Woj: The NBA's Board of Governors passed draft lottery reform today

[stitches]

Let's look at some numbers.

The average spot where this year's All Stars were taken is 16. Sixteen. That's outside the lottery. 9 out of 24 were taken lower than 14th seed(again, last one of the lottery), and 5 were taken in the second around. Isaiah Thomas was the last player drafted, period, at 60. 4 players were picked at number 1, and only one each at 2 and 3.

Take a look at top 5 picks between 2006 and 2013, so players currently in their prime or just entering their prime. I've got a little table of draft years, draft positions and those players' All-Star appearances as of 2017.

So that's 56 combined AS appearances. 1.4 per player. I think we can all agree that's a paltry return. I mean, Jamal Magloire had that many All-Star appearances. The best return seems to be the number 1 spot with 20. The rest are between 8 and 13.

Even the number one spot is a crap shoot as 3 out of 8 are goose eggs. Hell, two of those, Bennett and Oden are in serious contention for biggest busts ever. That's scary. One in four chance that even if you get the number one pick, he's going to be a bust so massive, your fans will blush when their names are brought up.

It's pretty terrifying that between 2009 and 2013, only two players drafted 2-5 have made an All-Star game, Harden and Boogie. Again, we're talking players who are 27-30 right now. Fairly unlikely any of them ever will, except maybe Bradley Beal. There is also no year in the sample that more than 2 players drafted in top 5 became All-Stars.

And just as an illustration, here's the 27 players from that sample that haven't played in an All-Star game, starting from 2006.

Greg Oden
Mike Conley
Jeff Green
Michael Beasley
OJ Mayo
Hasheem Thabeet
Tyreke Evans
Ricky Rubio
Evan Turner
Derrick Favors
Wesley Johnson
Derrick Williams
Enes Kanter
Tristan Thompson
Jonas Valančiunas
Micheal Kidd-Gilchrist
Bradley Beal
Dion Waiters
Thomas Robinson
Anthony Bennett
Victor Oladipo
Otto Porter
Cody Zeller
Alex Len

Just look at that list. Conley, Beal and Rubio are very good players and perhaps close to All-Star level. Favors, Turner, Valančiunas are decent contributors on decent teams. Oladipo will probably put up numbers on a very bad team. A few players from the 2013 draft will probably be servicable. The rest of the list is ranging from utter garbage to managing to still get an NBA contract. Oden, Thabeet, Mayo, and Bennett are all out of the league already. I have no idea how Beasley isn't among them. Thomas Williams is 26 and struggling to get 10 minutes a game on a team trying to lose. Several other players, like Kanter, Waiters or Evans can get minutes, but have such glaring holes in their games that no team meaning business will ever give them serious minutes.

I'm really not sure a top 5 pick is the boon you make it sound to be.

Here's most of what is available as research about draft picks(credit to Inigo Montoya on realgm for getting the links):

NBA Draft Picks: Expected Performance
http://www.82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm

Assessing the Relative Value of Draft Position in the NBA Draft
http://www.82games.com/barzilai1.htm

NBA Draft trade value chart
https://fansided.com/2016/06/16/nba-draft-trade-value-chart/

The key to the NBA Draft is having picks in the top 10
http://www.businessinsider.com/nba-draft-pick-values-2017-6

The value of a draft pick and draft pedigree in the Finals
http://wagesofwins.com/2013/05/21/f...-draft-pick-and-draft-pedigree-in-the-finals/

Nobody is saying anything is guaranteed with high end picks, but it definitely is the best way to get high end talent, especially for small market teams that don't get high end FAs, which is the other main way to acquire talent.

Here's what we are facing as choices in order to get high end talent:

Draft:
-tank mode 1 year - lets say we get a top 5 pick. The rough odds of drafting an all-NBA player there is about 35%
-no tank mode - lets say we draft somewhere between 12 and 18 - what are the odds for an All-NBA player there? I really don't have the numbers but they shouldn't be more than 3-4%. If you want me to run through a 10 year span I will, but I'm almost certain it cannot be higher than this.

Trade:
-tank mode - lets say the chance is zero since we are not going to trade for a star while we are bad(we might increase the chances to draft a star since tanking teams usually can afford to add lottery balls through taking on bad contracts and acquiring pick swaps/unprotected picks, etc)
-no tank mode - how many All-NBA players have we traded for in the last 20 years? ZERO!

FA:
-tank mode - no high end FA is coming to a tanking team - zero
-no tank mode - how many All NBA players have we gotten in FA in the last 20 years? Boozer. 1! In 20 years... and this was BOOZER! Can you even count him as a game-changing type of star?

Tell me again - which way is more likely to net you a star to pair with Gobert?

 

[JimLes]

Tell me again - which way is more likely to net you a star to pair with Gobert?

You're making an awful lot of assumptions. You're assuming there's no way to develop stars. You're assuming that players can't become stars after being traded for. You're assuming that Gobert enjoys losing. You're willing to risk getting the team stuck in a spiral of losing for what? A 35% chance?

 

[stitches]

You're making an awful lot of assumptions. You're assuming there's no way to develop stars. You're assuming that players can't become stars after being traded for. You're assuming that Gobert enjoys losing. You're willing to risk getting the team stuck in a spiral of losing for what? A 35% chance?

I'm not making assumptions - I gave you the numbers where numbers are available. We haven't attracted a single high end FA in the last 20 years and we haven't traded for a single high end star in the last 20 years(unless you consider Boozer one... he's an example of one that became all-star for us, but wasn't one when we got him). This is the reality. The 35% chance is for an all-NBA type of player, there is additional chance you get an all-star and additional chance you get a borderline all-stars which again are very useful.

There is a way to develop stars, sure... just the more talented ones are more likely to become stars as it turn out... like... MUCH MORE likely. If you trust your coaching staff to develop players drafted in the 20s into stars you need to be crazy to not be extremely excited about what they can do with the best of the best of talent in the draft.

 

[Tom Pitt]

i think the wagon wheel is the best option but what ever

You can't really believe this right? Can you imagine the Warriors getting the number 1 pick and adding a Anthony Davis or LeBron James to an already invincible roster?


Sent from my iPhone using JazzFanz mobile app

 

[Tom Pitt]

BTW for the record - this is good for the Jazz because of our current anti-tanking strategy, but it will make it much harder to get back to contention once we get really bad. This change will make it so bad teams stay bad for longer.

But the Jazz are never really really bad. Maybe really bad 1 time since 1979, right? It might benefit us.


Sent from my iPhone using JazzFanz mobile app

 

[Gameface]

This is a small tweak to the current system...

This doesn't really take away the incentive to tank, it just cools down the incentive to have the very worst record. But it's still best to have the very worst record.

It gives a slightly better chance to the rest of the bottom dwellers to get the #1 (or landing the 2nd, 3rd or 4th)pick and makes it possible that the worst team slips all the way to #5 instead of #4.

This is a good minor change not a revolution. In reality it changes little. Hopefully, if it does anything at all, it demotivates FOs from actively trying to lose games and just lets them form a poor roster that then actually plays games to win during reconstruction seasons.

 

[Jack Strop]

You're making an awful lot of assumptions. You're assuming there's no way to develop stars. You're assuming that players can't become stars after being traded for. You're assuming that Gobert enjoys losing. You're willing to risk getting the team stuck in a spiral of losing for what? A 35% chance?

Great point.That was one of the reasons we lost Hayward. The ONLY way Utah drops to 15 wins and "competes" for one of the bottom 3 spots is by trading just about everyone except Gobert. That means Ingles, Hood, Rubio, not re-signing Favors, etc. Maybe you keep Mitchell. And instead of finding decent bench talent, Lindsey brings in rookies and GLeaguers. That would have to happen next season. Meanwhile, Gobert who's a fierce competitor is playing out a couple of years of his contract and it takes another 2 seasons before that top-5 pick would be drafted and have a real impact. Gobert is GONE as an UFA; I guarantee it. The only solution would be to trade him for future talent and do a complete rebuild.

But why does Utah need to tank?
1. Gobert is a stud.
2. We may have a 2nd star in Mitchell.
3. Rubio is still young. And what he said about more coaching since the trade than he had in all his time in Minnesota is interesting. No doubt he develops even more under Quin.
4. Favors, if healthy, is a fringe all-star.
5. If Rubio and Mitchell are the future at the 1/2, both Hood and Exum are potential trade chips. Those two together, plus our draft pick, might be enough to bring in an all-star talent from a rebuilding team.