I
looked at the top 5 picks chosen in the 10 NBA drafts between 2000 and 2009 and
examined how those players’ teams fared.
Team performance was measured by how far a given player’s team went in
their most successful playoff run with that player; A player had to average at least 15 minutes
per game during that season or playoff run in order to get credit for their
team’s progress.1
The
first thing that becomes evident when looking at the data is that it is very difficult
to win an NBA championship. Of the 49
players in this analysis, only 3 of them (6.1%) have ever won an NBA title: Pau
Gasol, Tyson Chandler and Dwyane Wade.
Of these 3 players, only Wade won a title with his original team.
It’s also evident that even talented players
need a lot of help to win a title. Wade
won a title with the Miami Heat in his third year in the league (2005-2006
season), but he played alongside future 1st ballot hall of famer
Shaq and his head coach was Pat Riley, who had already won 4 titles and appeared
in the NBA finals 8 times before that 2005-2006 championship season. Pau Gasol won titles in 2009 and 2010, but he
did so with Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest players in NBA history, and his
head coach was Phil Jackson, who is arguably the greatest NBA coach of all
time. Tyson Chandler won a title in 2011
with the Mavericks, but that championship wouldn’t have been possible without
Dirk Nowitzki (another future hall of famer) having one of the greatest playoff
runs in NBA history, future hall of famer Jason Kidd, Jason Terry, terrific
coaching from Rick Carlisle, and an epic collective performance from his teammates
in the finals.
6
of the 49 players (12.2%) have played in the NBA Finals, but lost: Kenyon
Martin (2002, 2003), Drew Gooden (2007), LeBron James (2007), Chris Bosh (2011),
Dwight Howard (2009), and Devin Harris (2006).
Of those six players, 4 of them reached the finals with their original
teams (Martin, James, Howard and Harris).
Again, most of these guys got serious help in getting to the finals. Martin had Jason Kidd, Drew Gooden had
LeBron, Bosh had James/Wade, Dwight had Nelson/Hedo/Lewis and Harris had
Dirk/Terry/Josh Howard/Stackhouse. The
only guy who more or less carried his team to the finals was LeBron in 2007,
and even he had Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who was an all-star in 2003 and 2005.
Altogether,
9 of the 49 players (18.4%) have played in an NBA final, 5 of them (10.2%)
doing so with their original teams.
In
summary, Hornets fans should be excited about the upcoming draft, but we need
to temper our expectations. Even if we draft
a perennial all-star, that player still needs to play alongside at least one
hall of fame caliber player to win a title and alongside 2 all-stars to reach
an NBA final. Coaching also plays a huge
role in determining whether or not a team wins an NBA championship. Of the 3 players in our analysis who won
titles, 2 of them were coached by Pat Riley and Phil Jackson, 2 Hall of Fame
coaches with a combined 16 NBA championships and 22 Finals appearances. This is quite a tall order for our ownership,
management, coaching staff and players, but I look forward to watching Benson
and company figure it all out over the next decade. Stay tuned.
Sources:
basketball-reference.com, Wikipedia (info retrieved 4/15/2012-4/21/2012)
1Ricky
Rubio was a top 5 pick in the 2009 draft, but he was omitted from the analysis
because he played overseas for 2 years after being drafted, so he is
effectively a rookie this season (2011-2012).
Notes:
Wages of Wins did a similar analysis of high draft picks, but looked at top 3
picks and did so over a much longer period of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment