2007 NBA Draft Preview

2007 NBA Draft Early Entrants

Do you really think teams are tanking the season for a lottery pick?

by Frank Gordon (USN)

    Every season we hear that teams are trying to tank the season for the next great player. Just imagine if your losing team were to get in position to draft Kwame Brown, Michael Olowokandi, Joe Smith, or Pervis Ellison. You would hope your team would lose games for those guys, right? I know what you're thinking, "He's just trying to prove his point by showing the worst examples." And you would be right. But it's hard to do the same to disprove my point. I chose four number one overall picks since the institution of the draft lottery that have not won a NBA title. In reality there are only four that have won an a ring. And of those four only David Robinson and Tim Duncan have one their title with the team that drafted them. The following chart shows the only lottery picks that have won an NBA title with the team that drafted them, or more accurately the team that they began their career with.

Out of 237 lottery picks, 10 have won a title with the team that has selected them. This bears repeating. Ten players have won a title with the team that has selected them. Just over four percent of the players selected in the lottery have won a title with the team that has selected them. And one, Lindsey Hunter, actually left his team and then came back later. And two others, Kobe Bryant and Scottie Pippen, were involved in draft day trades to get them to their championship teams.

Let’s look at this a bit closer. If we assume that the reason that they play the games is to win, and win it all, then this lottery deal isn’t doing its job. The first lottery was held in 1985. The Knicks were able to land the jewel of the class, Patrick Ewing. He played in one final series with the Knicks. One. In
the twenty-one years of the lottery only eight number one picks have played in the finals. Forty percent. That’s not too bad, is it? In that same finals, the Knicks also had Larry Johnson who was drafted number one overall by the Charlotte Hornets in 1991. For that Knicks team he averaged 12.0 points a
game and 11.5 in the finals. Not exactly “leading” the Knicks to the promised land. This 2004-2005 champions had 1994 #1 pick Glenn Robinson, who averaged a whopping 10.0 points in 9 games. However in the playoffs he stepped it up to 3.8 a game.

In twenty-one drafts since 1985, thirty-one lottery picks have won at least one title. That’s not too bad. But it seems to me that that is just talent coming to the fore. Let’s look at the 2003-2004 champion Detroit Pistons. Richard Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, Corliss Williamson, Rasheed Wallace, Lindsey Hunter, Darko Milicic were former lottery picks. Milicic barely played as a rookie and Hunter was resigned after playing for Milwaukee, the Lakers, and Toronto the previous three seasons. Of the other four, all but Hamilton had played with more than two teams before landing with the Pistons. Detroit was Billups’ fifth team. Or better yet let's look at the 2005-2006 Miami Heat. The Heat drafted Dwyane Wade number five in the 2003 draft, but they also had lottery picks Shaquille O'Neal, Jason Williams, Antoine Walker, Gary Payton, Alonzo Mourning, and Derek Anderson on that championship team.
 

Take a look at Jemaine O'Neal. Drafted straight out of high school and clearly not ready to ball yet. Now he is a bona fide all-star, but he plies his trade with the Pacers, not the Trail Blazers who drafted him. A lottery pick can only help you, if he's ready to be of some help. Conversely it doesn't do much good to draft for potential if the rest of your team is in flux. Case in point the 2001 draft class. The Wizards selected Kwame Brown number one. Brown entered a situation where he needed to be dominate immediately. The only returning player who made a significant contribution the previous season was Richard Hamilton. Only three players played more than sixty games that season, Hamilton, rookie Mike Smith, and Jahidi White. Kwame's rookie season would find him with a new coach, Michael Jordan returning to the league again, and spotty contributions from players like "Popeye" Jones, Chris Whitney, and Tyrone Nesby. As a G.M. it's hard to ask a kid who gets carded buying stamps to lead an NBA team. Granted that's why Michael was there, but ... Then we have the duo of Tyson Chandler and Eddie Curry, drafted second and fourth respectively. The Bulls in their infinite wisdom traded 1999 number one pick Elton Brand to purgatory, otherwise known as the LA Clippers, for the rights to Chandler then drafted Curry with their fourth pick. So you add two seven-foot high schoolers, who have rarely ever played against another seven footer let alone played with one before, to a squad minus the previous season's leading scorer Elton Brand, and mercurial players such as Ron Mercer and Ron Artest. The rest of the team was pedestrian at best and the guard play was virtually non-existent.

When making a lottery selection you must first analyze the make-up of your team. If the only good thing that you had the previous season was solid frontcourt play, why tank the year in a big man heavy draft. If you have no leadership, particularly from the backcourt, this is not the draft for you. While Durant and Oden appear to be solid talents, they are not the leaders of their respective squads. If you are going to go young go strong. LeBron James led his teams in high school, Dwyane Wade led Marquette. Marvin Williams was not the leader at North Carolina, Mike Dunleavy was not the leader at Duke, and Desagana Diop was not the leader at Oak Hill Academy. A rookie going in to a bad situation has to be able to lead. It there are leaders already in place then he can follow.

So after the hand wringing and second guessing, it really doesn’t matter. Drafting a LeBron James just may be a once in a lifetime choice, but grabbing Eddie Griffin at #7 just may not be a big deal.