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The Draft is a mirage!

Grandpa Jazz

Grandpa Jazz

Active Member
It has been my observation that a great many posters here are great believers in team building through the draft. We have many who spend a lot of time and effort tracking collegiate players and speculating that these
particular players would be great choices or not. This link (if anyone bothers to read it) is meant to be a cold dose of reality to those folks. You just don't build a championship level team by relying on draft picks and teams never really have succeeded who have tried this avenue. Certainly a team will occasionally draft (usually a #1 pick) someone who ends up being a mainstay on a championship team, but the team itself is always built on canny acquisitions of all possible avenues. Free agency signings, trades, foreign players who still are not scouted to the extent American players are. By hook or by crook you find the players you need but history shows that to try and build that TEAM via the draft is fools Gold. Think L.A. Clippers here, the penultimate team who tried dynasty through the draft and failed miserably. Now they have a (1) superstar caliber player they drafted and a team that was "assembled" to compliment him. You need some luck and some great personnel decisions and then a ton more luck. This link should make you think about the draft in a different way.

A poster who i respect, posted yesterday that he did not want the Jazz to "squeeze" into the playoffs in the #8 spot as that would herald many years of continued frustration, while not making the playoffs would give us a chance to compete well in a year or two. His point completely alludes me. How could the experience in the first year or two years of their careers of being under playoff conditions (however short) be a negative in their development? How could being a lottery team (oh, it could happen all right, if you get a miracle) make this team into gold? It could also happen if they are 8th in the conference as adverse to 9th.


https://82games.com/nbadraft2.html
 
Obviously it's not ONLY through the draft. Having said that, small market teams are much more reliant on the draft as it's much more difficult to lure championship caliber FA's. The data is skewed for this reason. Of course when one looks at LA, Boston, etc. it's easy to see they didn't get it done in the draft.

Begin sarcasm: So let's stop looking at what we can do in the draft and go sign Dwight, Wade, and Rose ..
 
Grandpa Jazz said:
It has been my observation that a great many posters here are great believers in team building through the draft. We have many who spend a lot of time and effort tracking collegiate players and speculating that these
particular players would be great choices or not. This link (if anyone bothers to read it) is meant to be a cold dose of reality to those folks. You just don't build a championship level team by relying on draft picks and teams never really have succeeded who have tried this avenue. Certainly a team will occasionally draft (usually a #1 pick) someone who ends up being a mainstay on a championship team, but the team itself is always built on canny acquisitions of all possible avenues. Free agency signings, trades, foreign players who still are not scouted to the extent American players are. By hook or by crook you find the players you need but history shows that to try and build that TEAM via the draft is fools Gold. Think L.A. Clippers here, the penultimate team who tried dynasty through the draft and failed miserably. Now they have a (1) superstar caliber player they drafted and a team that was "assembled" to compliment him. You need some luck and some great personnel decisions and then a ton more luck. This link should make you think about the draft in a different way.

A poster who i respect, posted yesterday that he did not want the Jazz to "squeeze" into the playoffs in the #8 spot as that would herald many years of continued frustration, while not making the playoffs would give us a chance to compete well in a year or two. His point completely alludes me. How could the experience in the first year or two years of their careers of being under playoff conditions (however short) be a negative in their development? How could being a lottery team (oh, it could happen all right, if you get a miracle) make this team into gold? It could also happen if they are 8th in the conference as adverse to 9th.


https://82games.com/nbadraft2.html
Click to expand...

I think that your understanding of what is truly being discussed is a Mirage.
 
: So let's stop looking at what we can do in the draft and go sign Dwight, Wade, and Rose ..
Click to expand...

Since we all know that isn't going to happen then the only thought i can give you is this. It's all on KOC isn't it ( and Miller's money). If that leaves you shaking in the dark then you probably have good reason to be shaking. Although i would give KOC at least a B grade for what he has done here. This is what i like about the NBA. No script to this reality show! Anything can happen, and sometimes does.(Jeremy Lin)
 
Grandpa Jazz said:
Since we all know that isn't going to happen then the only thought i can give you is this. It's all on KOC isn't it ( and Miller's money). If that leaves you shaking in the dark then you probably have good reason to be shaking. Although i would give KOC at least a B grade for what he has done here. This is what i like about the NBA. No script to this reality show! Anything can happen, and sometimes does.(Jeremy Lin)
Click to expand...

I think we're getting close. Add another great piece from this daft (like an elite shooting SF) and we just might have the team assembled that will give KOC the ability to go get the PG we need in FA/trade. Meaning, that one would be willing to come here.
 
I expect will will draft one or two more lottery players and figure out who among of picks are the core and trade the rest to complete the team.
 
In Utah one of the best chances we have of landing and keeping quality players is through the draft. It worked with Stockton and Malone, also with Deron Williams. For whatever reason guys like Dwight Howard, Lebron, etc don't dream of playing here.
 
San Antonio Spurs. Duncan, Ginoblli and Parker were all drafted by the Spurs.
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True!! There is usually as exception to every rule. However it should be noted that of that three, two were International players who were not on most peoples radars. Great work by the Spurs.

I expect will will draft one or two more lottery players and figure out who among of picks are the core and trade the rest to complete the team.
Click to expand...

Seems a reasonable way to proceed, from where we are. But keep in mind that a team needs 8-10 players that can contribute well, not just 3-5 guys.
 
So, gramps, can we agree that the draft is, in fact, important to the Jazz' hopes of ever becoming a contender .. and that the 'final' piece will come via FA/trade?

I'm just suggesting we could never get there without the draft process ..
 
PKM said:
So, gramps, can we agree that the draft is, in fact, important to the Jazz' hopes of ever becoming a contender .. and that the 'final' piece will come via FA/trade?

I'm just suggesting we could never get there without the draft process ..
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Agreed. The Jazz need good drafts to attract that missing FA piece(s)
 
can we agree that the draft is, in fact, important to the Jazz' hopes of ever becoming a contender .. and that the 'final' piece will come via FA/trade?
Click to expand...

Yes, we agree completely on this. However i would add another s to the word Piece. The FA's we have picked up i don't see as being part of the solution.
Didn't mean to imply the draft was useless. To the poster that brought up Malone, Stockton and Williams. We didn't keep Williams (nor could we have) Malone was not a top ten pick and Stock was a second round long shot. We didn't
have to be in the lottery to get those two. We must replicate that kind of happenstance again. Other than those three names that about sums up draft success for somewhere around 20-25 years ( maybe we should add Thurl though)
 
Grandpa Jazz said:
Yes, we agree completely on this. However i would add another s to the word Piece. The FA's we have picked up i don't see as being part of the solution.
Didn't mean to imply the draft was useless. To the poster that brought up Malone, Stockton and Williams. We didn't keep Williams (nor could we have) Malone was not a top ten pick and Stock was a second round long shot. We didn't
have to be in the lottery to get those two. We must replicate that kind of happenstance again. Other than those three names that about sums up draft success for somewhere around 20-25 years ( maybe we should add Thurl though)
Click to expand...

The reason we've had limited success in the draft is our mediocre record over that period. Not many teams, picking where we have been picking, have had more success than Malone and Stockton. When I say picking up that missing piece, I'm referring to getting us to that place where we have all the pieces but an elite PG (for example) and pulling the trigger.

The hardest way for a small market team to win a championship is the way we've been doing it .. have a good enough record that we rarely, if ever, get a low lottery pick, yet not winning enough to lure the players needed to contend.
 
Grandpa Jazz said:
Yes, we agree completely on this. However i would add another s to the word Piece. The FA's we have picked up i don't see as being part of the solution.
Didn't mean to imply the draft was useless. To the poster that brought up Malone, Stockton and Williams. We didn't keep Williams (nor could we have) Malone was not a top ten pick and Stock was a second round long shot. We didn't
have to be in the lottery to get those two. We must replicate that kind of happenstance again. Other than those three names that about sums up draft success for somewhere around 20-25 years ( maybe we should add Thurl though)
Click to expand...

We did keep Deron for almost 6 seasons. Considering the situation we did well. Malone and Stockton were drafted and that is the criteria here. Also Stockton was taken 16th overall, not second round.
 
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