What if all players stayed with the team that drafted them?

[Kwhit10]

Good idea, but kind of tragically flawed. We had to trade Antoine Walker to Dallas to get Delonte West, and I'm sure that's the case with a lot of the other teams and players on there, too.

So if we had to trade a player we drafted for another player, wouldn't that cancel everything out?

Jeez I'm a party pooper 

Yea I definitely thought of that, but honestly it would be way too much work to find all those trades and give the players that resulted back to the original teams.  Also as someone noted, that teams would of course have different draft philophies if this were the case.  Like New Orleans has one killer back court but not much else.

And yea I thought Dallas would be better, but I forgot Dirk wasn't drafted by them.  Though you can see how great San Antonio is of an organization, as there 3 best players now, are from their in house drafting and they've been able to stay in contention for a decade.

[Rondo_is_better]

That just shows that the Lakers suck at drafting.

[lon3lytoaster]

That just shows that the Lakers suck at drafting.

Or maybe they just haven't sucked?

Aww, I'm gonna be murdered now, aren't I?

[Cman]

This is a great topic.
I like New Orleans, Minny, Boston, Cleveland and Chicago.

[KCattheStripe]

San Antonio Versus Minny would be the real championship, because the winner would rock whoever won the east.

[Edgar]

Three best teams -- Cleveland + Minnesota + San Antonio

Boston, Chicago and New Orleans are also impressive. Golden State and Phoenix are interesting too.

absolutely agree

[Rondo_is_better]

That just shows that the Lakers suck at drafting.

Or maybe they just haven't sucked?

Aww, I'm gonna be murdered now, aren't I?

They've had some pretty high draft picks, though. Through trades and what not. Also, usually once every ten years or so a team drafts someone in the late 1st round and they turn out to be really good.... Nobody on the Lakers "draft squaf" should even command the Full MLE. 

[KY Celts fan]

You don't have to suck to get good picks in the draft. yea, it does help to get the best, but look at San Antonio. Duncan was the number 1 pick in the 97 or 98 draft. But Parker was the 28th pick in the 2001 draft, and Ginobli incredibly the 57th pick in the 1999 draft. That would be like Bill Walker or Lester Hudson becoming pivotal part of our future championships. Not just pivotal, like Pierce pivotal.

[ToppersBsktball10]

If we had Chauncey we may not have the same draft spot in 98 for Pierce same with Johnson etc.

[thirstyboots18]

Interesting.  Definitely a fun thread...

[mgent]

You don't have to suck to get good picks in the draft. yea, it does help to get the best, but look at San Antonio. Duncan was the number 1 pick in the 97 or 98 draft. But Parker was the 28th pick in the 2001 draft, and Ginobli incredibly the 57th pick in the 1999 draft. That would be like Bill Walker or Lester Hudson becoming pivotal part of our future championships. Not just pivotal, like Pierce pivotal.

And how much of that is good choosing, and how much of that is just plain luck of having that pick?  Like we can say Lester Hudson was the best choice available for us (like i'm sure Ginobli was), but the chances of him becoming pivotal is very low.

The same thing happens with high picks that turn out to be busts.  A lot of stuff that happens with injuries is just bad luck for the team who 'wasted' their pick.