How a top 3 pick influences a team

interesting post

Great post. Can you calcuate how many #1, 2 and 3’s were traded by their drafted teams?

 Ha, over 9 rpg goes to show you what type of player is usually drafted first. Nice correlation to find, as well as the drop off between the first and second pick.

I forget if it was draft night or not but 2 and 3 were both traded picks in the 2001 draft (Chandler and Pau).  In 2004 the #2 pick (Okafor) was traded a few days before the draft.  The Jazz traded for the 3rd pick to take Deron Williams.  Lol too bad the Hawks missed the memo on him.

 " #2 Pick – 4.3 years with original team – stats – 14.2 ppg 6.3 rpg 3.55 apg "

Why did think about Evan Turner when I read that…

More people should be seeing this thread.  This should be why you come to this site.  Great post Joe Wolf. 

These numbers are a huge part of the reason I’m arguing for no more draft preference for sucking, rather non-playoff teams having a legit shot at the #1 pick.   

Watch, of the playoff teams:

Lakers – Best pick on the team is Pau, but he was acquired by trade.  Bynum was like 10 and Kobe 13. 

Nuggets – No top picks.

Indiana – No Top Picks.

Philly – Brand, obviously from 2 other franchises, a far cry from a franchise player now.  Besides that, really only Turner who’s far from the centerpiece of that team.

Memphis – No top 3 picks being built around here.  Guys taken later who were developed well, all around.  Mayo, I believe, is the highest pick and he’s the 6th man.

Dallas – Dirk went #5… anyone else a top pick?  Only the ancient Kidd and Carter, both of whom were elsewhere for long periods before Dallas.

Boston – No top picks, with KG and Ray both second teams and past prime by the time they were Celtics.

San Antonio – Duncan, sure, 15 years ago, but since, they’ve got a ton of talent and 2-stars outside the lottery.

Utah – Favors and Kanter are top picks, but also bench players.  The playoffs are on the back of the lower picks.

Atlanta – No one went particularly high on this team but Marvin, which is a joke, right?  Horford, of course, is hurt.

That’s 10 of 14 teams either built with a top pick ages ago, built through later picks, or built through trades and smart signings (the latter 2 are super relevant for Dallas and SA).  The other 4 teams?

Chicago and OKC are built through prime draft position.

Miami got lucky with Wade, sure, but the rest of the team is free agent signings.  The Clippers have Blake, but, likewise, are remotely competitors due to a trade, not the draft.

Get it?  Franchises built correctly make the playoffs and do well.  High draft picks aren’t a neccessity.  More great talents in better franchises means more great talents will pan out.

Very interesting numbers, even more intriguing is the #3 performing better than #2.

I’m with phila9012, I’d like to see maybe an entire first round. For all we know could be some pretty big shockers in production.

I know that would take a lot of time & effort and if you don’t want to do it I more than understand, but if you did I’d be very interested!!!

This is one of the best statistical posts I’ve ever seen.

Not really dated yet, but these are the averages of draft picks from 1989-2008:

http://82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm

Only statistical averages as opposed to longevity to ones team, but I think it just shows how value tends to work in the draft. Top 3-5 tend to be major picks to have. Once you get past 10, the likelihood of getting a big time player slips a great deal.

Mikey- since there are 14 lottery teams, I think making it fully random with 4-teams just being unlucky is just fine, especially given how often teams like the Spurs or Pacers turn late picks into gold.

People who seem to have issue give these reasons:

• "It is rigged!": Who knows? It may be. Still think that the Knicks getting Patrick Ewing won them a bunch of championships. Right? To those who can "predict the lottery", want to say you are usually more often wrong as opposed to right.
• "The worst team has better odds of getting the 4th pick than the 1st pick!": That is true. The Bobcats this year have a 35.7% chance at the 4th pick and 25% chance at the 1st pick. But, that also means they have a 64.3% chance of a top 3 pick. Looking at top 3 picks, that is not the worst thing in the world and should help them quite a bit.
• "The lottery leads to tanking!": Know what else leads to tanking? Not having a lottery! Think that teams would not plan there seasons around what draft pick they could get if there was no lottery? Think that an arms race of suckage would not be brought to the forefront if teams could automatically obtain a top 5 pick based on how bad they were? Have to say, not a lot of logic there.

Getting the first pick in basketball, a major sport where the player picked makes up 20% of those playing on the court at one time (as opposed to baseball, football and even hockey that has a goalie), seems to be a much bigger deal in possible team success. Thus, I like that they have a system where a team can not suck its way into a decision of whoever they want. They have the best odds of doing so and at worst get a 4 pick, which is not the end of the world.

The lottery is not a problem in my mind. If teams want to suck to get better odds at the first pick, that usually does not work out. I have seen countless tanking teams get screwed by this system and I love it! It comes down to teams at the very least having a chance to improve rather than constantly being in purgatory. Odds are if you consistently have near the best lottery odds and are "screwed" into getting a top 5 pick instead of 1-3, you are doing it wrong. Have yet to see a good alternative to the lottery and think that people should stop whining about it.

 I think the lottery might actually make tanking worse because teams like Portland and Golden St., not a big diff. if you are 9th or 11th in the draft, but being 9th in ping pong balls raising your chance at Anthony Davis seems like a better reason to tank.

In his last few years you were seeing the trend of his teams seeming to win more games without him than with him. Plus, the addition of Drazen Petrovic was indeed, huge for that team being better. Look at Coleman’s shooting percentages drop once the Nets no longer had Drazen. Seems like every year the Nets did better other than the 45 win season, there was some major addition besides Coleman. Reggie Theus in his rookie season, than Kenny Anderson (#2 in the 1991 Draft) and Drazen in his third season.

Derrick Coleman’s best season (as far as leading a team) appears to be his 4th year in the league. Even so, it is kind of funny that they went 4-1 in the games he missed. This seemed to be a trend of Derrick’s career. He was an amazing talent, but he never seemed to make teams better. It was often marveled at how most teams with Coleman were usually better when he was down with an injury.

One stat I would love to see on a basketball site is a players win-loss record. Of course this would not be a stat you could put tons of stock into, some players are in good situations and some are in bad ones. Nonetheless, I think that it would give some perspective to a players statistical output in some cases. I know win shares attempt to put a value on how much you have meant to your team winning, but I am very interested to see win-loss records for games that players have played in. 

As far as your numbers go, they indeed are very interesting. But, ever since players started having guaranteed rookie contracts, that number have to be pretty skewed. Another thing that will skew it further is the age limit, though that is after the data you posted. These lead to stronger first year numbers at the very least. Now, I am thinking the average time a top 3 pick stays with their original team is a lot higher than it used to be. Free agency is much more prevalent, sure, but most number 1-3 picks that live up to the hype are locked in for 7 years before they can make that decision. I do not know if these numbers provide conclusive team impact by pick as much as show what one might expect in production, I guess that is my point. Need more than just statistics to show impact in terms of team success as opposed to individual success.