that list with Rondo, to the Celtics roster from 2008 to 2013. Are those players with Rondo a match for Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen when they joined our then sole star player Paul Pierce? Who would you compare to KG in the current market of free agents? Anyone? Is Howard as good as KG was in 2008? It's arguable. Can we get Howard? Not likely. After him, is there anyone on Ray or KGs level? No. Not even close.
Now think back to that squad of Pierce, KG and Ray and ask how many championships we won.
Yes they were towards the end of their 'primes' but they were still in their primes and we only managed one championship. KGs injury is a major factor but the fact is we have one banner for that amazing squad.
That's how hard it is to win a championship in the NBA. So how do you win a championship in the modern NBA. Other than teaming together and conspiring in secret like the Miami Heat to form a super trio....
You need to draft a superstar yourself and surround him with the right players. By this I mean you need at least one other all star player and usually two depending on the supporting casts skill set.

The last 10 Years of NBA finalists feature teams with at least one home grown superstar and at least 3 all stars in most cases. In fact only the Mavs had a lone 'superstar' without any all star help in Dirk. The pistons had 4 all stars and are the other exception without a superstar they themselves drafted in the lottery. That's basically
The Spurs
Lakers
Celtics
Mavs
Cavs
Magic
OKC

In fact only 6 teams in the last 14 years have gotten rings.
Take that back to the last 20 years and its 8 teams
Now look back at the past 50 NBA champions, even to the beginning of the NBA.
Are there even 4 or 5 teams that don't have a superstar they drafted via tanking?
 Red Auerbach was great at ripping off other teams, but he also had vision and genius to a certain extent. he drafted KC Jones, he drafted tommy heinsohn. he made a draft day heist trade to get bill russell but GM's for the most part don't get hosed like that nowadays. We drafted Bird. In fact the period that we stunk so badly through can arguably be narrowed down to our 1986 2nd overall pick Len Bias passing away before he even played a game, followed by our late blooming superstar draftee Reggie Lewis passing away.
Go back and look at 20 years of NBA championship winners and even finalists from
 
Tim Duncan 1
Kobe Bryant 13(from Europe, if he'd played in college he'd arguably go top 5)
Dwayne Wade 4
Paul pierce 10
Dirk Nowitzki 9 (similarly to Kobe )
Hakeem 1
Allen Iverson 1
Shaq 1
Durant 1
Barkley 5
Magic Johnson 1
Michael Jordan 1
Lebron James 1
Dwight Howard 1
Kareem 1(with bucks)

Similarly you could look at NBA league MVPs and see a direct correlation.

People just don't understand or choose to ignore the blatant, obvious and painfully truthful fact that lottery picks win championships.
To get these players and number one picks, throughout recent NBA history (at least the past 25 years) teams have landed these picks the majority of the time by being very bad for a period or getting very lucky/swindling another team.
Even we were amazingly lucky to get Pierce at 10 or Mavs getting Dirk at 9 in the same draft.

Now lets look at our current situation. No superstars. We have finished a 5 year run that came via tanking and getting the 5th pick. There is one free agent in Dwight Howard that is of a franchise level. There are no others considered franchise level free agents.

All the franchise players are with other franchise players and dominating the league just as the Heat dominated us.
Andrew Wiggins is the number one prospect in what is considered to be one of the best drafts in NBA history. This is not an exaggeration or oversell. The talent, athleticism, size and skill of this years draft is mind boggling.
History GLARINGLY shows that Wiggins has a greatly higher than expected chance of winning a title through him rather than a re tooling around great but not franchise level guys.

Don't look at it as tanking,, look at it as the only possible way to acquire a talent good enough to take us to the most important goal of all....banner 18.

You do realize that every single team in the NBA has had at least one lottery pick in the draft at some point (that includes all the winners, all the losers, and everyone in between).  So, it kind of goes without saying that there is going to be a correlation with having been a lottery team at some point and subsequently  winning a title.  There is just as strong a correlation between being a lottery team (probably stronger) and being the worst team in the league. 

This fact makes the whole "we must tank this upcoming season" argument look fairly silly.

That "fact" doesn't actually credibly address the tanking theory at all.

Maybe not directly, but it points to the absurdity of saying that the only way to build a contender is to tank and then attempting to use history to prove it. 

Also, I'm not sure why you put the word fact in quotation marks.   
DKC Seventy-Sixers:

PG: G. Hill/D. Schroder
SG: C. Lee/B. Hield/T. Luwawu
SF:  Giannis/J. Lamb/M. Kuzminskas
PF:  E. Ilyasova/J. Jerebko/R. Christmas
C:    N. Vucevic/K. Olynyk/E. Davis/C. Jefferson

Offline D.o.s.

  • NCE
  • Cedric Maxwell
  • **************
  • Posts: 14061
  • Tommy Points: 1239
I suppose what got me angry with the starting post of this thread is this fixation that winning a title is predicated on the team having a player that they drafted themselves on the roster. Well as much as lottery picks do often pan out to be world class ballers there are so many other more bigger independent variables involved in winning a title and that teams that are perpetually in the lottery without even getting to be mediocre at any point it beggars belief that this one aspect is being made the be all and end all of winning an NBA title. Anyway just for fun, out of the Current 30 NBA franchises how many don't have a  player drafted in the lottery on their current roster?   

I don't believe the Pacers do.

However the idea that the draft is the best place to acquire superstar-level talent seems to be true for most franchises--Los Angeles, New York, and the income-tax free teams being exceptions.
At least a goldfish with a Lincoln Log on its back goin' across your floor to your sock drawer has a miraculous connotation to it.

Offline Celtics18

  • Ed Macauley
  • ***********
  • Posts: 11688
  • Tommy Points: 1469
I suppose what got me angry with the starting post of this thread is this fixation that winning a title is predicated on the team having a player that they drafted themselves on the roster. Well as much as lottery picks do often pan out to be world class ballers there are so many other more bigger independent variables involved in winning a title and that teams that are perpetually in the lottery without even getting to be mediocre at any point it beggars belief that this one aspect is being made the be all and end all of winning an NBA title. Anyway just for fun, out of the Current 30 NBA franchises how many don't have a  player drafted in the lottery on their current roster?   

I don't believe the Pacers do.

However the idea that the draft is the best place to acquire superstar-level talent seems to be true for most franchises--Los Angeles, New York, and the income-tax free teams being exceptions.

Paul George is a lottery pick. 

I agree that the draft is a good way to acquire superstar level talent (primarily because it's a cheap way).  That's why everyone gets so excited about it.  But, obviously, it's not the only way. 

The advantage to acquiring superstars through trades or free agency is that at that point you are likely to get players who are seasoned enough that they are ready to help lead a team into contention.  Adding top level talent to go along with a homegrown star has shown to be a fairly effective blueprint for building a winning team. 

That's the path I see Danny taking for the future of this ball club. 

Of course, it's always nice that we have a bunch of first round draft picks in the next three years.  If we are lucky, a couple of them could be in the lottery, and we wouldn't even have to tank. 
DKC Seventy-Sixers:

PG: G. Hill/D. Schroder
SG: C. Lee/B. Hield/T. Luwawu
SF:  Giannis/J. Lamb/M. Kuzminskas
PF:  E. Ilyasova/J. Jerebko/R. Christmas
C:    N. Vucevic/K. Olynyk/E. Davis/C. Jefferson