Draft Dreams Part 3: Point Taken

In Draft Dreams Part 2, I measured the success of recent top 5 NBA draft picks by how far their teams advanced in the playoffs after acquiring them.  To recap, I looked at the top 5 picks chosen in the 10 NBA drafts between 2000 and 2009 and examined how those players’ teams fared.[1]  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 series in order to get credit for their team’s progress.[2] 

The most recent Draft Dreams post provided a high-level overview of the progress of the 49 players in this study.  This time around, I’ll do break down these draft picks’ playoff progress by position.  For the sake of comparison, players were divided into 4 groups: big men (power forwards and centers listed at 6-10 or taller), swingmen (small forwards and shooting guards), point guards, and tweeners (power forwards and centers listed at 6-9 or shorter; Kenyon Martin is one example).  The following table summarizes playoff progress by position:

Point guards were the most likely to have won at least one playoff series (77.8%); in fact they were 2 times more likely than bigs to have won at least one playoff series.  The only 2 point guards who haven’t won a playoff series are Jason Williams, whose career was ended after one year by a motorcycle accident, and Raymond Felton, who has played most of his career for the Bobcats.[3]  Point guards were also the most likely to have reached the conference finals (44.4%).  There’s a huge drop off after that for point guards; only 1 in 9 has reached the NBA Finals (Devin Harris, 2006), and none of them has won an NBA championship.

I think that at least part of the reason why the point guards in this study haven’t won a championship is age.  The 4 best PGs in the study are Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook.  All four were drafted in the second half of the study period (2005-2009), so they haven’t had as much time to win a title as the players taken in the first half of the study.  In fact, 2 of the 3 NBA champions in the study were drafted in 2001 (Tyson Chandler, Pau Gasol), and did not win a championship until 8-10 years after being drafted.

I also think that there may be some sort of plateau effect, where a really good point guard immediately makes the really bad team that drafted him better - so good in fact, that the team no longer drafts in the lottery and thus loses one of the primary avenues to getting solid complimentary talent.  If those players play for a tight-fisted owner and/or play in a small market, those players’ teams will not be able to attract quality free agents either and thus will tend to plateau.  I think this happened to Chris Paul in New Orleans (owner) and Deron Williams in Utah (market), which caused them to leave their original teams in search of better competitive opportunities.  Russell Westbrook plays in a small market, but was able to avoid this fate because he wasn’t a very good player in his first year, allowing the Thunder to be bad enough to pick James Harden (#3 in 2009), a guy that really allowed that franchise to take the next step.  Players at other positions often take longer to affect wins and losses, so their teams will generally still have chances to draft in the lottery during subsequent years.

It will be very interesting to see what the Hornets end up doing with their draft picks.  History suggests that point guards make the most immediate impact, but there isn’t a Chris Paul, Deron Williams or Derrick Rose in this draft.  Also, the three most dominant teams in the past 20 years (Jordan-era Bulls, Lakers & Spurs) didn’t have an all-star caliber traditional pass-first point guard, so maybe we should focus on other positions and upgrade at PG through free agency. 

I’m looking forward to seeing how this all plays out and I’m glad we have a great GM at the helm for this pivotal draft.

Thanks for reading, future posts will cover bigs and other positions.

Sources: Basketball-reference.com, Wikipedia (info retrieved 4/15/2012-5/4/2012)

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[1] Ricky 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).

[2] For example, Mike Miller played in the 2011 NBA Finals with the Heat, but only averaged 11.9 minutes per game, so he does not receive credit for that playoff run.  Kwame Brown played for the Wizards during the 2004-2005 season during which the Wizards did go to the playoffs, but he only appeared in 42 regular season games and only played in 3 of the team’s 10 playoff games, so he doesn’t get credit for making the playoffs.

[3] Tyreke Evans has been moved over to shooting guard/small forward this season (2011-2012), so while recognizing that there are good arguments for considering him a 1, I chose to categorize him as a swingman.

Draft Dreams Part 2: Playoffs?!?!

In the last Draft Dreams, I measured the success of recent top 5 NBA draft picks by the ultimate yardstick – winning a championship.  This time around, I’ll look at the whole gamut of playoff outcomes.

To recap, I looked at the top 5 picks chosen in the 10 NBA drafts between 2000 and 2009 and examined how those players’ teams fared.[1]  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 series in order to get credit for their team’s progress.[2]

1 in 4 of the players studied (26.5%) were total busts in terms of their team impact.  They never were a significant contributor on a playoff team; I call these guys zero-impact players.  This includes obvious draft busts such as Darko Milicic and Adam Morrison, in addition to some guys you don't immediately think of, like Marcus Fizer, Mike Dunleavy Jr. and Jay Williams (sorry Jay, bad luck and/or stupidity don't get you off this list).  This category also includes Kevin Love, who is obviously a great player, but hasn’t had much help thus far.

3 out of 4 (73.5%) of these top 5 picks made the playoffs at least once.  Just over half (51%) won at least 1 playoff series.  1 in 3 (32.7%) made it to the conference finals.  As reported in Draft Dreams Part 1, about 1 in 5 (18.4%) players reached the NBA Finals, and roughly 1 in 16 (3 of the 49 players) won an NBA championship.

This short article is only meant to provide a broad overview of the playoff progress of the 49 players in the study, the next couple of posts in this series will break down playoff impact by position.

Sources: Basketball-reference.com, Wikipedia (info retrieved 4/15/2012-4/21/2012)

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[1] Ricky 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).

[2] For example, Mike Miller played in the 2011 NBA Finals with the Heat, but only averaged 11.9 minutes per game, so he does not receive credit for that playoff run.  Kwame Brown played for the Wizards during the 2004-2005 season during which the Wizards did go to the playoffs, but he only appeared in 42 regular season games and only played in 3 of the team’s 10 playoff games, so he doesn’t get credit for making the playoffs.

Draft Dreams Part 1: Winning it All

The NBA draft lottery is 5 weeks away and Hornets fans are eagerly awaiting its outcome.  With our new owner and the cap space we’ll have this summer, how well we utilize these draft picks will have a huge impact on how competitive the team is for the next few years.  Lately, I’ve had visions of Anthony Davis, Thomas Robinson and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist dancing through my head, but I thought it was time to step back and assess how much of an impact we can realistically expect any one draft pick to have on a franchise.

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 1^st 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.

Unleashing the Power of Averageness

As I write this, the Hornets have just dropped to 3-11 and with no Eric Gordon, they seem to have no hope in sight. This is a dim time to be a Hornets fan, but this lost season offers a chance to perform a great basketball experiment.

The Hornets play at the second slowest pace in the league; that means that they hang onto the ball for a while before they get a shot off and that they are generally playing half-court basketball. The problem is that this doesn’t make any sense with their current roster; they don’t have any players in the half court who can consistently score. Bleeding the clock down on every possession makes sense when you have Chris Paul and David West, two guys who can combine to consistently get quality shots. It makes a lot less sense when you have Jarrett Jack and Carl Landry in those roles. The statistics back this up; they have one of the least efficient offenses in the league. If your offense isn’t efficient, you need to come up with a way to score more easy baskets. One way to do that is to get more baskets in transition. Get stops, get the ball up the court quickly, and get uncontested shot attempts. Most teams don’t attempt to play at too fast of a pace because they don’t want to tire out their starters. That’s because on most teams, there’s a big talent differential between the starters and their bench players, so the longer your bench has to play, the more of a disadvantage you are put at. Thing is, this assumption doesn’t hold when it comes to the Hornets.

After Okafor and Ariza (if Eric Gordon isn’t playing), they don’t really have anyone else who could start for a playoff team. Don’t get me wrong - they do have NBA talent, just not starting NBA talent. The only player on the roster who looks totally out of his depth is Squeaky Johnson, and that’s primarily because of his height. Players 3 through 11 on their roster are basically all of equal ability at their positions. Think about it, is there really a huge difference between Greivis Vasquez and Jarrett Jack? Is there that much of a difference in quality between a frontline of Okafor and Kaman vs a frontline of Smith and Ayon, or Landry and Smith? There isn’t really a huge difference between Aminu and Summers. When Xavier Henry gets healthy, he’ll give us another young wing player with a solid skill set.

The small amount of variance in skill on the Hornets roster means that to a large extent, it doesn’t matter who is on the floor at any given time. Because the lineups don’t matter, all of the assumptions about a playing at a fast tempo being unsustainable don’t apply to the Hornets. Realizing this fact, I propose that the Hornets play 11-12 players every game and distribute their minutes more or less evenly. Their rotations should be shorter, with wholesale substitutions every 4-5 minutes. This consistent influx of fresh players coming into the game would allow them to ramp up their defensive intensity, create more turnovers and long rebounds and lead to far more points in transition. The Hornets are 11th in the league in (effective) defensive field goal percentage and are a top 4 defensive rebounding team, so they have the personnel and hustle to consistently limit teams to one shot. Between Aminu, Summers, Jack, Henry and Vasquez, they should have enough players to push the ball up the court quickly after turnovers and missed shots and get easy baskets and fouls. The gain in offensive efficiency and free throws would more than make up for the minor losses in defensive efficiency and rebounding that might occur.

We don’t have enough talent to win a bunch of games through skill, but we have enough equally skilled players to win games through attrition. All we need to do is unleash the power of averageness.


Source: hoopdata.com


Note: Even if this idea didn’t dramatically increase the Hornets’ winning percentage, it would make the games way more entertaining. 14 games in, the Hornets have yet to break the 100 point barrier this season. If we’re gonna go out, we may as well go out with guns blazing.

Marco Polo

The Hornets haven’t shot the ball well in general this year (they’re 25th in the league in true shooting percentage), but Marco Bellinelli has shot the ball exceptionally poorly.  His 3 of 10 performance against OKC last night prompted me to do some digging so I could quantify exactly how bad his shooting has been this year.


Of the 38 NBA shooting guards who play 20 or more minutes a night, Bellinelli is second to last in true shooting percentage, at 45.9%.  He’s capable of playing a lot better than this; last year he ranked 12 out of 49 at 56.1%.  If Bellinelli starts playing the way he did last year, the Hornets would start turning these L’s into W’s.  His performance has been a great predictor of the team’s success this season.  Bellinelli has shot 53% in the Hornets’ 3 wins and 29% in the team’s 7 losses, the worst differential of any Hornets starter.


The good news is that he’s continued to hustle in spite of his poor shooting; Bellinelli is one of the league’s top rebounders among shooting guards.  For that reason and because he’s so central to the team’s success, we should continue to support him and try to cheer him out of this poor shooting streak, even as we eagerly await Eric Gordon’s return.

Sources: hoopdata.com and espn.com, all stats are current as of 1/11/2012.

Midseason Acquisition

Based on the holes that I've seen in the New Orleans Hornets' play the past week, the team is badly in need of a midseason acquisition. This necessary piece of the puzzle is not a player however, but an owner. Until the Hornets get an owner, they will lack the ability to build a true contender. The rejected Chris Paul-Lakers-Rockets trade is only the most egregious example of the conflict of interest inherent in a team being owned by the league it competes in. As long as any deal makes the Hornets (or any other team involved in a trade) immediately better than a rival team, there will always be the danger of the deal being squashed, not for basketball reasons, but because of pure self-interest on the part of the owners.

Think about it: Why would any self-interested person who is full owner of a team ever allow a team that they are partial owner of (and are paying the bills for) to become a genuine title contender? Even if a proposed deal didn't make the Hornets better, but significantly strengthened another team involved in the trade, rival owners would have a tremendous incentive to kill the deal.  For example, Mark Cuban was one of the most vocal owners in opposing the Paul-Lakers trade; his Mavs play in the same division as the Hornets and Rockets and are one of the Lakers’ main competitors.  In this sense, the NBA was 100% correct in saying that the deal was nixed because of “basketball reasons”.

The Chris Paul trade fiasco will also likely make other teams hesitant to negotiate trades with the Hornets for fear that the deal will be vetoed by other owners; in the case of such a veto, the almost-traded players involved in the deal could be disgruntled and unsettle their almost ex-teams. Lamar Odom's reaction to the Paul-Lakers trade is a great example of this; Odom was so upset by the failed trade bid that he demanded a trade and the Lakers ended up giving away one of their most valuable assets for virtually nothing.

Additionally, because every NBA owner needs to sign off on a deal involving the Hornets, no trade proposal made involving the Hornets will ever really be secret. If no deal can be kept under the radar, the discretion that makes a really savvy trade possible is eliminated. The Hornets successfully making a great trade would be like trying to win a poker game where everyone at the table knows what cards you're holding.

Moving beyond the philosophical, the other reason the Hornets need an owner is that they won't have the financial freedom to pursue any roster moves that contribute significantly to their future payroll until they have an owner. For all of the backward-rationalizing and subterfuge that surrounded the Paul-Lakers veto, the deal with the Clippers did minimize the Hornets' future payroll (relative to the Laker deal) and possibly make the team more attractive to potential buyers. The Hornets clearly need to make some roster moves, but the need to keep the owner-less team's future financial obligations to a minimum will severely limit their ability to do so.

Because of the reasons above, the most necessary midseason move is not for this team to acquire a big-time player, but for a big-time financial player to acquire the team.