Screw the tank.
There is no formula.
There is just a promise of "maybe".
More specifically, "maybe in the future we can draft the right guys and build a winning team around them".
Top 10 guys are often not who we think they are coming from the draft. Evidenced by the fact that most of the time we draft others before them. And since it seems like a fairly accepted fact that you must have a top 10 guy to truely compete, well... how to exactly draft him?
Lets look at best players in the league right now (in no particular order but hopefully covering all that appear on anyones top 10):
Luka - 3rd (important notice, despite being top 3 the two guys drafted before him are total scrubs, and Hawks were willing to downgrade away from Luka)
Tatum - 3rd (drafed behind 2 guys who havent made an impact yet, and maybe never will due to health reasons)
Giannis - 15th
Steph - 7th
Jokic - 41st
Durant - 2nd (and the guy drafted ahead of him was the more "surefire" guy in Greg Oden... you see KD needed a lot of work "in the weight room" before he could become legit in the NBA)
AD - 1st and rightfully so.. but even though he is back to top 10 now, he hasn't been consistently up there. Furthermore, the team that drafted him has 0 championships and another team that paid the ransom reaped the benefits.
Embiid - 3rd (as a talent he was the best but health concerns dropped him to 3rd)
Booker - 13th
DM - 13th
Ja - 2nd
Zion - 1st
SGA - 11th
Shouldnt there be more #1s in that list than Zion and AD? Also count how many chips guys drafted top 3 won for the teams that drafted them? Hint: 0.
Get this: there are no top 3 picks from past 15 years who won a chip for the team that drafted them as their best player. Kyrie won one with Lebron, but playing the second fiddle. Tatum might break the trend.
Might.
Oh and btw, that is 15+ years of drafts there. So 38 total top 3 picks that are not on that list which still has 5 guys picked outside of top 10 (40%). To be fair, some of those 38 top 3 picks that are not on that list were up there for a moment before disappearing... but vast majority have turned good to decent or just slipped to total irrelevance after doing next to nothing.
Lets look at 2015 just because these guys are in their absolute prime right now... yet some of them are out of jobs. Booker was #13, but these guys where valued better than him. Which of those has ever even been mentioned as a top player? No one. Potential top 10? KAT only. But we now know he isnt.
There is an average of 2 guys per draft who at some point during their career get elevated to the elitest tier of players. Some drafts there can be as many as 6 or 7, other drafts you struggle to find a single one.
And we just suck at telling who those guys are before they are drafted and sometimes even after seeing them play for a few years.
Its all smoke and mirrors. Picking 1st or 7th or 25th is not what eventually sets teams apart. Winning chips these days is much more about player development, coaching and team building (trades included). Only thing high pick gives you is a better chance for a better embryo to try and develop. But some of the even most hyped ones are just tainted, hopeless and destined to be busts regardless of where they land.
