Is the Draft Important?
Kris is bored, so very very bored. So I decided to dive into the numbers and see what I could pull out of them to examine if tonights NBA Draft is actually important, or is it just cool to say things like, "HEY YO, JUST PICK MACIEJ LAMPE ALREADY!!!!" What I decided to do was look at the past two NBA Championships series and examine how those teams aquired their players and where they may have been drafted. I took the 12 man rosters of the Pistons, Spurs, Heat, and Mavericks and found some interesting numbers.
Out of the 48 players, 26 of them were drafted in the Lottery, that is 54%. Tha would seem to mean having a lottery pick is helpful when building your team into a championship contender. However, out of those 54% only four were with the team that drafted them in the lottery. Those four players are Tim Duncan of San Antonio, Devin Harris of Dallas, and Dwayne Wade of Miami and Darko Milicic of Detroit. The only other guy that sort of counts is Dirk Nowitzki who was drafted by the Milwaulkee Bucks but promptly traded to Dallas for Robert Traylor and a laundry basket full of dirty socks. Basically 90% of the guys who were lottery picks were somebody else's draft choice, but through the course of time have all wound up on a team together. Less than 30% of the players on these four teams are on their original team. Whether it be through free agency or picks after the lottery only 14 of the 48 players are on their first franchise. The average amount of teams that all of these 48 players have played for is 3 per person.
Some may say, well there are always a bunch of journeymen on the bench and that is why the numbers get skewed that way. Out of the 20 starters less than half (9) are still with their first team. The Spurs and Mavericks each seem to have somewhat solid organizations both having three starters a piece being original members (Duncan, Parker, Ginobili & Nowitzki, Howard, Harris). The Pistons are th biggest culprits taking players from other squads. There only homegrown player is the quiet man Tayshaun Prince. Menawhile, Billups is on his 5th team, Rasheed his 4th, Big Ben his 3rd and Rip his 2nd.
However, the guys who are moving merchandise are more likely to be lottery picks. Just take this years All-Star game for example; only 4 of the 24 players were non lottery picks. Tony Parker and Jermaine O'Neal were late first round picks, Gilbert Arenas a second rounder and Ben Wallace an undrafted Free Agent. The rest of the All-Stars were all lottery picks and most of them very high lottery picks. In fact 6 of the All-Star lottery picks are so good their teams could not even climb into the playoffs; Kevin Garnett, Yao Ming, Tracey McGrady, Allen Iverson, Paul Pierce and Chris Bosh all got a to watch the playoffs on there HD 64 inch Flat Screens.
While high lottery picks may move the meter, sell some merchandise and get you an All-Star, it is certainly not imperative to have a high lottery pick to have a successful squad. Those are the teams that are winning, the ones who can combine good draft choices with smart free agent singings, and the occasional trade.
Random Trivia Question: What is the most common last name in the NBA, and how many players share that name?
Out of the 48 players, 26 of them were drafted in the Lottery, that is 54%. Tha would seem to mean having a lottery pick is helpful when building your team into a championship contender. However, out of those 54% only four were with the team that drafted them in the lottery. Those four players are Tim Duncan of San Antonio, Devin Harris of Dallas, and Dwayne Wade of Miami and Darko Milicic of Detroit. The only other guy that sort of counts is Dirk Nowitzki who was drafted by the Milwaulkee Bucks but promptly traded to Dallas for Robert Traylor and a laundry basket full of dirty socks. Basically 90% of the guys who were lottery picks were somebody else's draft choice, but through the course of time have all wound up on a team together. Less than 30% of the players on these four teams are on their original team. Whether it be through free agency or picks after the lottery only 14 of the 48 players are on their first franchise. The average amount of teams that all of these 48 players have played for is 3 per person.
Some may say, well there are always a bunch of journeymen on the bench and that is why the numbers get skewed that way. Out of the 20 starters less than half (9) are still with their first team. The Spurs and Mavericks each seem to have somewhat solid organizations both having three starters a piece being original members (Duncan, Parker, Ginobili & Nowitzki, Howard, Harris). The Pistons are th biggest culprits taking players from other squads. There only homegrown player is the quiet man Tayshaun Prince. Menawhile, Billups is on his 5th team, Rasheed his 4th, Big Ben his 3rd and Rip his 2nd.
However, the guys who are moving merchandise are more likely to be lottery picks. Just take this years All-Star game for example; only 4 of the 24 players were non lottery picks. Tony Parker and Jermaine O'Neal were late first round picks, Gilbert Arenas a second rounder and Ben Wallace an undrafted Free Agent. The rest of the All-Stars were all lottery picks and most of them very high lottery picks. In fact 6 of the All-Star lottery picks are so good their teams could not even climb into the playoffs; Kevin Garnett, Yao Ming, Tracey McGrady, Allen Iverson, Paul Pierce and Chris Bosh all got a to watch the playoffs on there HD 64 inch Flat Screens.
While high lottery picks may move the meter, sell some merchandise and get you an All-Star, it is certainly not imperative to have a high lottery pick to have a successful squad. Those are the teams that are winning, the ones who can combine good draft choices with smart free agent singings, and the occasional trade.
Random Trivia Question: What is the most common last name in the NBA, and how many players share that name?
1 Comments:
williams...7 "the duece"
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