The Big Fix

by Tom Ziller on Jun 4, 2008 1:07 PM PDT

(This is highly unscientific, which is basically what you've come to expect when the name 'Ziller' is involved.)

Look at the four conference finalists from 2008. How'd they get there?

The Lakers had a playoff roster (with Kobe, Odom and Bynum) and pulled a trade for a second franchise player, giving up (what amounts to) middling draft picks and a large expiring contract.
The Spurs have a top-5 player at three positions: power forward, two-guard, and point guard. All three were drafted by the team.
The Pistons feature a top-5 point guard originally lured by the mid-level, a top-10 two-guard acquired in a non-groundshaking trade; a great defender and able scorer at small forward, acquired in the draft; a midlevel, veteran power forward; and a repeat All-Star at center, acquired in a fairly serious deadline trade.
The Celtics parlayed one great draft decision (Al Jefferson) and one high draft pick (#5 in 2007), plus some bit youngsters and a very large expiring contract into Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett. They also had a homegrown All-Star small forward in tow.

Except for the Spurs, all these teams got to the peak via trades. Detroit's trades for Hamilton and Wallace aren't considered to be on the level of the acquisitions of Gasol or Garnett, but they were still important. San Antonio's the only "homegrown" elite team.

Let's look at 2007:

San Antonio: ditto.
The Jazz drafted Andrei Kirilenko (#24) and Deron Williams (#3), and signed Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur as free agents.
Detroit: ditto.
The Cavaliers drafted LeBron James (#1) and Zydrunas Ilgauskas (#20), and signed Drew Gooden as a free agent.

Again, the Spurs did it through the draft. Cleveland, also, got the central piece through the draft. Give half Utah's credit to free agency and half to the draft -- note that they did make a trade to get the #3 pick in 2005.

And finally, 2006:

Detroit: ditto.
The Heat traded two All-Star caliber players and expiring contracts for a Hall-of-Fame center just past his peak, and drafted an All-Star two-guard (#5) and signed an undrafted power forward (Haslem).
The Suns signed a 30-year-old point guard in free agency, drafted an All-NBA center (#9), and drafted an All-Star power forward (#9).
The Mavericks drafted an MVP-caliber power forward (#9) and an All-Star small forward (#30), and signed or traded for everyone else.

What's the lesson, if there is one? It's very hard to create a championship team relying on just one part of the game: only the Spurs have done it. And the draft is pretty damn important: only the Celtics and Pistons can say none of their top-3 players were drafted by the team ... and teach team's fourth best player was a hometown draftee.

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that pattern

... also fits the Kings when they were a championship level team.

Webber and Bibby were acquired in fairly one-sided trades.
Vlade, Doug Christie and Bobby Jackson were signed as free agents.
Peja was drafted with a relatively low pick because the Kings were ahead of the curve on scouting Euros and were willing to wait for him.

Sacramento also was able to out-draft their opponents and come up with talented young bench players like Hedo and Gerald Wallace, but of course by the time those guys had developed their games the Kings couldn’t afford to keep them.

It’s almost impossible to build a championship team solely via the draft because it takes several great players to compete at that level and after the first few picks the draft is generally a crapshoot. The Kings haven’t had a draft pick high enough to get one of those type of sure-thing talents in years… Hell, maybe never!

In fact, Petrie has been a miracle worker to find players of the caliber of Kevin Martin and Francisco Garcia after almost everybody else has had a chance to take them.

Nevertheless, the Kings are a long way from Lakers/Spurs/Celtics stratosphere.

"When the going gets Weird, the Weird turn professional."
(Hunter Thompson)

by Mucho Moss on Jun 4, 2008 1:56 PM PDT reply actions

Bibby for Jwill wasn't one sided

Doug Christie was acquired in a trade. Peja was drafted with the 14th pick, and Steve Nash was drafted 15th in the same draft. Jermaine O’Neal went 2 picks later. Zydrunas Ilgauskas went 20th. What’s my point? 1996 is either the greatest draft ever, or at worst a top 3 draft. Peja didn’t drop to 14th because Petrie saw scouting European’s differently. He dropped to 14th because some teams WON’T scout Euro’s, and other teams were concentrating on top end American talents that went ahead of Peja.

The reason Gerald Wallace dropped because most teams felt he didn’t have a position. That actually was one of the reasons the Kings won so many games because they didn’t pigeon hole most of their talent to a Point Guard Shooting Guard Small Forward Power Forward Center type roles. Hedo was just flat out lucky. I think they would have done just as well with Desmond Mason over the long haul myself. He was picked 17th in 2000.

I agree that the KIngs have no shot at winning rings in the next 5 years barring a miracle.

No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. It's simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get tangled, you tango on

by pookeyguru on Jun 8, 2008 11:57 AM PDT up reply actions

DC

I thought Doug was acquired via. trade for Corliss.

BOOK IT!

by kingme18 on Jun 4, 2008 2:28 PM PDT reply actions

hmm...

yeah, I think you’re right, kingme. Another feather in Petrie’s cap! Webber, Christie, Bibby, all three of those deals ended up being very advantageous for Sacramento:

Mitch Richmond was a hero in Sactown but was on the way down when Petrie dealt him for Webber. Obviously that’s the key trade in the history of the franchise since it relocated here.

Corliss had been a lottery draft pick but it was a great time to deal him, and getting Doug Christie cemented the D, made the Kings dangerous from 3 point land, and added some serious attitude to team chemistry.

J-Will for Bibby was like taking candy from a baby. With this deal the Kings catapulted from being a very good team to an NBA goliath.

It’s probably going to take several similar timely deals to bootstrap the Kings back into contention in the Western Conference.

This is why I was arguing the wisdom of any kind of deal that could add pieces of the puzzle. No one should be considered untouchable.

"When the going gets Weird, the Weird turn professional."
(Hunter Thompson)

by Mucho Moss on Jun 4, 2008 11:19 PM PDT up reply actions

Which goes along with saying

that we don’t have to fill our 1 and 4 slots from this draft. In fact that odds of that are almost zero. We should draft the best 1 or 4 available and see what kind of bench fodder we can pick up. If we could come out of the draft with a player that could start in 2010, we’d have to consider it a good draft.

"Being loquacious and being right aren't necessarily always the same."
GP, the man, the myth, the legend, puts the smackdown on Reggie

by SavageBeast on Jun 4, 2008 2:47 PM PDT reply actions

I'll be satisfied

if the player that we draft this year is part of the eight man rotation come 2010.

SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!

by section214 on Jun 4, 2008 2:51 PM PDT up reply actions

Question

Is Paul Pierce not one of the best 3 players on the Celtics now? I had him at number 2 (above Ray Allen). Did I miss something? If anything, this only reinforces the point TZ’s making about the draft . . . I wouldn’t classify it otherwise.

In LA, Bynum is the Lakers’ 3rd or 4th best player taking into consideration his injury situation (how good will he be after surgery?) and depending on what you think of Odom . . . so you could say that their top 3 players weren’t drafted (remember, Kobe was a draft-day trade from Charlotte, although since Williams counts in Utah he should too I suppose).

by smgmatt on Jun 4, 2008 3:26 PM PDT reply actions

Yep

You’re right. I do count Kobe as a draft acquisition, though; same with Dirk.

by Tom Ziller on Jun 4, 2008 3:33 PM PDT up reply actions

You know I actually made more or less this same post over at kingsfans about a week ago. Of course, I was directing more towards the people who seem to think that rebuilding is as simple as throwing away all our good players for picks/expirings/”young talent”, sucking for a couple of years, and then using our high draft picks to find the next face of the franchise.

Obviously, though, the history of the draft doesn’t really bear this out. There has really only been 2 or 3 franchise changing players taken at the top of the draft in the last decade (LeBron, Duncan, Howard). And teams like the grizzlies who seem to be perpetually in the top 5 of the lottery still suck to this day—their best pick being Pau Gasol.

So what I’m thinking is that this franchise isn’t in this sort of limbo that people think we are just because we aren’t a playoff team and don’t have a top 5 pick. One fact that I don’t think you mentioned is that a lot of the star players in the conference finals were picked at 10 or lower, like Paul Pierce, Andrew Bynum, Kobe Bryant, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobli.

So I think if we get another quality player in the middle of the first or late lottery like Petrie has been able to do so often and swing a decent trade then we can be right back in the middle of playoff picture. And despite all the talk about the strength of the western conference you have to remember that teams like Denver, Dallas, Golden State, Phoenix, and San Antonio all have significant players that are up there in age and are going to start declining soon.

by dmj on Jun 4, 2008 10:32 PM PDT reply actions

One problem with your idea about star players picked later

4 of the 5 you listed would not last nearly as long today as they did when they were picked. Kobe and Bynum were HS players. In the past HS players were often picked later than college players especially in Kobe’s time. Today, both would have had one year of college ball and as we’ve seen in the past few drafts, Freshmen dominate the high picks these days. Parker and Manu were both picked early in the European invasion. These days the Euro teams are scouted much more. I think those kind of steals are much harder to find now.

Section 214 is one lucky schmoe

by Kfan in Korea on Jun 5, 2008 4:19 AM PDT up reply actions

yes and no

I’m not sure that draft steals are harder to find, it’s just that they tend to be guards and wings instead of bigs, e.g. Kevin Martin, Rodney Stuckey, Gil Arenas, Monta Ellis, etc. It’s rare that a dominant big man slips too far in the draft. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Boozer, who was a second rounder, I believe. Even Bynum, whose far from a sure thing, did not slip past 10, and that was out of high school. Amare Stoudemire is often touted as a “steal” and he was picked ninth.

Beware certitude.

by Reges on Jun 5, 2008 5:01 AM PDT up reply actions

Good Point

I looked at that and could find only 21 “bigs” drafted outside of the lottery over the past six drafts that have or might make an impact (by impact I mean actually stick around and contribute in the NBA for at least 4 or 5 years). That’s 3.5 per year drafted from 15-60. Boozer(35), Luis Scola(56), David West(18), Kendrick Perkins(27), Anderson Varejao(30), Josh Smith(17), Jason Maxiell(26), Carl Landry(31), Paul Millsap(47), David Lee(30), Al Jefferson(15) and Sean Williams(17)are the most notable.

On talent and performance alone, Brandon Rush and Chris Douglas-Roberts would go well ahead of (say) DeAndre Jordan in the draft. But as they say in the NBA, you can’t teach size, so these teams continue to take fliers on the bigs, knowing that it’s easier to fill the wings later in the draft. By the way, notable wings drafted outside the lottery over that same period: John Salmons(26), Tayshaun Prince(23), Josh Howard(29), Jason Kapono(31), Luke Walton(32), Kyle Korver(51), Sasha Vujacic(27), Kevin Martin(26), J.R. Smith(18), Francisco Garcia(23), Monta Ellis(40), Danny Granger(17), Rashad McCants(15), Daniel Gibson(46), Rodney Carney(16), Nick Young(16) and Rodney Stuckey(15).

SACTOWN ROYALTY - Try our thick creamy shakes!

by section214 on Jun 5, 2008 8:47 AM PDT up reply actions

Got some issues with this

Gasol isn’t a franchise player. He isn’t actually close to being one. What he is is a perfect fit for the triangle with Odom, and Bynum whenever he comes back, over the long term. That’s what makes the Lakers a better team. Not because Gasol is a franchise player (which he isn’t).

I agree that their isn’t one way to build a team, but the way to build a team is the way that there is available. You can’t pre-determine the route (The Spurs didn’t determine that Parker and Ginobili would be the top 3 players on the team within 3 years; hell how could they? Especially given how uncertain Parker was during his first 2 seasons there.)

I think the idea that you build a team by doing it through a big free agent signing, or you fleece another team for a player, is just plum dumb. Bill Simmons talks about that, and while I personally think Simmons is funny and all that, he also says that just to talk shit because he can. After all how many fans just talk shit to talk shit because that’s part of being a fan? The problem with most trades is that teams don’t openly angle to be reamed by a trade; the Bibby for J-Will trade hold that in high regard. People around the Kings were saying they ripped the Grizz off, but that wasn’t true. The problem was Michael Heisley was a stupid idiot who didn’t watch J-Will play a full season before re-signing him. He signed him to that extension after 7 pre-season games. What changes teams is ownership decisions, and the level to which the basketball people have the control. Luck plays a part certainly, but the key ingredient to those 4 teams was that up top they were all pretty well run for the most part (I hate Pat Riley and dislike him so I won’t give him his due—Fuck him is all I’m gonna say).

No mistakes in the tango, darling. Not like life. It's simple. That's what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, and get tangled, you tango on

by pookeyguru on Jun 8, 2008 11:53 AM PDT reply actions